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This could be a full linked open date URI or an internal identifier"}],"FileFormat":[{"label":"FileFormat","value":"application\/pdf","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/elements\/1.1\/format","classmap":"edm:WebResource","property":"dc:format"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/elements\/1.1\/format","explain":"A Dublin Core Elements Property; The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource.; Examples of dimensions include size and duration. Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the list of Internet Media Types [MIME]."}],"FullText":[{"label":"FullText","value":" 9- November 1990 Blaming women, New Age-style $2.25 Busting the abortion bil \u2666 Reproductive technology: \u2666Talking with unionists, much more than sexist filmmakers and poets Kinesis welcomes voiui to work on all aspects c paper. Call us at 255-5499. Our next Writer's Meeting is Wed. Nov. 7 at 7 pm at Kinesis, #301-1720 Grant St. All women welcome even if you don't have experience. PRODUCTION THIS ISSUE: Christine Cosby, JJ Nymow, Nancy Pollak, Andrea Lowe, A. Ali-sa \"Meaty Girl\" Nemesis, Jackie Brown, Maggie Roy, Claire Fowler, Avery August, Peggy Watkins, Marjorie Blackwood, Pam Jay, Sandra Gillespie, Ann Doyle, Frances Anonsen, Rebecca Bishop, Tanya Behrisch, Winnifred Tovey FRONT COVER: Pro-choice activists, getting arrested at Kim Campbell's office on Oct. 11, 1990. Photo by Jackie Brown. EDITORIAL BOARD: Nancy Pollak, Michele Valiquette, Terrie Hamazaki, Christine Cosby CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION: Jennifer Johnstone, Chau Tran, Rachel Fox ADVERTISING: Birgit Schinke OFFICE: Jennifer Johnstone, Chau Tran Kinesis Is published 10 times a year by the Vancouver Status of Women. Its objectives are to be a non-sectarian feminist voice for women and to work actively for social change, specifically combatting sexism, racism, homophobia and imperialism. Views expressed in Kinesis are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect VSW policy. All unsigned material is the responsibility of the Kinesis Editorial Board. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual subscriptions to Kinesis are $20 per year or what you can afford. Membership in the Vancouver Status of Women is $30 or what you can afford, includes subscription to Kine- SUBMISSIONS: Women and girls are welcome to make submissions. We reserve the right to edit and submission does not guarantee publication. If possible, submissions should be typed double spaced and must be signed and include an address and phone number. Please note: Kinesis does not accept poetry or fiction contributions. For material to be returned, a SASE must be included. Editorial guidelines available on request. ADVERTISING: For information about display advertising rates, please contact Kinesis. For information about classifieds, please see the classified page in this issue. DEADLINE: For features and reviews: the 10th of the month preceding publication; news copy: 15th; letters and Bulletin Board listings: 18th. Display advertising\u2014camera ready: 18th; design required: 16th. News About Women That's Not In The Dallies 0$ 0 00 The proposed abortion bill is parked in the chaotic Senate\u2014but for how long? 3 The myth that only Third World countries practice femicide is not only racist, it is dangerously inaccurate 12 Women together make for a wonderful time, even when they're strangers 16 INSIDE REqOMRS NEW Abortion bill: it ain't over yet 3 ACT UP: united in hope, anger 4 Commonwealth message: adjust this picture.... 5 Softball comes to SFU 5 \/Fetal monitoringr technical birthing? by Pam Galloway 7 Movement Matters 2 Employment equity: strengthen this feeble act.. by Hannah Hadikan Opening adoption records helps open lives by Millie Strom 8 ...10 What's News? 6 i by Linda Choquette Nicaragua: from bad to worse by Sandra Ramos Reproductive technology: more than sexist by Supers jpobanl ...11 ...12 Commentary 9 by Rae Gabriel The Cuban art of Magdalena Campos by Sandra Gillespie . .14 Wake Up Screening 17 by Zaniub Verjee From the UK: making the connections as told to Raj Pannu ...15 Bulletin Board 21 compiled by Avery August White Room\u2014this film's a playful journey by Pat Feindel ...16 Sex liberals: against women's interests by Bonnie Waterstone .19 Kinesis is indexed in the Canadian Women's Periodicals Index, and the Alternative Press Index. CORRESPONDENCE: Kine- Vancouver Status of Women, 301-1720 Grant St., Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6 Kinesis is a member of th< Canadian Magazine Publishei Association. Second class mail #6426 ISSN 0317-9095 KINESIS November 90 Movement Matters Movement matters listings information Movement Matters is designed to be a] network of news, updates and informa- j tion of special interest to the women's movement. Submissions to Movement Matters should be no more than 500 words, typed, double-spaced on eight and a half by j eleven paper. Submissions may be edited for j length. Deadline is the 18th of the month) preceding publication. Law clinic for women The University of BC Law Students' Legal Advice Program has recently opened a Legal Clinic for Women. This free service is a response to a gap in addressing women's needs in accessing and using the legal system. The clinic hopes to provide a safe, un- intimidating environment for women with a wide variety of legal needs. The philosophy of the Legal Clinic for Women is that since women experience sexual discrimination, harassment and violence in society, our legal needs reflect this reality and effective legal responses must be so tailored. The clinic is staffed by women only, in order to provide a safe environment where women's situation in society is understood and validated. The clinic is located at Battered Women's Support Services, and many legal problems the clinic deals with may revolve around issues of violence. However, the clinic recognizes that women experience many other legal problems as well, and often have more \"basic\" legal difficulties than do men (as is evident when women's legal problems are linked with the larger unequal position of women in society). The clinic will deal with legal issues relating to: custody and access variations, landlord- tenant disputes, employer-employee difficulties, small claims, UIC, workers compensation or welfare problems, restraining orders, sex discrimination complaints, uncontested divorces, first offence criminal charges, some motor vehicle offenses, and immigration difficulties. The chnic can provide legal advice in many other areas of law and at a minimum, can at least give advice on a woman's rights. The clinic runs from 7 pm-9 pm on alternate Tuesday evenings at Battered Women's Support Services, #203-1847 W. Broadway. It is best to make an appointment by calling the Law Students' Legal Advice Office at 228-5791. Drop-ins are welcome, if space permits. The next clinics will be on November 6 and November 20, and every second Tuesday or Wednesday in the new year at the same times and locations (call for details). Aboriginal Our thanks to Vancouver Status of Women members who support us year 'round with memberships and donations. Our appreciation to the following supporters who became members, renewed their memberships or donated in late September and early October: Judy Liefschultz \u2022 Telecommunications Workers Union \u2022 Camero Egyeda \u2022 Jeanne M. St. Pierre \u2022 Marian Gilmour \u2022 Ronni Richards \u2022 Suzanne James \u2022 Brenda Pengelly \u2022 Lynn Giraud \u2022 Sally Hammond \u2022 Janet Freeman \u2022 Sandy Shreve \u2022 Pat Feindel \u2022 Karen Kilbride \u2022 Alex Maas \u2022 Nancy Dickie \u2022 Janna Taylor \u2022 Betsy Nuse \u2022 Rita Bealy \u2022 Alan Collins \u2022 Colleen Skidmore \u2022 Pam Terry \u2022 Hannah Hadikin \u2022 Mary Madsen \u2022 Julie Shilander \u2022 Susan Quipp \u2022 Jeanette Ashley \u2022 Lafun Page \u2022 Donna Marie Hruda \u2022 Mary Ballon \u2022 Mary Williams \u2022 Sandy Howell \u2022 Laurie Robertson \u2022 Caro Hodgson women Video for Correction Mary Rowles (\"Leaving much money to be desired,\" October 1990) is the director of Women's Program for the BC Federation of Labour. challenge law street women West Coast LEAF (Women's Legal Education and Action Fund) is currently working with a group of Aboriginal women who are planning a Charter challenge to the Indian Act. In particular, Sharon Mclvor, an Aboriginal lawyer from Merritt BC, is fighting the provisions in the Indian Act which allow her to regain her status but deny her children that right. Ms. Mclvor's case is a challenge to the \"second generation cut-off\" in the Indian Act. The second generation cut-off in effect incorporates sex discrimination which existed in prior Indian Acts into the current scheme for registration. Under the current scheme, the children of individuals whose mothers lost their Indian status through non-Indian paternity or marrying a nonstatus Indian, will not be granted Indian status. Had those children had Indian lineage through a grandfather, rather that a grandmother, they would not be cut off. Statistics from Indian Affairs show that over 7,000 people have been newly registered whose children will be affected by the cutoff. LEAF has established a Public Education Committee to fight the second- generation cut-off. This working group needs a variety of people with a variety of skills, as well as anyone willing to learn new skills. Women are needed to write articles for the planned newsletter on the case, and also to address and stamp envelopes, write funding applications and help develop new strategies. LEAF stresses that they are not looking for media stars or legal wizards\u2014 just people who are willing to take on a job. The working group meets the third Wednesday of each month. Anyone interested in participating should call Ardyth Cooper at 879-7367. CROSSLAND CONSULTING Personal Management Services for Artists Individuals Resumes Arts Organizations Career Counselling Grant and Proposal Writing Bookkeeping Services * FIRST CONSULTATION FREE* Jackie Crossland By Appointment Only 435-2273 DR. PAULETTE ROSCOE NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIAN FAMILY PRACTICE HOMEOPATHY COUNSELLING 11 E. BROADWAY AVENUE VANCOUVER. B.C. V5T 1V4 873-1991 Streetwise Women is an educational video produced by, for and with street youth, by the STD Prevention Project of Youthlink-Inner City. This video was created to address the health and sexually transmitted disease concerns of women on the street. Streetwise Women uses explicit imagery and language and deals with difficult issues such as injection drug use, STDs, HIV, negotiating safer sex with a partner and empowering women to make smart choices. It is non-judgmental in its portrayal of young women acquiring, using and sharing knowledge about safer sex and health concerns in the age of AIDS. The video is accompanied by a comprehensive facilitator's manual and is available for $20 per copy (including manual) from Youthlink-Inner City, 151 Gerrard St East, Toronto, Ont M5A 2E4 (Tel: (416) 922- 3335) Funding for gay, lesbian projects The next deadline for funding applications to the Kimeta Society is March 1, 1991. The Kimeta Society is a non-profit organization, founded in 1987, whose objective is to support efforts advancing the struggle of lesbians and gays. The society has an international perspective and a particular interest in Third World countries. Projects with progressive political significance and little access to other funding sources are most likely to meet Kimeta's approval. Individual projects are considered on their merits, generally in comparison to other applications received. Kimeta is more receptive to applications for partial funding; only in exceptional circumstances can they consider complete funding for an application. Disbursements are no larger than $4,000 (Canadian). Anyone who feels they have a project that the Kimeta Society would be interested in, or who would like application guidelines and more information should contact the society at 291 Ontario St., Apt. 5, Toronto, Ont., M5A 2V8. Maureen McEvoy ba ma (Cand) Counselling Psychology Areas of expertise: sexual abuse, relationships, sexuality, depression, ACOA Insldel Kinesis Alright, so we've already sung this song before\u2014'tis the season to get a Kinesis subscription. Senate filibuster notwithstanding, Kinesis will cost 7 percent more after January 1, 1991\u2014thanks to the regressive Goods and Services Tax. While are opposed to this new tax on reading, our friendly (and self-interested) advice is that you get yourself plus everyone you love and respect at least one Kinesis subscription before year's end. Thanks. Do it now. Thanks. This issue, we have a number of new contributors\u2014writers and production workers\u2014to welcome: Christine Cumming, Donna Henningson, Hannah Hadikan, Rae Gabriel, Sandra Gillespie, Raj Pannu, Ann Rainboth, Sherrill Rowland, Lyn Jones, Marjorie Blackwood, Peggy Watkins, Tanya Behrisch, Frances Anonsen, Zaniub Verjee (whose first Wake Up Screening column appears on page 17) and August Avery (who designed the logo for Zaniub's column). And we must bid farewell to Chris Meyer, a volunteer writer and paste-up woman who was a steady contributor to the paper until she moved away in September. In Bulletin Board, you will notice an ad for a Kinesis typesetter. Joni Miller, our fast and eagle-eyed typesetter, has decided to move off into serious Freelance Land. We wish her the best and thank her for the many months of mellow typesetting she gave. Happily, Joni will remain a volunteer writer of fine features. We also say goodbye to Gwen Bird who has left the Editorial Board after several years. Besides contributing as a typesetter and writer, Gwen helped with the nuts- and-bolts of keeping the paper alive anc growing. Her most recent contribution was working with Terrie Hamazaki to establish the Women of Colour caucus at Kinesis. Thank you, Gwen. Note: The Kinesis Women of Colour caucus is holding its next meeting on Monday, Nov. 5, 7 pm at our office. All women of colour are welcome, even if you have no experience working on a publication. For more information, call Editorial Board member Terrie Hamazaki, at 321-0575. Note also: The monthly Writers Meeting will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 7 pm at our office. That's when we do a \"post partum\" on the November Kinesis\u2014evaluate its strengths and weaknesses\u2014and kick around ideas for the December\/January issue. In particular, we're looking for articles on moms and kids. Call 255-5499 for more information, or if you can't make the meeting. , KINESIS November 90 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^ NEWS Abortion bill It ain't over 'til it's over by Joni Miller Months after being passed by the Conservative majority in Parliament, Canada's proposed new abortion bill (C-43) languishes in legal purgatory. While media attention focuses on the Senate filibuster against the Goods and Services Tax (GST), pro-choice activists hope the abortion bill dies there for lack of attention. \"It's difficult to get a reading because of the mess the Senate is in,\" said Kim Zander of the BC Coalition for Abortion Clinics, (BCCAC). C-43 is considered by pro-choice activists and health care workers to be one of the most callous pieces of legislation ever drafted and there is a feeling among pro- choice activists that the movement may have conceded defeat too soon. \"There is still plenty of opportunity to defeat the bill,\" said Joy Thompson of BCCAC. Mass action is what's needed, activists say\u2014lots of women in the street. To that end, on October 13th, pro-choice activists rallied in 30 locations around Canada. The rallies were organized by the Pro- Choice Network, a national coalition of activist pro-choice groups. In Vancouver, a well-attended and spirited rally targeted Justice Minister Kim Campbell's office and eventually took over the street. \"In Vancouver we felt an additional responsibility,\" Thompson explained, \"because Campbell's office is here. Rather than launching a broad-based campaign, we have chosen to target Campbell.\" Thompson and others also occupied Campbell's office on October Sunera Thobani addresses the Oct. 13 pro-choice rally in Vancouver Charter challenge Too much pressure, poverty by Nancy Pollak In a province where affordable daycare and well-paying jobs for women are distinctly lacking, forcing a single mom on welfare with a baby to seek a job may seem callous\u2014even bizarre. Welcome to British Columbia. In November, poverty activists will launch a court challenge to the Social Credit pohcy that labels single mothers \"employable\" when their baby (or babies) reach six months. Under the policy, mothers must make a monthly declaration that they are actively seeking work outside the home\u2014or taking steps in that direction\u2014in order to receive their welfare cheques. While there are no firm figures available about how many women have been cut off social assistance for non-compliance, the policy imposes a terrible strain on welfare recipients. It also implicitly ignores the unpaid\u2014and essential\u2014 work the women perform as moth- The Vancouver Community Legal Assistance Society, working with End Legislated Poverty, plans to tackle the pohcy as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Lawyer David Mossop will argue the pohcy violates the rights of Canadian children in two ways: age discrimination (babies under six months have unhampered access to their mothers, whereas older children do not); and freedom of association (children have the right to stay with their families). Underlying these legal arguments is the rather common sense idea that women should have the choice to stay home and parent their young children. \"My choices are being taken away from me,\" says Ellen Hiltz of Campbell River. Hiltz has three children aged seven, four and six-and-a-half months. As soon as her youngest crossed the six month threshold, Hiltz enrolled in the welfare-sponsored Job Action Workshop, designed to get people into the workforce. While Hiltz has found the welfare workers in Campbell River friendly, her three-week workshop experience gave her a taste of just how impossible working outside the home would be. \"It was hke being on fast- forward every single day,\" says Hiltz. \"My baby got sick after the second day, and he was teething and waking up ten times a night. \"I'm a person with a lot of energy, but [this pohcy] puts too much pressure on people who don't need more pressure. We need more help.\" Poverty activists got a boost from the City of Vancouver on October 23, when city council agreed with Children's Advocate Rita Chudnovsky's recommendation that the province be asked to change the \"employability\" pohcy. Chudnovsky's Child Care Report pointed out that, among other things, the lack of affordable, licensed daycare makes it inappropriate to drive women into the workforce. Kinesis will have coverage of the city's new child care program in the next issue. 11. They were arrested, but not charged. \"We felt that 'trespassing' in Campbell's office was an appropriate symbol,\" said Zander, \"because Bill C-43 trespasses on the rights of women to control their own bodies. As long as politicians defy the rights of women, women will defy their power.\" Campbell has remained aloof from women's movement representatives since a meeting last spring when she reprimanded local activists for opposing C-43. Campbell has stated she will not declare the bill until medical personnel understand it and has also stated doctors need not fear prosecution under the new law. \"It's very dishonest of her to give such statements,\" said Thompson. \"It's not her role as Justice Minister to interpret the law\u2014that's up to the court.\" One current tactic is to pressure Campbell to simply not proclaim C-43. \"Proclaiming\" a law is a formality performed by the Justice Minister. C-43 makes doctors who perform abortions, and possibly the women who seek them, guilty of a criminal offence and liable for up to two years imprisonment, unless they beheve the health or hfe of the woman is hkely to be threatened without the abortion. Sunera Thobani, a representative of the India Mahila Association and the BCCAC, says that C- 43, if implemented, will be particularly hard on immigrant women and women of colour. \"Women will go underground and end up with botched abortions,\" she stated. Thobani said that in Winnipeg and other cities, immigrant doctors and doctors oi colour have been targeted by anti- choice groups. \"These doctors do not have the same options\u2014the same kind of mobility as white doctors. If they are hounded out of their jobs, there may not be many places to go.\" Thobani beheves defeating the bill will only come about when many more women are out in the streets protesting. She says, however, that until pro-choice groups focus on reproductive rights, immigrant women and women of colour are not hkely to be attracted to the movement in great numbers. \"For many of us, the issues are forced sterUization and the right to have and keep our children,\" Thobani said. \"Also, new contraceptives are tested on minority women first. We are the guinea pigs. Access to abortion is important, but it's not necessarily key.\" Canadian doctors are far from happy with the proposed bill. To guard against possible criminal charges, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is recommending that women seeking abortions be required to sign their medical records as proof they \"understand\" the procedure. Recent studies out of Alberta indicate that 95 percent of doctors in that province will not perform abortions under the new law. Thompson views the doctors' withdrawal of services as a form of protest. \"Women have always defied abortion laws,\" she said, \"but because of the impact of the women's movement, they are not as willing to he about it as in years past. Doctors know this, and it's why they are withdrawing.\" One promising sign for abortion rights is Dr. Henry Morgentaler's recent acquittal on abortion-related charges in Halifax. A Nova Scotia judge ruled the province did not have the authority to limit abortions to hospitals since abortion is a federal matter. Pro-choice activists had feared that other provinces would try to restrict free-standing clinics if the Nova Scotia decision had gone the other way. In Ontario, the newly-elected NDP government has stated its the opposition to the criminalization of abortion. Plans are going forward for a second abortion clinic in Vancouver. The medical building at 16th and Granville that will house the new clinic has already been subjected to picketing by anti- choice protestors. Blockades, and attempts at mass arrests have cooled down for the time being in BC. \"The anti-choice movement has run out of martyrs,\" Thompson said. She expects the next tactic the anti-choice will focus on is court cases. Some anti-choice groups have approached Crimestoppers (a television program that highhghts unsolved crimes). In the US, a country where malpractice suits against doctors are common, anti- choice groups are suing as a way to immobilize doctors who provide abortion services. This tactic is expected to surface in Canada. Anti- choice groups will likely recruit ex- boyfriends and other associates of women who have had abortions to help build cases against them. \"Dragging women through the courts is very much their intention,\" Thompson predicted. If C-43 ever does become law, it will be challenged in court immediately. The previous abortion law was struck down when Supreme Court judges ruled it conflicted with the rights of women. C-43 is equally oppressive. \"We do not understand why the Tories believe C-43 will fly,\" said Zander. In case C-43 passes, the Pro-Choice Network has issued an Emergency Plan. Rallies will be automatically held across the country the Saturday immediately following such an announcement. In Vancouver the action will be noon at Kim Campbell's office, 1755 W. Broadway in Vancouver. KINESIS November 90 ACT UP United in hope and anger by Christine Cumming ACT UP\u2014the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power\u2014became a dramatic part of the Vancouver pohtical scene this past summer. Born out of the anger and frustration of people hving with AIDS (PWAs) and their supporters, Vancouver ACT UP is part of an informal network of ACT UP groups throughout North America. Known for their high-profile actions and innovative tactics, ACT UP groups aim to draw public attention to the negUgence of poUticians and drug companies\u2014among others\u2014in the face of the ADDS epidemic. New York ACT UP has staged die-ins on WaU Street to protest drug company profits. In Vancouver, a Social Credit fundraiser was disrupted by protestors who thought the money raised would be better spent on people who, through government neglect, are dying of AIDS. According to their Uterature, ACT UP Vancouver is \"a group of activists united in anger and hope, working to end the AIDS crisis through planned and focused nonviolent action.\" The Social Credit government has done all the right things to make itself an ACT UP target. Among their demands, ACT UP Vancouver is calling on the Socreds to: \u2022 develop a comprehensive AIDS strategy. Ten years into the crisis BC stiU lacks a coherent approach, some think largely because of premier BUl Vander Zalm's moralistic attitude towards by Donna Henningson San Francisco, summer of 1990 The newsroom: Very much a male domain \"If you're incUned to piss in the corner of your office, then you know it's time to get out.\" This comment by Helen Shnger, CBC-TV drama development executive, brought laughter from 200 women from mainstream news- rooms-CBC, BCTV, CKVU, the Vancouver Sun and The Province\u2014as weU as the general public. The occasion: a one-day forum on women in the media on September 29, at SFU Harbour Centre. Shnger was one of 11 media women who took part in the two panel discussions sponsored by the Canadian Association of Journalists. The organization, says local CAJ director Frances Bula (education reporter for the Vancouver Sun), acts as a public voice for journalism issues. SUnger's remark touched on a main theme: the newsroom is stiU very much a male domain. Women have another view of what is newsworthy, and that alternate view is not easy to seU to male colleagues. Dauphne Gray-Grant, chief features editor at the Vancouver Sun, described the imbalance: \"Media are not very good at covering changes that happen slowly. We faU to cover the things that happen in sUence that change the rest of our hves.\" Keynote speaker Shirley Shar- zer was a deputy managing editor of The Globe and Mail and is presently the coordinator of training and development for the Southam Newspaper Group, the highest circulation of any Canadian publishing group. She was one of 18 members of a 1988 Southam task force report, \"Opportunities for, and Barriers to Women at Southam News.\" The report examines the degree to which women within Southam are taking on positions of responsibility and power. The figures are not encouraging. Of 126 senior managers, six are women. In 1989, there were 31 senior management appointments. None were women. Bonnie Irving, editor of BC Business Magazine, noted \"Power shifts away from a position once a woman acquires it.\" Said GiUian Shaw, business editor for the Vancouver Sun: \"The granting of power to women is a sham.\" Shaw called such efforts more \"public relations than pohcy\" because, for women, positions of power and responsibiUty force them to make sacrifices men don't have to face regarding their famiUes. Helen SUnger told women in media to \"choose a goal, go for the goal, then get out of the position, and regroup...centre on the product.\" Power wUl foUow, she said. Patricia Graham, editorial pages editor for The Province, advised women to \"never compromise yourself fundamentally.\" She spoke about the tendency for both men and women to bond together along gender hnes. \"No club, whether it be boys or girls, is worth the compromise.\" Former managing editor of the Calgary Herald GiUian Steward urged women to explore alternate media besides traditional print and broadcast, such as cable, video and community newspapers and publications. \"Don't restrict yourselves,\" she said. \"Get into the vehicle where you can move up quickly. Share and give power.\" AIDS (and sex). In 1989, Vander Zalm disaUowed the use of a teen- oriented safe sex video (produced by the health ministry), calling it \"the longest condom ad\" he'd ever seen; \u2022 provide full funding for all ADDS drugs\u2014at present, BC is the only province which refuses to pay the Ml costs of AZT, an extremely expensive drug which appears to slow the progress of HIV infection; \u2022 include sexual orientation in the province's Human Rights Act, as a means of offsetting the homophobia which further endangers many PWAs \u2022 develop a Ml home care\/hospice program, as weU as address the critical housing needs of PWAs \u2022 distribute free condoms and bleach (for needles) to prisoners \u2022 develop sex and ADDS education programs for schools which are non-sexist, non-homophobic and sensitive to cultural differences ACT UP Vancouver's understanding of the AIDS crisis goes beyond these specific demands to include an analysis of how homophobia, racism and sexism have affected the government's (lack of) response to AIDS. Above all, governments have scapegoated people with AIDS. In North America, gay men are the most popular scapegoats and aU the focus on their community not only feeds homophobic tendencies, but leaves many heterosexuals and lesbians invisible, unconcerned and out of the research, education and prevention process. Women in ACT Up are particularly concerned about our invisi- bUity. When research, support services and drugs that have been developed for white, homosexual men are appUed to women, a whole new set of questions are raised and too many go unanswered. What are the symptoms of ADDS in women? What about heterosexual transmission? What about pregnancy, chUdbirth and breast feeding for women with ADDS or HIV infection, and what about their reproductive choice? Why are prostitutes being targeted and tested but not their cUents? What about poverty and malnutrition and their effects on those infected? What about \"safe sex\" for women and how should women \"negotiate\" it with male partners? What roles do homophobia, classism, racism and sexism play in the epidemic? Why weren't these questions asked eariier (or louder) and where can we find answers? The sexism of the media, government and the medical estab- Ushment have aU played a part in making women invisible in the AIDS crisis. For example, we are late in discovering that medicaUy, women with AIDS die faster than men with AIDS. And their symptoms are different. Because \"Ml blown ADDS\" is denned by symptoms first seen in men, doctors are less alert to ADDS in women, and many symptoms of HTV infection particular to women (Uke chronic vaginal infections) are misdiagnosed or go undetected untU it is too late. Government AIDS education campaigns focus on abstinence or condom use without considering the cultural, sexual or economic realities of women at risk. Women do not have the social or economic power of men, and for some women \"just saying no\" to unsafe sex is not a possibiUty. For some women, fear of ADDS may be displaced by the fear of violence or rape from male partners who refuse to wear condoms. ACT UP Vancouver can be reached at (604) 732-7975, or written to at PO Box 3874, Vancouver BC V6B 3Z3) Vancouver women protested the sexist and violent notes hand- delivered by the boys of one University of BC residence to the women of another residence in October. The boys apparently thought handwritten threats of rape were just a prank that got out of hand. - 4 KINESIS November 90 News \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ Commonwealth message: Please adjust this picture by Susan O'Donnell October 9: Driving rain and bone-chilling temperatures did not dampen the enthusiasm of the many women who encircled the Centennial Flame on Pariiament Hill with banners proclaiming the joy and struggles of Canadian women. The colourful banners emblazoned with images and slogans, representing the efforts of hundreds of women across the country, communicated a clear message to the Commonwealth Conference of Women's Affairs Ministers: the Canadian women's movement is strong and wUl continue to demand government action on women's issues. \"It was a real national effort\u2014every province and territory was represented,\" said Banner Project coordinator Bonnie Slade of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC). One hundred and fifty-four women's groups responded to NAC's request to send banners to Ottawa to tell the truth about women's Uves to participants\u2014 mainly poUticians and bureaucrats\u2014at the Commonwealth conference, hosted by, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. FoUowing the October 9 event, NAC's Judy Rebick said that often at international meetings, the government presents a false picture of women's Uves in Canada. \"We wanted to present a pictorial picture, to demonstrate the vitality of the women's movement in Canada,\" Rebick said, speaking against the backdrop of an intricate banner pieced together by a Saskatoon women's group. \"The banners are from every part of Canada, from every faction in the women's movement. They represent the tremendous joy and creativity and power of women working together. \"The women's movement is strong and vital, and we wUl not accept any further cuts to women's programs,\" Rebick continued. \"We're not going away.\" Noting that the majority of the banners dealt with violence against women, Rebick stated NAC's intention to have December 6- -the date in 1989 when a Montreal man First in country School's on, batter's up by Diane Dupuis Next March, Simon Fraser University wUl field a woman's softbaU team, providing the first and only opportunity in Canada for women to play softbaU competitively and obtain an education at the same time. SoftbaU BC, the umbreUa organization that oversees amateur softbaU in the province, approached SFU because a competitive structure was already in place. SFU participates in the American National Association of IntercoUegiate Athletes (NAIA) which has women's softbaU teams. Competition wiU be stiff. The SFU team\u2014 the Clan\u2014wiU play established teams both within and outside its league structure. Nineteen of the 20 women on the team were actively recruited by coach Russ Boris who scouted 30 teams around the country. All the women played three or four sports in high school, but exceUed at soft- ball. While most are from BC, the program has attracted women from Regina, Burlington and New Zealand. Dallas Jorgenson (first base\/catcher) and Janice HaUs (shortstop\/third base) attended Douglas CoUege for two years and then transferred to SFU to play softbaU. Jorgenson began playing softbaU at age six, and participated in the Newton Athletic Association for approximately six years. She went on to the New Westminster Royals and the White Rock Renegades Junior Women's team. Jorgenson was invited to try out for Team BC. \"Exposure from the Team BC try-out and help from my coaches opened the door to SFU,\" she says. Carey Iszak (outfield\/catcher) is from Regina and played softbaU throughout high school and in the Regina Senior Ladies' League. For two years she attended university and played softbaU in Jamestown, North Dakota. \"SFU offered the best opportunity to combine academics and softbaU,\" says Iszak. The Clan wUl play a 45-game schedule with approximately 15 home games. The first home game is scheduled for March 9 at the SoftbaU BC complex in Surrey. Practice sessions, which begin in January, wUl be spUt between SFU and the complex. WhUe women's sports generally suffer from severe financial neglect, this program is comparatively wealthy. SoftbaU BC has contributed $25,000 to the program to cover some scholarships and operating expenses, and SFU wUl pick up the additional expenses. Two scholarships have been donated by local businesses. SoftbaU BC has sent out information packages to BC high schools to assist in developing women's programs at that level, and has raised some money through a $5 registration fee coUected from its recreational teams. WhUe opportunities to pursue softbaU beyond the university level are Umited to playing recreational softbaU and\/or on the Canadian national team, SFU's program does give women the chance to pursue the sport whUe obtaining an education. As weU, fans of women's sports wUl gain the opportunity to witness high caUbre athletics. murdered 14 women\u2014set aside as a national day of commemoration for women victims of violence. \"We want to change the sUent epidemic of male violence against women,\" she explained. \"The fundamental problem is that the daUy relationship between women and men doesn't work.\" Helene D'AUaire of Reseau national d'action education femmes noted that the majority of UUterate Canadians are women, the majority of older women Uve alone in poverty, and any social change must involve a mobUization of aU the resources avaUable to help these women. Referring to Mulroney's announcement eariier in the day (that the government was committed to improving the status of women), D'AUaire stated that she has not seen a real commitment to change. \"We've had a war on drugs. Why not a war on violence against women?\" she asked. \"We need a change in power relationships\u2014that's what causes violence against women.\" The federal government denied NAC participant status at the conference but the 44 conference delegates agreed that one NAC and one Voice of Women delegate could sit as observers, because Voice oi Women is organizing a Commonwealth nongovernmental organizations (NGO) -conference for women in Canada next May. In Ottawa, the delegates\u2014about half o: whom were women\u2014 discussed a number of issues common to women in aU Commonwealth countries. NAC observer Alice de Wolfe was particularly interested in the discussions on structural adjustment because, she said, it aUows those working on women's issues to use frameworks common to Canada and Third World countries. Structural adjustment\u2014changes in a country's economic structure such as removing tariff protections and redirecting social spending\u2014was the subject of a recent Commonwealth Secretariat report. In the 1980s, said the report, structural adjustments have consistently worsened the economic situation of women, and in many cases, have reversed the gains of the 60s anc 70s. At the end of the three-day conference, delegates tabled a long report recommending that governments seriously look at how their economic poUcies affect women, that finance ministers set up committees to advise them on sexual equaUty, and that women have better access to land, credit, education and training. Referring to a specific recommendation that governments support gender-specific research and expand services for female victims of violence, NAC is asking the Canadian government to: drop the recent amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, and the proposed GST and abortion bUls; put in place goals and timetables for the employment equity legislation (see page 8); and fund NGO groups which advocate women's rights and provide support to female victims of violence. De Wolfe says NAC wUl continue to lobby the government in the international arena. \"Canada has a wonderful reputation in- ternationaUy, especiaUy in the Commonwealth,\" said de Wolfe, \"and we have to begin to say that [official reports] fly in the face of what we know about the real situation of Canadian women. The government gets to look wonderful on the backs of Canadian women.\" De Wolfe noted that the government responds better to NAC's interventions in the international forum than they do in the domestic one. I\\INESIS November 90 Across Canada X\\\\\\NXXXXX\\X\\XN\\X\\XXNXN\\XX\\XX\\\\XVXV^^ WHAT' S NEWS? by Linda Choquette For an official day of mourning The National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) wants the government to declare December 6 a Canadian Day of Commemoration and officiaUy recognize the significance of the Montreal massacre. NAC president Judy Rebick and vice- president Anne McGrath wrote to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, requesting that the nation publicly mourn the deaths of the 14 women kUled at l'Ecole polytechnique last year by observing 14 minutes of sUence in the House of Commons, placing the flag at half-mast and conducting a ceremony at Parhament HUl. \"We beUeve that it is very important that the memory of the Montreal massacre not be aUowed to fade from public consciousness. SUence is a powerful cloak that hides the reaUty of the male violence that women Uve with every day,\" NAC said. The organization has specified that the Day of Commemoration would mourn aU victims of male violence against women. The women recaUed the messages of support that poured in from aU over the world. The Network of Women Students in AustraUa wrote that, \"Such an attack on the women students at the University in Montreal is but a symptom of society's relegation of women to second class status and the victimization and hatred that is engendered by this role.\" NAC has also urged the United Nations to commemorate December 6 as a day to caU attention to the worldwide problem of male violence against women. The women who died were Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Havernick, Barbara Marie Kleuznick, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne- Marie Lemay, Sonia PeUetier, Michele Richard and Annie Turcotte. Stop the dangers, not the women In a class-action lawsuit currently before the US Supreme Court, women are suing for the right to hold jobs which carry serious risk of fetal damage. Nine battery plants are charged with sexual discrimination over their poUcy designed to Umit the exposure of women of chUdbearing age to lead, a primary ingredient in battery fabrication. Among other things, the women are arguing that rather than eUminating them from the dangerous jobs, the job's dangers should be eUminated through measures agreed upon by workers, the companies and the government. One of the plants\u2014a leading US manufacturer\u2014gave employee Virginia Green, 50, five minutes notice in 1982 before transferring her from a job she had held for 11 years. Citing their Hetdl protection poUcy,\" the Johnson Controls Company bumped Green to a laundry job, washing the respirators of her former male co-workers. Both sides in the case agree that lead exposure can cause severe developmental problems in fetuses. But critics contend company poUcy amounts to sex discrimination because aU women up the age of 50 are subject to the poUcy regardless of their chUdbearing plans or fertUity. Lawyer Marsha Berzon, for the women plaintiffs, said the company invokes the policy regardless of whether workers intend to have chUdren, plan to wait untU long after leaving the plant, or keep their lead exposure to levels deemed safe by government. One woman chose sterUization rather than surrender her high risk position. The rule violates federal laws forbidding job discrimination based on sex or pregnancy, said Berzon. \"This poUcy, if upheld, would...sanction the re-segregation of the work force.\" There are fears that a victory for the plants could spawn dozens of others prohibiting women from getting and keeping the higher paying factory jobs. At least 15 major US plants have fetal protection poU- Holistic programs for and by hookers A proposal aimed at helping prostitutes who want to get out of the business was tabled in the House of Commons in early October. Give the money to the agencies and groups that provide multi- faceted, \"holistic\" programs, recommended the standing committee on justice and the Solicitor General. . \"Holistic programs...are called for,\" the report stated. \"They must be accessible and must also facUitate positive changes for those who choose alternatives to the street.\" Such programs would incorporate \"treatment, legal services, education, job training and Ufe skUls.\" The report pointed to Winnipeg's Prostitutes and Other Women For Equal Rights (POWER) as an effective example. Community based, the non-profit group operates from the city core and offers a range of support services for drug abuse, health problems, legal conflicts and joblessness. Do typos turn you into a raging monster? There is a vocation for you - proofreading Kinesis. Please call Acknowledging the increase in violence \"What we want, and have wanted long against prostitutes, Justice Department re- before Bourassa ever made his remarks, searchers said 68 percent of Vancouver pros- is for judges to take seriously the recom- titutes interviewed reported cUent attacks, mendations that women's groups have been Recurrent accounts of beatings, stabbings, making that they need education in these death threats and robberies \"astounded\" areas.\" the researchers. Women's concerns dismissed\u2014again Northern Native and women's groups, responsible for initiating a judicial enquiry into the conduct of Michel Bourassa, were badly disappointed last month. Bourassa, the territorial circuit court judge whose record of Ught sentences in cases of violence against women was exonerated by an Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. The ruUng dismissed charges of misbehaviour and said his comments reported in the press would not affect his abihty to continue as a judge. Bourassa made himself the target of Native and women's advocacy groups as far back as 1984 when he said a 13-year-old, mentally handicapped rape victim \"consented\" to intercourse with three men. In another judgement, a former pohtician was let off with only five days in jaU and nine months probation for repeatedly fondUng a young girl. In December 1989, The Edmonton Journal quoted Bourassa as saying sexual assault among northern Natives was \"less violent,\" and can't be judged the same way as in southern Canada. Arlene Nichols, executive director of the YeUowknife Women's Society, said the judge wrongly beUeves his sentencing reflects the values of northerners. Lynne Brooks, Territorial Status of Women CouncU executive director, stopped short of calling for Bourassa's dismissal from the bench, but said: \"I do think some kind of action, even if it's just a letter of censure does send a message to other men and women on the bench. This publication is regularly indexed in the Canadian Women's Periodicals Index. The index is a reference guide to articles about women printed in more than 80 English and French periodicals, for use by researchers, lecturers, students and anyone else interested in women's studies. This alphabetized hardcopy of a comprehensive computerized index is produced three tunes a year by the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, and is available on a subscription basis. For more information, please write: Canadian Women's Periodicals Index University of Alberta 11019-90 Avenue Edmonton, Alberta CANADA, T6G2E1 Promises of pay equity When the NDP gained power in the Ontario election in September, part of their Agenda for People included a promise to extend pay equity legislation to aU women workers. Now, the province's pay equity commissioner Brigid O'ReUly is saying premier Bob Rae's promise to extend coverage at a cost of $60 miUion is unreaUstic. Estimates of three times that amount are being proposed as a more accurate reflection of true costs to the new NDP government. Pay equity activists beUeve, however, that the NDP must tackle the compUcated and expensive nature of the problem. \"We expect that they would Uve up to their promise to extend coverage,\" says Mary Cornish of the Equal Pay Coalition, the major pay equity lobby. Ontario's legislation covers both pubUc and private sectors employees, and is designed to increase salaries in female- dominated jobs by bringing their pay in Une with comparable male jobs. The Ontario Federation of Labour estimates that almost a miUion women are denied pay equity under existing legislation because their work does not have a read- Uy avaUable male equivalent to compare. As weU, workplaces with fewer than 10 employees are also exempt. Pay equity lobbyists assume Rae's election assurance wUl now mean that these women wUl be eUgible for salary hikes. Activists also say that, along with pay increases for public-sector workers in fields such as nursing and day care, the government must fund a legal chnic for non- unionized women in order to make the pay equity legislation effective. Sources: NAC; The Globe and Mail fcfe Subscribe! 6 l\\lrNLbl J November i Mews ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Fetal monitors Is a technical birth a safe birth? by Pam Galloway The controversy grinds on. Electronic fetal heartrate monitoring: a reUable and valuable birthing tool or an unreliable, unnecessary piece of technology? Does it contribute to compUcations at birth, or does it provide reassurance that aU is weU and speed intervention if aU is not weU? Disagreement about electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) has existed between the medical community and proponents of natural chUdbirth since the procedure was introduced about twenty-five years ago. And the many scientific studies of EFM have fueUed the debate on both sides (see box). A recent study, in part carried out at Vancouver's Grace Hospital, found cerebral palsy in 20 percent of premature infants monitored electronically, compared to 8 percent of those checked with a stethoscope. The study foUowed up 173 infants, 18 months after birth, who had been born between 26 and 32 weeks gestation and who had been randoMy assigned to the two types of monitoring group. These surprising, even alarming, results have been received cooUy by physicians\u2014as have most other studies of EFM. Dr. Sydney Effer, an obstetrician at Grace Hospital who took part in the recent study, said that \"physicians are skeptical to beUeve those results are vaUd.\" He pointed to a less-than-ideal statistical analysis of the data, his main objection being that the random selection of subjects placed six babies of extremely low birth weight in the group which received electronic monitoring. Effer felt that this fact alone could have been responsible for the higher rate of cerebral palsy in the EFM group, as the risk of this disorder occurring increases with lower birth weights. Cerebral palsy is a permanent movement disorder resulting from damage to the developing nervous system. There are a number of different causes, though Effer acknowledged that oxygen deprivation during birth is always considered to contribute to the condition. When fetal distress becomes evident, it is necessary to hasten deUvery of the baby to avoid oxygen deprivation. The study found there was a longer time from detecting signs of distress to deUvery in the group monitored electronically. It is not clear why this occurred. Effer summed up the medical response to this study: \"It hasn't changed anything, there's nothing different.\" So we are no nearer a clear statement of the worth or demerits of EFM, at least not from the mainstream medical community. However, there are many other voices raised in objection. Linda Knox, a practicing midwife in Vancouver, beUeves \"a huge amount of what is accepted as normal practice has never been evaluated.\" For example, EFM can be used throughout an entire labour which means the woman and her fetus can be bombarded with ultrasound waves for many hours. Long term effects of such uses of ultrasound are as yet unknown. It is easy to be skeptical of scientific studies since they are open to a range of inter- that the monitor may pick up false information or that there may be difficulties interpreting the print-out. Some women see EFM as the first step in aUowing further intervention in their birthing process. There are more generalized fears that it may be harmful to the baby and that it may decrease a woman's chance of labouring spontaneously. AU of these concerns have an effect on a woman's physical and emotional condition during labour. Linda Knox does not use electronic monitoring in her midwifery practice though she birth methods? Technology helps versus technology harms. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Are there other, bigger issues hiding just below the surface? The value of individual, constant human monitoring was also upheld by Effer, but he said that in usual clinical practice it is difficult to ensure this level of care. \"One patient\/one nurse is Grace Hospital's pohcy but there are inevitably times when this is not the case,\" said Effer. \"Emergencies occur and a nurse is removed pretation. StiU, EFM is in wide and routine use, yet its value is far from established and its shortcomings are, for the most part, ignored. Lorena Battistel, a chUdbirth educator and member of the Lower MaMand ChUdbearing Association, teaches pre-natal classes and attends women in labour. She has seen the routine use of EFM increasing, and has a Ust of objections both she and pregnant women have to the procedure. The foremost of these is that being attached to a machine restricts a woman's movement, which often prolongs labour. Internal fetal monitoring (which involves an electrode attached to the fetus's head) can introduce infection. Women are concerned How it works An electronic fetal monitor is a machine which uses ultrasound and a pressure gauge to record a fetus' heart rate and contractions of the uterus during labour. The devices which do the measuring are held in place by two straps taped around a woman's abdomen. The measurements are recorded on a print-out in the form of a graph. H the fetal heart rate decreases, the fetus may be in trouble. The purpose of continuous EFM is to ensure fetal distress is detected as soon as possible so that the baby can be deUvered in good health. is quick to acknowledge its value in the care of women with high risk pregnancies. However, she beUeves it should not be used in normal deUveries. Knox recognises that the use of EFM has reduced the rate of infant mortaUty, but it has also increased the rate of both maternal and infant compUcations during and after birth. She said it is weU-known that there has been an increase in caesarean section and forceps deUveries since EFM was introduced\u2014rates which could be as much as one third higher. \"My fear is that we are going to have technical birth [even] more than we do,\" said Knox. Knox thinks EFM is reUed upon far too much and that, consequently, modern practitioners are losing their skiUs. She described what she sees as a fragmentation of care. Numerous people attend a woman in labour and the fetal monitor is reUed on as the constant presence. \"Women are often ignored and the focus is on the machine. It's really a shame,\" says Knox. Though EFM is seen as giving continuous monitoring\u2014whereas a stethoscope is only used intermittently\u2014Knox said a skiUed midwife who gives continuity of care throughout labour is more Ukely to use her various skiUs to monitor the program of labour, and gaps in observation wUl not occur. Is it straightforward debate, then, revolving around different phUosophies of chUd- fiom a patient. If we had enough trained nurses to do this [constant monitoring with a stethoscope] there's no doubt it would be preferable. But can we afford this?\" Midwife Knox also provided an additional perspective Gn the issue: \"EFM is used because we have such a Utigation approach towards birth,\" said Knox, referring rWOWWWWWW \"Women are often ignored and the focus is on the machine...\" W\u00ab\u00abW\u00ab\u00ab\u00abM\u00bb0\u00bbM to the fact that EFM provides a hard, indisputable print record of the labour, which may be presented in court should legal action be brought against a medical practitioner. H issues such as nursing shortages and Utigation are at the centre of the controversy surrounding the use of EFM, then they need to be addressed openly and added to the Ust of medical concerns. After aU, the profound issue of the physical and emotional weU-being of women and the birth of healthy babies are at stake here. KINESIS November 90 NEWS Employment equity To strengthen a feeble act by Hannah Hadikan The federal government's passage of the Employment Equity Act (EEA) in 1986 should have signified a major step towards providing for equal employment opportunities for members of the four groups designated under the act\u2014women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabiUties and people of colour (see box). At a recent National Employment Equity Network (NEEN) conference, it was made abundantly clear the EEA has faUed to de- Uver any significant changes in any of these areas, for any of these groups. NEEN brings together non-governmental groups representing the four target populations. Their conference, \"Redressing the Balance: Achieving Equality in Employment in the 1990s\" was held in Ottawa in late September. [employment equity] can only be achieved through...mandatory targets and timetables (NEEN, which the government regularly consults with on employment equity matters, was informed the night before the conference began that a grant, verbaUy promised by the Secretary of State, was turned down.) Employers' reports, submitted annuaUy under the EEA, show that women continue to be compressed in low-paying positions with poor representation in management, professions, skUled trades and technology areas. While a few opportunities may have opened up for weU-educated middle-class women, the economic situation has not improved for the majority. Women of colour, Native women and disabled women face double-bind discrimination, remaining among the lowest paid. The delegates to the NEEN Conference were of the unanimous opinion that successful implementation of the EEA can only be achieved through a process of mandatory targets and timetables, an enforcement system with sanctions for non-compUance, and an effective monitoring program\u2014features which are conspicuously absent from the existing act. The conference looked at studies of American affirmative action programs\u2014 considered much tougher than the EEA\u2014 which showed that the threat of fines for faUing to reach hiring quotas within set timetables resulted in employment gains for people of colour. When it is mandatory for employers to meet clear numerical objectives (i.e. affirmative action), they are more Ukely to invest the necessary resources to affect the fundamental changes required to achieve employment equity. There was general agreement at the conference that employment equity should not, however, be narrowly defined as simply conforming to government regulations. With racism and sexism deeply rooted in the workplace, making systemic discrimination visible and then changing attitudes are critical steps. Barriers are different for members of the designated groups, and deUber- ate measures must be taken to overcome the effect of decades of discriminatory employment practices. The conference also passed a resolution calling upon the EEA to require that employers Ust their employment practices including: recruitment; determination of job qualifications; hiring and selection criteria; training programs; transfer and promotion; hours of work and schedules; compensation; workplace design and physical access; organization of work; technology and processes; impact of seniority provisions; provision of chUdcare services; provision of ESL\/FSL courses; and provision for leaves of absence. It is evident that employers have a long way to go towards providing adequate access and accommodation for women with different needs, including flextime, work- sharing, chUdcare facUities and educational assistance. Job training and re-training are essential to women re-entering the labour market after years of homemaking and chUd-rearing. In addition to learning new skiUs required to keep pace with technological growth, women often deal with the \"culture shock\" of entering mde-dominated Don't be shy At Kinesis, we know that writing is a brave act, especially if you've never been published before. We offer support and advice to women who want to write \u2014 reviews, interviews, features, news fields, complete with the sexist stereotyping, language and practices often found there. Employment equity cannot simply mean treating all employees equaUy\u2014i.e. the white male, able-bodied standard\u2014but rather adapting to our various needs and cultures. timetables can ensure the proper implementation of employment equity. To this end, NEEN is calling for the establishment of an independent Employment Equity Commission with adequate resources to enforce an amended act. (At present, the Canadian Human Rights Commission administers the It is the absence of these necessary initiatives that prevents many women from gainful employment. Mary CoUins, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, went on record in early October as being against setting quotas and timetables in order to achieve employment equity. The EEA is up for review in 1991. In 1988, EEA reporting revealed that aU designated groups had made minuscule gains in rates of employment and pay since the bUl was introduced. Contrary to CoUins' views, NEEN conference participants strongly supported a resolution that only mandatory targets and EEA.) In addition to its enforcement function, the Commission must have an educational and consultative arm. It was also resolved that the EEA be expanded to cover aU federal departments and agencies, aU crown corporations, aU corporations covered by federal labour laws, and aU agencies and corporations with more than 15 employees and having contracts with or grants from the federal government in excess of $50,000. Women artists discuss their \\ and ideas in this beautiful thought-provoking publicat vork nd \\ Yb\\iK\\ XiviVis B Subscribe! 4 Issues a year-$24 Gallerie Publications ox 2901 Panorama Dri North Vancouver. B.C. Canada V7G 2A4 - \" KINESIS EEA- In a nutshell The Employment Equity Act was proclaimed in Parliament in August 1986. The legislation requires aU federally-regulated employers with 100 or more employees to implement employment equity plans and programs and to report annually on their results. The purpose of the legislation is to achieve a representative work force, so that no person is denied employment opportunities or benefits for reason unrelated to abU- ity, and to correct disadvantages in employment opportunities experienced by women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabiUties and people of colour. The legislation affects almost 400 employers, primarily in banking, transportation and communication. This year, 374 employers submitted reports for the calendar year 1988, on over 600,000 Canadian employees. November 90 SSSSSS\/\/SSSS\/SS\/S\/SS\/SSS\/S\/\/\/\/S\/S\/\/SS\/S\/\/SS\/\/\/SSSSSSSSS\/SS\/SS\/SSSSS\/SSSSS\/SSSS\/S\/S\/\/S\/S\/S\/S\/SS\/\/S. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^ Commentary New Age thinking A new weapon of patriarchy by Rae Gabriel In this article, I intend to critique certain fundamental beliefs of the \"New Age movement\" that I feel are a contradiction to feminist beliefs and values. It is not, however, my intention to invalidate the personal integrity and uniqueness of an individual woman's beliefs or to suggest that I am in anyway an authority on the subject of spiritual growth. My understanding of New Age ideology and its detrimental effect on women's Uves comes from several sources. My own involvement includes extensive reading of New Age texts, a personal affiUation with individuals and organizations such as est and The Pursuit of ExceUence, and experience's with women with whom I have worked. There were two things that originaUy attracted me to the human potential or New Age movement: the promise of a way to gain more power over my personal Ufe, and an attempt to have my spiritual needs met. From the very beginning, my contact with New Age groups resulted in a great deal of ambiguity. While the groups offered me a means of exploring my spirituality, they also promoted many ideas that were in direct opposition to my feminist beUefs. The result of this was incredible internal conflict. Although I would read books and attend lectures and selectively edit out what I found objectionable, I found it was unsafe to voice feminist concerns. After several attempts at chaUenging sexist attitudes, and being told I obviously didn't understand, I began to sit in sUence. Large groups of people who hold simUar beUefs can be extremely intimidating to anyone who challenges those beUefs. I found myself sitting in sUence as a woman seminar leader Ulustrated how women who are raped walk\u2014it's aU in how you swing your arms. I was witness to a 3-month infant being rolfed (a kind of massage). As the infant screamed in pain the male psychologist informed the mother it was her fault her baby had to suffer, that this was the only way the baby could be free of the mother's negative energy. When I attempted to intercede I was told I didn't understand and was forced to leave. (When I caUed the Ministry of Human Resources and reported what I had witnessed, ...a women who is being battered is encouraged to accept that she... is 100% responsible [for the abuse] I was told no mother would stand by and watch her baby be hurt.) In an est seminar I heard a young woman say: \"I now accept that I was fuUy responsible for the fact that my father raped me at the age of three. I realize that I seduced him.\" Through the proliferation of books, workshops, seminars and a variety of non- traditional therapies, New Age beUefs are becoming generally acceptable to society at large. I want to draw attention to the dangers inherent in New Age ideology and hopefuUy mobUize other women who may share some of my concerns in openly challenging this behef system. I would also Uke to increase the awareness of women who work in organizations that support women. Like myself, those workers are probably deaUng with women who\u2014 besides being raped, or battered, or sexuaUy abused as a chUd\u2014are being further victimized by New Age ideas that they encounter through friends, books, groups or seminars. Buzz Words = Blame Words The catch words or phrases of the New Age movement include: Create\u2014as in you create your own reality; Responsibility\u2014as in you are 100 percent responsible for everything; Chose\u2014as in you chose your par- the abuser to herself. The language is different, the spiritual trappings are different but the message is the same and the result is the same\u2014the woman is further victimized. The idea of \"creating one's reality\" includes the yuppie in KitsUano and single mom on welfare in a downtown hotel. It includes the miUions of Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps and the chUdren dying of starvation throughout the world. It includes the women who Uve in a misogynist, patriarchal society where they are raped and beaten. Everyone has created their own reality and is therefore totaUy responsible for whatever they have experienced. ents, your sex, and the Ufe experiences you have had; There just is\u2014as in there is no good or evU, there just is; Negativity\u2014as in negative emotions, negative energy, negative thoughts. Therefore, whether it is an abusive relationship, the death of a chUd, or a Ufe threatening disease, you created it, you are 100 percent responsible for it because you choose it and it isn't good or bad anyway. So let's not blame anyone because that's negative and wUl only create more negativity in your Ufe. Consider the impUcations of this beUef system on a battered woman. From a New Age perspective a women who is being battered is encouraged to accept that she, and she alone, is 100 percent responsible for being in the abusive relationship. It is her negative beUef system that created the abuser and if she changes her beUefs the abuse wUl cease. Further, she would not have created the abuse if there wasn't something she needed to learn from it. The abuse is, in fact, part of her spiritual growth. So instead of looking at the man's behaviour in terms of the pain he is causing, or how he is degrading, humUiating and abusing her, she views it as an opportunity. Now, that opportunity may be to \"work out\" some abuse she had inflicted on someone in a past Ufe (e.g. she was a man in a past Ufe who beat women and now must experience that pain); or it may be a lesson that her soul decided she needed to learn prior to entering this Ufe (don't ask why, the soul knows and that is all that is important); or she needs to understand that men do what they do to women because women want them to. In actuality, what this thinking does is what society has been doing for centuries: blame the woman for abuse. It says the abuse is for her own good. It shifts her attention from the inappropriate behaviour of Although there is a great deal of emphasis on responsibiUty, the New Age beUef system actuaUy absolves the individual of any moral, social or poUtical responsibU- ity. Although New Age practitioners preach awareness, the injustice and inequaUty that exists in society need not be questioned. Although \"reaUty\" is talked about, the reaUty of our Uves is denied. New Age thinking says there is no good or evU, there just is. This beUef is based on the idea that your reaction to an event determines your experience, not the event it- seH. Hence, a woman's reaction to rape determines whether it is terrifying or degrading or pleasant. She created it because it was a lesson she needed to learn, so how can she possibly blame the rapist who isn't good or bad, but just is? Negative feehngs are shunned by these spiritual eUtists. Anger, fear, resentment and criticism are viewed as forms of blaming others and not taking responsibiUty for one's own Ufe. For example, anger attracts more anger, fear attracts the thing you fear. So if a woman is angry because her husband did not let her know he would be late for dinner, then it is her fault if he gets angry and hits her. If a woman fears being raped, then it is her fear that creates the rape. \"Forgiveness\" is also highly promoted. The Course of Miracles says one must be wUUng to forgive, to understand that the other person is also in pain, that they were doing the best they could. The impact of this type of thinking on women's Uves is frightening. If we beUeve we create our reaUty, we begin to view the individuals who enter our Uves as agents of our destiny, thus leaving ourselves open to aU forms of abuse. The sad truth is that women are attracted to New Age ideology because of its promise of personal power and spiritual fulfillment. However, instead of gaining personal power, women are left even more vulnerable. If a woman is not in touch wjth her anger or fear, how can she recognize danger and protect herself. If she beUeves she is responsible for being raped by her father, how can she begin the necessary healing which involves placing the blame on her father, getting angry, reexperiencing the pain, and expressing the resentments for what it has done to her Ufe. To embrace an ideology that views rapists, batterers, and chUd molesters as agents of spiritual development and deserving of our unquestioning compassion and forgiveness is the ultimate insanity. To allow those beUefs to go unchallenged is to leave women open and vulnerable to further abuse and exploitation. Interestingly, the founders or heads of New Age organizations are exclusively men: Werner Ehrhardt (est}; Randy Love (The Pursuit of ExceUence); Lenord Orr (Re- birthing); Justin SterUng (Men Sex and Power, Women Sex and Power). This is not to say that women are absent from the arena. There is Shakti Gawain, Louise L. Hay and of course Shirley MacLaine. But you can trace just about everything they say back to one of these male gurus or a male entity \"channeled\" from the spirit world. New Age ideas and values are consistent with right-wing poUtical values, taking the idea of individual responsibiUty to the point of absurdity. Victims, the oppressed and the poor are blamed for abuse, oppression, poverty, inequaUty and injustice. New Age ideology is simply right-wing, patriarchal values packaged in spiritual saran wrap. The blame is there, the misogyny is there, the oppression is there. Maybe too many women don't see this because it is so obvious. If we do not challenge the beUef that there are no victims or victimizers, that good and evil do not exist, that a woman is responsible for whatever happens to her, then we tacitly condone the continued oppression of women. We betray the women who have dedicated their Uves to fighting the injustice of a misogynist patriarchal culture, a culture that has aUowed rape, battering and incest. New Age ideology is a new weapon of patriarchy, and this is a caU to battle. KINESIS November 90 NEWS by Millie Strom GaU Beck's ceUular phone never leaves her side. Beck is not an executive waiting for a business caU, but a mother awaiting a call from the daughter she surrendered to adoption 22 years ago. This year, on her daughter's birthday, Beck ran ads in Toronto area newspapers in the hope that, at last, she wUl find her. Her search is eight years old\u2014a search of pouring through micro-fiche files of old newspapers and directories; calls to the Ontario Ministry Adoption Unit; contacting editors for exposure; and foUowing leads, no matter how smaU. Beck is frustrated that, when placing classifieds, some publications do not permit printing her chUd's full birth name and, in some cases, wUl not print it at aU. Beck wonders about her daughter: \"Does she feel rejected\u2014is she angry at me? Is she weU? Is she aUve?\" These are some of the questions that torment birth mothers such as GaU Beck over the years. Contrary to what birth mothers were told by the professionals who arranged their adoptions, they do not forget their chUdren. A glance in most daily newspapers at Adoption Opening records, opening lives the Information Wanted and People Finders classifieds wUl find two to five ads in many editions, placed by birth mothers and adoptees searching for each other. Once sUent, birth parents, adoptees, as weU as some adoptive parents, are challenging Canada's policies which keep adoption information secret from the parties involved. But records were not always closed, and some countries never closed their records: Finland, HoUand, Israel and Scotland. Be fore closure in New Zealand, the adoptee's legal name was hyphenated with the birth mother's last name. Other countries, one after the other, are unlocking their sealed records\u2014a move away from secrecy and denial. England (1975), New Zealand (1985), most states of AustraUa (1985-1990) including New South Wales, and the state of HawaU (1990), have passed legislation that aUows access to adoption information by adoptees and birth parents when the adoptee reaches the age of majority. The laws also provide that a veto may be placed if one party does not wish to be contacted. Closure of records came about during the 40s and 50s. The \"complete break theory\" (influenced by the Freudian psychody- namic theory of personahty) claimed that chUdren need to be completely severed from their original family in order to integrate the chUd into the new family. According to the authors of The Adoption Triangle, closure was simply to prevent intrusion by uninvolved persons such as reporters and unscrupulous relatives; sealing the records would provide a safeguard for adoptive famiUes. Adoptees who searched were viewed as renegades, disloyal to their family IronicaUy, this secrecy thwarted research on the effects of adoption on the birth mother and adoptee. And, adoptees who searched were viewed as renegades, disloyal to their family. Adoptive parents felt they had faded. Jean Paton, an adoptee and social worker, was the first person to speak out on the secrecy of adoption. She heads a Colorado-based organization called Orphan Canadian Magazine Publishers Association iMffiZfiKS Now, 230 publications to choose from! Magaz \u25a0 1990Canadi e Publishers one source that describes 230 of the latest and best Canadian magazines. There's an incredibly wide variety ot topics, points of view and special interests. he They're all you Fill in the attached cou| today and for just %^ (to cover postage and handling), we'll send y< Voyage. She is now 80 years old; 46 years ago she walked into court offices in Detroit to see her adoption file. A few years later, she returned for more detaUs in order to search for her birth mother\u2014but the records had been closed. Paton asserts: \"An adopted person should be left to their own wisdom as to what to do with the information. Denying adoptees access to information keeps them as adopted chUdren, never attaining adult status in the eyes of society.\" The other concern is the assumption that birth mothers insisted on confidentiahty. Betty Jean Lifton, adoptee, social worker and author of Lost and Found claims: \"The birth mother's need for confidentiahty is a myth; they were given no choice about the issue of confidentiaUty.\" Lifton found that lobby groups against access to information were adoptive parents and conservative adoption agencies. She says: \"Adoptive parents are more afraid of losing their chUdren than birth mothers are afraid of being found.\" Mary Iwaneck, internationally renowned expert on adoption information, was commissioned to report to the Social Committee on Social Issues in New South Wales, AustraUa. Her research shows only 4 to 5 percent of birth mothers wish no contact. Furthermore, in New Zealand, many birth mothers who placed vetoes were wUling to have contact when reassured that the adoptee was not seeking retaliation. The Adoption Triangle, published in 1978, was one of the first studies on birth mothers. The authors conclude that information and contact is a humane and effective way of reUeving emotional stress, a result of the loss. Current poUcies do not guarantee parties absolute anonymity, anyway. Determined birth parents and adoptees have been reuniting for decades. Canada presently has provincial registries where parties can register for contact. Most are passive registries (parties register and wait for a match). Ontario and Quebec have active registries (the province wUl search on behalf of the adoptee). UntU 1988 Ontario required that adult adoptees must have their adoptive parents consent to register. However, the registries are ineffective: they are not advertised, and under-staffed, and deceased relatives (obviously) cannot register. These factors result in a very low rate of matches and a long wait\u2014one to eight years depending on the province. Activists for adoption reform see education as the key to overcoming the myths and ignorance surrounding adoption. New Zealand's access to adoption information law was enacted in 1985 after a nine year process. Since then over 8,000 reunions have occurred. Only ten percent of these resulted in rejection by one party, and half of those ten percent found acceptance after a \"The birth mother's need for confidentiality is a myth; they were given no choice...\" year or so. Fifty percent have ongoing relationships, whUe 30 percent were satisfiedl with information and Uttle contact. During the nine years, the public, professionals and elected representatives were educated on adoption issues. Extensive media coverage of the issue helped diminish the secrecy around adoption. By the time the bill became law, 95 percent of birth parents and adoptees and 50 percent of adoptive parents agreed with access to information. The most reluctant party in the adoption triangle to endorse access to information\u2014 the adoptive parents\u2014can be reassured with the results of reunion: they do not lose their chUdren. Iwaneck cites evidence that: \"The quality of the relationship between adoptive parents and their adult chUdren is enhanced through reunions. Alienation occur and appears to be in situations where adoptive parents have not accepted the loss of their infertUity.\" Trudy Denton of the Adoptive Parents Association of BC finds that \"when adoptive parents are used to a closed system, some would feel an insecurity [about access].\" Although APA's membership, in a poU five years ago, preferred a passive registry (such as in BC), \"now they lean towards more openness,\" says Denton. The new laws in New Zealand accelerated a greater change in openness regarding adoption. Adoptions are now often done an open basis. The birth mother selects the parents and together they determine the degree of contact. Single women and lesbians can adopt, but the present laws prohibit gay men. But New Zealand, in fact, has a very low rate of adoption due in part to the support offered by the state to the mother for six years (through the Domestic Services Benefit, the same grant aUowed for widows with chUdren) and the provision of ample day care. Birth mother Beck, cellular phone in hand, expressed her emotions at a recent Missing Pieces Thru Adoption support group meeting in Surrey, BC. Her eight year search means time away from her two younger chUdren\u2014something she feels angry about. She questions the sealed records poUcy: \"My daughter is an adult now. What is my crime? Even a convicted murderer has access to his famUy.\" Birth mothers may have surrendered their parental rights\u2014but they never gave up the love for their chUdren. ^ 10 l\\INESIS November 90 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/S\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/SS\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/S\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ International Nicaragua Going from bad to worse by Sandra Ramos translated by Cyndi Mellon In 1987, women in the Sandinista Workers' Federation (CST), the largest trade union federation in Nicaragua, organized the Women's Secretariat to address the problems they faced as female workers. Since that time, women have achieved the incorporation of Women's Secretariats at the local and regional levels and on the national trade union executive boards of the CST. Sandra Ramos, director of the CST's Women's Secretariat, toured BC in October, a guest of the Trade Union Group. Since the February electoral defeat of the Sandinista government, the new rulers of Nicaragua (UNO) have embarked on the wholesale dismantling of the labour code, the privatization of industry, government services and agriculture, and the elimination of student grants and community health services. On September 15, Ramos gave a workshop where she specifically addressed the concerns of Nicaraguan women. The following is a transcript of the talk, prepared by Lorri Rudland. The revolution worked hard to create an open space for women, but the [union] participation of women can be dated back to the struggle against Somoza. Before the revolution, there were only seven unions. Before the revolution, no one had the experience of having women trade unionists. Many working women are single parent mothers with five to seven chUdren. They face the problem of the double workday, paternal irresponsibiUty and finding chUd- caie. Our union leaders put very Uttle energy into solving these problems so in 1987 \u2014due to the pressure of women\u2014our federation formed a women's secretariat. From that point we have fought to make the incorporation of women into the union movement part of the work of the union movement. But the pressures are so great in the industries [where women work]\u2014textUes, footwear, food packing, pharmaceuticals, meat packing and plastics. There are very few women in industry doing non- traditional work. The economic situation is now hitting women especiaUy hard because these sectors are very vulnerable. The National Opposition Union [the governing coaUtion\u2014UNO] talks about 15,000 workers losing jobs\u2014half are women. There are stiU many sexist arguments used to keep women out of non-traditional work. For example, because women make clothes at home, they can sew garments; because women do the cooking, they can work at food packing. In times of economic recession therefore, women can be laid off first. Business says they'll keep the most experienced and best trained. Women usuaUy have the least training and the least education. They say things Uke, \"we're always late,\" because we can't find chUdcare, or we had to go to the gynecologist or take the kids to the doctor. Men have been the most privUeged in our society. Boys get to go to school, girls have to learn to cook to help their husbands. Women have to be secretaries, nurses, teachers. If they aspire to a different job, they'U become mascuUne because those jobs are not feminine. There is a lack of sex education and famUy planning. Lots of young girls get pregnant, and as young single parent mothers have to find work. Young girls have only one year of high school when they enter the labour market, and they become stuck at that level. Not that we don't want to advance or that we can't. We want to and we can, but no one helps us to overcome these obstacles. Add to that a woman being a union leader, and that's a lot of work. Men say we don't get trained because we don't want to, or we don't do leadership in the union because we don't want to. But what have they done to create opportunities? According to UNO, women have no business organizing\u2014that destroys the family unit. They also want to take away sex education in school. They say we need to teach Civics and Morals, the same program we had under Somoza [the deposed dictator of Nicaragua]. It was obUgatory then. The government is now starting a campaign against abortion on television, based on reUgion, saying abortion is a mortal sin, that it is murder. The statistics say that the highest number of deaths of women in Nicaragua are from botched abortions, because all abortions are Ulegal in Nicaragua. And there are currently no contraceptives avaUable\u2014 the official form of birth control is stiU the rhythm method. At privately-owned pharmacies, condoms are beginning to appear. STD's are a serious problem^ Before, there were health centres where women could go. Before, I could go the minister of health and say, we need a doctor because we have a seribus health problem. And we would get one, because we had an affiance. We could find some one to Usten to us. But now we get nothing. UNO has no interest in programs for women nor are they interested in women's emancipation. They are opposed to it. Before the February election, President Chamorro said she would put programs into place to get women back into the home with their husbands. But women say, \"Where are these men? I'm alone with five chUdren.\" At a plywood factory which is at the top of the Ust for privatization, women are supporting the struggle against privatization because they know the old owner wUl come back and they'U be fired. We are not talking about advancing women's struggle, we are trying to maintain the gains we won in 10 years of revolution. The health of our chUdren is a serious issue. There has been an increase in infant mortality since the UNO victory. This year more than 130,000 chUdren have died. They are dying of diseases we worked hard to control: poUo, measles, infant viruses, diarrhoea, hunger and malnutrition. At this moment, measles is at an epidemic level. ChUdren are dying, adults too are dying of it. There has been an increase in infant mortality since the UNO victory In May this year, a textUe worker earned a salary of 1M cordobas a week. This equals one doUar. So she is earning $4 per month. Salaries are $20 to $50 per month. State- workers have the best salary now, but even that is not enough to Uve on. It costs $17(1 per month for the basic necessities. There have been 35 devaluations since AprU 25th. Prices change every day. There are people who eat once a day and some people who don't eat at aU. The only women who are weU off are the President and the ones who have money. AU we have as workers is the power of our labour. H that is badly paid, what do we do? For more information about the Women's Secretariat, contact the Trade Union Group at 1672 E. 10th Ave., Vancouver, BC V5N 1X5 (Tel: 872- 3092) Nuclear dumping ground next? The following is an excerpt from the talk Sandra Ramos gave on Sept. 14 at Vancouver's Maritime Centre. Transcribed by Megan Ardyche. It's so difficult for working people, for unemployed people, for women who are home- makers, and for men who assume responsibiUty in their homes. In the last quarter of 1988, the average inflation rate was 97 percent a month. In the last part of 1989, it went down to 16 percent. So you can see how much it fluctuates. With the electoral defeat in February 1990\u2014in the second quarter of this year\u2014the inflation was back up to 81 percent. This government has devalued our money 35 times. Thirty-five devaluations in four months of government. Two devaluations a week. Our government has coUapsed... You know what they [the US] want to do with us now? Turn us into their garbage dump\u2014a nuclear waste dumping ground. There are plans to bring nuclear waste to the Atlantic coast of our country. That's what they want to turn Central America into. We've got an example. The Americans invaded Panama; they massacred people, and they destroyed the country. And there's the Panamanian president begging the United States to give it 4 cents to keep their government going. So with those kinds of examples, what is this UNO government going to do? They're not going to invest their capital in Central America. Their strategy is to convert us into a dump, for the gringo and who else, who knows? KINESIS November 90 ore Than Sexisf. The use of sex selection\u2014and other reproductive technologies\u2014reveals much more than sexism. Issues of race and class are also front and centre. by Sunera Thobani On the 17th of August, 1990, an advertisement appeared in The Link promoting the use of an ultrasound scanning technique to determine the sex of a fetus as early as 12 weeks into a pregnancy. The Link is an Indo-Canadian community newspaper based in Vancouver, and the advertisement was placed by a doctor from California, Dr. John D. Stephens. Stephens is based in San Jose and operates four chnics, one of which\u2014Koala Labs\u2014is located in Blaine, Washington. Blaine is within easy driving distance of Vancouver. The fee charged for this patented scanning technique is $500 US. Stephens claims 100 percent accuracy in his determination of the sex of the fetus, an assertion that has been challenged by other doctors who conduct ultrasound tests. In an advertisement written in Punjabi and maUed to gynecologists and members of the Indo-Canadian community in British Columbia, Stephens offers a free video recording of the ultrasound to prospective cUents. The Vancouver Sun reported in September that 10,000 Indo-Canadians were being targeted by Stephens in a direct maU campaign. An article also appeared in Kinesis which mentioned this doctor's targeting of Indo-Canadian women (October 1990: \"Sex selection: the ultimate sexist act\"). A number of issues are raised by this incident and the manner in which it has been reported. Let us begin by looking at the larger issues involved here. Sex selection techniques are part of the package of reproductive technologies, and can only be fully understood within the context of this totality. Ultrasound, the technique this particular doctor is promoting, is also used as part of the in-vitro fertiUzation process, for detecting ectopic pregnancies, fetal deformations, etc. So not only are reproductive technologies being developed as spin-offs from each other, they are also intrinsicaUy related in that they extend control over women's reproductive abiUties by the scientific and medical community. Reproductive technologies are being presented as being an issue of a woman's right to choice, the choice that wUl make it possible for women to design and plan the making of their famiUes, of their chUdren. In reality, these technologies have very Uttle to do with women's choice. The technologies have to be understood within the context of the power relations of our world today and, coUectively, women have very Uttle power in this world. Certain groups of women, depending on their race and class, do have relatively more power than other groups of women. Reproductive technologies target all women, although specific groups of women are being targeted with specific techniques which reflect these divisions of race and class among women. Techniques such as in-vitro fertiUzation and surrogacy, example, are directed towards white, middle and upper class women. With surrogacy costing about $30,000 US only a particular group of women have access to it. These women have gone out and hired \"surrogate mothers\" to bear chUdren who are contractuaUy turned over to them upon birth. The Baby M case is a tragic example of the consequences for the women who are so hired (see Kinesis September 1990, pg. 8). The \"surrogate mothers\" who are hired are working class and poor women. With the development of gestational surrogacy, we wUl increasingly see women of colour being drawn into surrogacy. These tests are often used to detect disabiUties in the fetus. In the age of \"designer babies,\" the characteristics of every group of peoples who are devalued in our world today are deemed undesirable and sufficient cause for extermination. Bhooma Bhayana, a physician, says she was \"never taught that being female was a genetic Ulness.\" We are being taught that now: being born female is to be devalued in every community in Canadian society today. With regard to femicide, consider the foUowing: \u2022 Caucasians in North America are said to have \"a preference that the first-born chUd be male,\" according to recent report of the Vanier Institute of the FamUy in Ottawa. \u2022 In Britain, a \"made to order\" male infant was born in August, 1986. When reported in the Daily Express, a doctor claimed his chnic was \"swamped\" with similar requests for boys. The issue of reproductive technologies has the potential to force the white feminist movement to challenge its own privilege... Gestational surrogacy makes it possible for a woman's egg to be extracted from her body, then fertilized by sperm and implanted into the womb of a \"surrogate mother.\" This \"surrogate mother\" has no genetic relation to the embryo. If the egg and sperm donors are both white, the \"surrogate mother\" can potentiaUy be a woman of colour without the embryo also being ge- neticaUy of mixed race. The experience of Anna Johnson, a Black women in CaUfor- nia who recently lost the first round of a custody battle for the baby she gave birth to in this arrangement, is a sign of the kind of exploitation women of colour wUl increasingly face. On the other hand, sex selection, in the Stephens case, is targeting Indo-Canadian women. Techniques that determine the sex of the fetus have been the prelude to the practice of femicide\u2014the aborting of female fetuses on the basis of their sex. Yet we know that it is not only Indo-Canadian women who undergo the use of these techniques. \u2022 The use of abortion for sex selection in Pennsylvania has been banned in a bid that went into effect in January, 1990. \u2022 In Denmark, a woman demanded an abortion when she discovered the fetus she was carrying was female. As abortions are avaUable on demand in Denmark untU 12 weeks, doctors presently cannot disclose the sex of the fetus untU after 12 weeks. \u2022 A doctor who has sex selection chnics in 46 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Latin America stated that of 263 couples who had approached him, 248 selected to have boys. Clearly it is not only women of Indian origins and their use of sex selection who are provoking this kind of response aU over the world. Yet whUe these practices occur in the mainstream white community too, the myth being created is that only Third World communities\u2014the Indian community in this case\u2014practice femicide. Furthermore, femicide by selective abortion is now presented as part of our \"culture.\" We don't know how widespread the use of sex selection techniques is in the Indo- Canadian community in British Columbia. What we do know is that promoting them in this manner only serves to increase the extent to which they are being used. We don't know how widespread the use of these techniques is in other communities in Canadian society either. What we do know is that it happens at a scale that makes possible the analysis such as that of the Vanier Institute. What the advertisement in The Link has done is revive a racist stereotype of Indian culture, a stereotype that has time and time again stated that such crimes against women are an inherent feature of our culture. Stephens was quoted in the Vancouver Sun as saying: \"Why should I cut my financial throat? Why should I have to go out on my own to change their cultural attitudes?\" Since colonial times, peoples of colour and our cultures have been under attack. The racist stereotyping of our cultures mystifies the actual power relations in the world by blaming everything upon the \"backwardness\" of these cultures. Here we have a doctor who is making money by targeting our community with technologies that we have had no hand in fashioning and over which we have no control, and who then justifies himself by blaming us for the very practices which exploit and devalue us further. Of course women are oppressed and exploited in the Indian community. But in which society today are women not exploited, oppressed and devalued? I am not condoning this exploitation of women. What I am interested in is challenging the racist underpinnings of both the advertisement and the articles written about it. The Indo-Canadian community is not a monoUth with identical attitudes and practices. If there are people in our communities who defend such practices, there are many who are outraged and determined to stop it. Again and again, we are quoted the statistics of this practice in India. Rarely do we hear of the women's movement in India and the mihtant activism around this issue. Again and again we hear of the backwardness of our culture which is to be blamed for women's exploitation in our community. Rarely do we heax how patriarchal relations within the Indo-Canadian community are transformed and strengthened through the workings of the Canadian patriarchal and racist state and economy. Reproductive technologies are directed at aU women. They serve to increase the control by the racist, patriarchal scientific and medical communities over women's reproductive abiUties. The control of women's reproductive abihty and sexuaUty, the control of women's bodies, is a cornerstone of patriarchal power. We are seeing the extension of this patriarchal control over women's bodies through the development of the technology. As women of colour, we have learnt lessons from our history. We recognize that this is not an issue of a woman's right to choice. We have cleaned white women's houses, we have sexuaUy served their white husbands. We have wiped their babies' bottoms and we have cleaned their toilets. With the development of the reproductive technology that allows gestational surrogacy, we will also be made to carry their chUdren whUe they are busy with their professions and careers and writing books and articles about us. It is no wonder then, that the discussion of this particular technology continues to focus on our culture only. Understanding the full consequences of reproductive technologies is an urgent matter. For women of colour, it is an issue of Ufe and death. These technologies make possible the realization of the goals of the eugenics movement, the technologicaUy engineered reproduction of a \"superior\" race of people. We know that this \"superior race\" wUl be defined by the dominant values of a racist, patriarchal, imperiaUst society. The Nazis taught the world what this would mean in human terms. What is truly alarming is that these technologies are already avaUable in the marketplace of scientifically- controlled human reproduction. The issue of reproductive technologies has the potential to force the white feminist movement to challenge its own privileges: to identify the potential threat to aU women as weU as to recognize their complicity in the continued exploitation of women of colour. For women of colour, the threat of racist and sexist extermination is real. Thus we recognize the potential threat these technologies present toward aU women. We also see how we are being used against each other yet again, both by the racist blaming of our cultures for this crime against women, and also by being made to bear the brunt of the oppression and exploitation that can privUege white and middle- class women. These women can continue to present this as an issue of woman's choice. To persist in defining the problem of reproductive technologies as being specific to certain races and cultural groups wUl only demonstrate the white feminist movement's compUcity with the hierarchy of power relations. Reproductive technologies are recreating the divisions that already exist among women along the Unes of race and class. It is crucial to recognize this and to act upon this recognition. Indo-Canadian women have taken up the fight against Stephens; we are stiU waiting for other groups of women to take up this fight with us. We put pressure on The Link whose editor withdrew the ad and stated he wUl not reprint it. The ads also appeared in stores that serve the Indo-Canadian community. Women have approached owners of some stores and asked that these ads be removed. Indradhanush, a local community television program, presented a discussion of this incident and some of the larger issues involved. We are also in the process of preparing a brief for the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. Our brief wUl contain specific recommendations regarding sex selection techniques. Much remains to be done by feminists everywhere. In the case of this doctor, he is based in California and operates out of Washington. Women's organizations there can take up this issue and bring pressure from their communities on Stephens. However, women's organizations wiU only take up this fight if and when they realize this is their issue too. 12 l<|NESIS November 90 KINESIS November 90 Arts From Cuba: Stark visuals, subversive art by Sandra Gillespie Prohibition, eroticism, traditions, taboos, stereotypes and contradictions. These were the key issues dealt with by visiting Cuban artist Magdalena Campos in her September talk at the Video In. Working with a translator, Campos provided the audience with a shde and video presentation of her work from art school graduation in 1985 to the present. Although Campos' media varied greatly in this period to include painting, installation and performance, her subject matter remained consistent\u2014the exploration of eroticism within the specific conjuncture of African, European and Latin American civffizations known to the world as Cuban culture. Campos describes what she terms a \"permanent contradiction\" between the stereotype of Cuban culture as overtly sexual and erotic, and the actual experience of growing up in a society characterized by the strong traditions and strict taboos inherent in a mixture of Spanish CathoUcism and African culture. It is not surprising then that some of her earliest work deals with the Christian bible as an historical text and attempts to re-interpret bibUcal icons, such as the apple, as symbols of transgression. Campos takes up pre-European contact mythology, legends and folk stories in a similar fashion. She dismantles each and uses their distinctive vocabularies to offer an alternative, subversive reading of eroticism and seduction in both a figurative and abstract mode. L A Stroll Down Demo Lane The Heidi Chronicles is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony award-winning play coming to the Vancouver Playhouse. The central character is feminist art curator Heidi Holland, whose sense of self is buffeted by a cast of friends and lovers during the political\u2014and personal\u2014tumult of the 60s-80s in the United States. The play is written by New Yorker Wendy Wasserstein and directed by Svetlana Zylin, a UBC graduate who began her career in Vancouver and now is the artistic director at Playwrights' Workshop in Montreal. Marilyn Norry stars as Heidi. The Heidi Chronicles has been called powerful and humourous, and the Vancouver Playhouse production runs November 20 to December 15, with a Seniors' Matinee on Wednesday, December 5 at 2:30 p.m. A related series, for example, examines the numerous indigenous proverbs, songs and phrases that sexuaUze food in general and fruit in particular. In one work, Campos ironicaUy reveals what is not-so-subtly hidden in the songs by presenting a papaya (traditionaUy referred to as a woman's sex) not in a basket or on a windowsUl, but lying large, ripe and open on a pUlow. In 1986 Campos directed her attention to discussions of sexuaUty as manipulative of women. She makes the personal poUtical through large-scale imagery of internal female anatomy. Her acryUc on wood representation of vaginas, fallopian tubes and uteri explores the shifting boundaries between the private and public, making it an issue through cool, factual rendering and heroic size. This subversion of mainstream images continued in the works shown in her 1989 Havana exhibit, \"Island.\" The show itself is an investigation of a series of problems that stem from Cuba's geographical location and its socio-poUtical history, both pre- and post-revolutionary. Works such as \"Black Cedar, White Cedar, Dangerous Species\" and \"Options for the Myth\" not only reveal the difficulty of obtaining artist's materials in Cuba (the first work is made solely of wood) and the challenges that presents, but also the omnipresence of racism and homophobia. According to law and the Marxist ideology on which modern Cuban society is founded, aU individuals have equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. In practice, however, the situation is much different and Campos incisively shows the tensions by means of stark visuals and provocative assemblage. In these later pieces and in a 1988 performance video, \"Rites of Initiation,\" Campos concentrates on spiritual legends and popular reUgious rituals as a means of alternative re-imaging and re-valuing of the female body\u2014specificaUy the Black female body. Campos provided a wider positioning of this work two days later when she gave another presentation at the Video In, this time on contemporary Cuban woman artists. In aU of Cuba there are only five weU- known women artists (Campos herself was the only female in an art school class of 35) despite the fact that, since the revolution, doors to non- traditional employment for women have officiaUy been opened. Of the women artists she was discussing Campos was quick to point out that, whUe they were producers of art, this did not necessarUy imply that women's issues were the subject matter of their work. In fact, their concerns ranged from an exploration of the physical presence of objects per se, to a semiotic examination of the language of art, to an investigation of rural myths about pregnant women. The overaU effect of Campos' presentation on the predominantly Canadian audience was to make it clear that Cuban women's art-making is complex, rich and varied. Indeed, Cuban women artists present a chaUenge to mainstream North American feminists\u2014to re-examine their concept of what constitutes activist feminist art practice. Note: Both evenings' presentations and the discussions which followed were taped and are available for viewing at the Video In, 1102 Homer St., Vancouver, Tel. 688-4336. I BOOK MANTEL V Under New Management EXCELLENT SELECTION OF OYER 40,000 GENTLY USED BOOKS Feminist \u2022 Literature \u2022 Philosophy \u2022 Poetry \u2022 General Selection Moved to 1002 Commercial Drive V5L3W9 Open 7 days, 11-7 20% discount with valid student cards 253-1099 WOMEN OWNED AND OPERATED I AINESIS November 90 Arts \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ From the UK: Making the connections as told to Raj Pannu One of the highlights of the Gay Games held in Vancouver in August was the Cultural Festival held in addition to the main sporting events. During this time, I was given the opportunity to talk with Maya Chowdhry and Seni Seneviratne, two of the three Black women writers from Britain who had collectively published a book of prose and poems entitled, Putting in the Pickle Where the Jam Should Be. Raj Pannu: So, what inspired or compelled you to collaborate on writing your book of poetry ? Seni Seneviratne: We wanted to see more writings by Asian women, in particular Asian women who were Uving in Britain. We wanted to give a voice to those kinds of experiences women were having, and encourage more Asian women to write\u2014that you didn't have to be famous or anything kind of special or amazing to actually just get some of your ideas down in print. Maya Chowdhry: Also, to kind of challenge the writing of poetry and how it's supposed to be, to challenge hterary traditions of: \"This is poetry, this is prose, this is what you put in a book, this is how it should look.\" Raj: I feel that I see an eclipse more often than I see a book published by a woman of colour. I was wondering how you succeeded in getting your book published. Maya: We thought we'd do a pamphlet. So we investigated our local arts association to get some funding to do that and ended up talking to an organization called Write Back which is attached to Sheffield City Libraries. We showed them some of our work and they said: \"Why don't you do a book and we'll give you the grant to do it.\" Seni: We had a lot of control about exactly what went in, how it looked. We didn't have to negotiate with publishers about what the cover was Uke. We decided it. We chose the printers and we chose the Women's Co-op to do the printing. Raj: What has been the response to your book since it's been published\u2014 especially in the UK? Raj: You identify yourselves as Black women. What, if any, are the connotations of \"South Asian\" women or \"women of colour\" that you don't like ? Maya: I don't think it's personally that I particularly dishke those terms. \"Women of colour\" is something that hasn't been used in Britain because of the connotations of the term \"coloured\" and that particular history with it. I think, culturaUy, Asian women wUl identify themselves as Asian, and African and Caribbean women wUl identify themselves as Caribbean or whatever culturaUy. But on a poUtical level when we say we want to unite and fight basicaUy the same things, then we would use that term Black women. Raj: I remember that in a previous conversation, I had asked you about Black youth \"rioting\" in the UK. You corrected me by telling me the appropriate word was \"uprising\" as opposed to \"rioting.\" Seni: That Ulustrates really the way the media\u2014particularly the television media- misinterprets what's happening. In particular, anything that's happening in relation to Black people is misinterpreted and used as a way of fostering racism. So the way that something is reported on television and the words chosen and the choice they make of what pictures to show\u2014I'm sure it's the same here\u2014feeds into all the racist stereotypes people have. When the uprisings were going on in Brixton and in Birmingham, they presented it on television [using] the word \"riot,\" representing people as mobs and lawless and... Maya: Subversive. Seni: ...it was pohce harassment and poUce intimidation of people that had actually pushed the people into making those kinds of responses. Raj: In North America and Britain, sure enough, it's already hard enough for a woman of colour to face the onslaught of racism and sexism on a daily basis. What gave you the courage to come out as lesbians knowing you would have to face the additional menace of homophobia? Seni: WeU, I don't know what you mean by coining out as lesbians. I don't really want to be defined only in terms of my sexu- We wanted to give voice to those kinds of experiences women were having, and encourage more Asian women to write... Seni: Obviously we've had a good response from Black women who've said, \"Oh, it's reaUy great because aU the time we're looking for Asian women writers and it's hard to find them.\" Maya: But it's also a book that just doesn't directly address Black women. It's a book that directly addresses all women because the writing in it is about being a mother, about being a friend, being a lover, being all those things which are common experiences that can be shared by a lot of peo- pie. Seni: And even men as weU. I mean, I've been having people say to me that even their sons read it, and really Uked the stuff in it. Raj: What attracted you to the Gay Games and Literary Festival? Seni: I knew somebody in Vancouver who knew the Games were happening. We just wrote off, to see if they [the organizers] were interested and we really didn't think anything would come of it. They wrote back and said they would be prepared to pay airfare for us to come and take part in the Literary Festival, which obviously we were really pleased about. It's not often that women Uke us get free air tickets to anywhere. !'':,' V-}M, Raj: Did you come to a certain point in your life where writing had this hold on you or has it been something recent ? Or has this need to write always been there as opposed to other forms of creative expression in your life? Maya: I kind of wrote through my teenage years to sort of keep myself aUve, probably. I suppose in the last few years it's been taken seriously as a form of expres- sion...but it's not the only thing. I work as a filmmaker and I often find that the words aUty. I think you choose to open yourself up to the people that you want to open yourself up to, and I'm not really into making myself into some kind of symbol or figurehead for Asian lesbians. I think, sometimes, we afl as Asian lesbians have a lot of courage to do what we are doing regardless of whether we so-called \"come-out\" or not and I think that's what we should be talking about. Maya: I'm out in certain aspects of my Ufe and in certain aspects I'm not. I feel Uke I've grown up with enough labels and to actually say, \"Oh, add lesbian on the end of aU those labels as weU,\" It's not Uke you have to wear a particular badge on your lapel. Maya Chowdry Maya: It's a bit Uke winning a raffle. Raj: During the Literary Festival, there was a petition drawn up by a group of writers who urged people to sign in protest of the following conditions during the Games and Literary Festival: The lack of venues that were accessible for the physically disadvantaged; the lack of childcare; the high price of tickets, especially for the Literary Festival; and, especially, at the opening gala for the Literary Festival, there were no people of colour invited to read or speak. I was wondering what your feelings about this were ? Maya: We were involved with the group of women who were drawing that up and in fact, I don't think that Ust is enough. In terms of the Literary Festival, having it in a corporate academic buUding Uke Simon Fraser University is really off-putting to people. I think that too often, things are sacrificed for the sake of profit. And it\u2014 the Literary Festival\u2014we hear, was a profit- making venture from beginning to end. Seni: There was a get-together of women of colour one evening during the Festival and in some ways that was where the petition came out ot I felt annoyed about the fact that instead of us being able to use the time that we had\u2014this sort of opportunity for us, being from England\u2014to meet Native Indian writers, to meet some Asian Canadian writers and here we were wasting the time we had together with those women talking about what aU the organizers of the Festival had done wrong and having to raise it. Maya: It felt Uke people wanted to come and hear readings and that was somehow unconnected to anything else\u2014any other poUtical struggle or anything else. That somehow there was writing \"here\"\u2014and everything else over there. ,\"'\u2022-.\u2022\"' .' '< won't do what I want them to\u2014Pd rather take a photograph of something. Seni: I don't know when I started writing. There was a period in my Ufe when I channeled a lot of my energies, in terms of writing, into articles for poUtical newspapers, women's papers and things Uke that. It's only in the last 10 or 11 years really that I've started writing poetry again. Raj: Finally, is there something I neglected to ask that you'd like to add? Seni: It feels Uke we have just begun to get information about communities we never knew before. I mean, the Native Indian community is one where, yeah sure, in theory we had all kinds of information about what was happening, but in practice we didn't really know underground what that meant. We don't get enough information [in the UK] and that felt Uke a really positive thing to have been able to meet some of the Native women writers. And learning about the Japanese community here and the things that happened to them during the war. I just never knew about that. You know, sometimes we have this reaUy simpUs- tic way of looking at things and to really begin to understand all the different complex ways that imperialism and colonialism have worked and have been used against different communities. Maya: The sort of hospitaUty and the welcoming that we received [during the Games], and also the opportunity to sit down and talk about things of concern. HopefuUy we've made a connection here. It's by doing that that the real Unks wUl be made between women of colour in different parts of the world. Raj: Thank you, Maya. Thank you, Seni. KINESIS November 90 \u2022ssss^s****ssssss$^ ARTS Truth-telling women found in Strangers by Sherrill Rowland THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS directed by Cynthia Scott NFB, 1990 PubUcity for The Company of Strangers, a recently released film which has been playing to deUghted festival audiences from Venice to Vancouver, makes much of the fact that seven members of a cast of eight players are women whose ages range from 69 to 88 years. Ageist promotional Uterature for The Company of Strangers declares: \"This is a film about being old. And thinking young.\" I say this film is about being aUve and thinking clearly. MicheUe Sweeney, in real Ufe a Montreal- based jazz singer, is the young one. She's the only member of the cast with previous acting experience. Making first appearances as performers are AUce Diabo, Winifred Holden, Mary Meigs, Cissy Meddings, Beth Webber, Constance Garneau and Catherine Roche, who re-create their own characters in front of the camera. The story-Une loosely ties together the performers' contributions. MicheUe plays the hired driver whose bus breaks down on a remote side road, leaving her and her seven passengers stranded in the Mont Tremblant region of Quebec. The film's cinematographers make the most of the shimmering midsummer countryside. MicheUe sprains her ankle and the other women help her along as they hike uphiU to an abandoned farmhouse where they spend a couple of days together whUe they decide how to get home again. By the time help comes and the movie's over these women have lovingly divested each other of all pretense. They've fed and warmed and entertained each other so successfuUy they are no longer strangers to each other or to the movie-goer. The Company of Strangers, the sole Canadian film invited to this year's Venice International Film Festival, is a first feature movie for Academy Award-winning director Cynthia Scott. (She won in the short documentary dance film category in 1984 for Flamenco at 5:15.) She and producer David WUson put aside the prepared script to make this innovative film, which features real persons in fictional situations. WUson says, \"It was the women themselves who reaUy decided where the film was going.\" They create the dialogue and the action and in the process they produce a witty and subversive pubUc statement about what it's Uke to be aUve when you've Uved long enough to grow older. AUce's speaking voice is subtle and clear. She plays a scene with Constance, who looks out over the green hills and says she'd rather die right there at the farmhouse than in a nursing home or hospital. AUce repUes, \"I'm not going to die. I'm going fishing.\" After retiring from years of work in a shoe factory, AUce worked for a few years as a cook at the survival school at Kahnawake where she Uves. Constance is a former radio broadcaster and women's rights activist. In the scene where Cissy learns that Mary is a lesbian, it's the real Cissy who says, \u00a3 \"That's good, isn't it?\" and worries about ^ how it was for Mary to have to hide be- J hind the closet door. She asks, \"Did you *. write about it?\" Mary says, \"Not untU I was s sixty. Then I started to talk and now I can't t stop talking.\" AU the women in the film are courageous talkers. Author Mary Meigs has begun to write a book about the filming experience and about her feUow actors. In a later scene, the players gather on the front porch of the hiU-top house. Each woman shouts in turn, her words echoing over the lake below: \"I'm alive.\" As each actor spoke I beUeved what she said was absolutely true, no fooling. Who could doubt it? Moment-by-moment, what these women choose to say to each other rings true. This is powerful stuff. These women have worked hard to get to a place where they can talk Uke this. The getting of self-knowledge is hard work. The getting of self-knowledge is always work in Winifred Holden (left) and filmmaker Cynthia Scott progress, Uke women's work which is never done. At times it's invisible work. Yet in time the achievement is clearly just that, an achievement which is personal and social and poUtical. This kind of success isn't strictly age-related. I think this film works in good part because Cynthia Scott has brought together women who've chosen to pursue this knowledge. It's an attractive choice and these are attractive women. We're told that as a woman grows older she ceases to be one of us and she becomes other, lesser, invisible, no longer im passioned. The women who made this funny and provocative film invite us to discover for ourselves what to beUeve. Of her time with these women, Cynthia Scott says, \"1 stopped having any sense of Us and Them and being old no longer seemed another place.\" I think that The Company of Strangers isn't about other women and it isn't just about old women. This is a movie about women. The Company of Strangers opened in theatres across Canada late in October. A playful journey by Pat Feindel WHITE ROOM written and directed by Patricia Rozema Vos Productions, 1990 Complete with prince vaUant and damsel in distress, Patricia Rozema's White Room is a Victorian gothic tale, deftly disguised as a whimsical, contemporary fairy tale. Victorian Uterature abounds with images of women in white, both pure and tragic\u2014 virginal, ghostly or mad. They wUt with sickly paUor, or burn with the intensity of white heat. Rozema draws on this legacy in the imagery of the White Room and in particular evokes the Ufe of Emily Dickinson, Victorian poet who wore only white and spent a reclusive Ufe in her father's house, struggling fiercely with a fragUe and often fragmented identity. Rozema deals with two paraUel dramas in the film. One foUows a young man's quest for creative inspiration, experience and self- discovery; the other addresses the fragmented identity and troubled existence of a successful female artist, a popular singer and songwriter. A woman's soothing narrative voice introduces us to our innocent hero, Norman the Gentle (Maurice Godin), as he sings in the church choir. The narrator tells us that Norman spends much of his time riding his bicycle at night searching for meaning by spying on other people. He aspires to be a writer and with notebook in hand, he watches through darkly framed windows for the raw material he hopes wUl animate his pen. In one house he has observed, there Uves a woman who sings. One night Norman sees a man enter the singer's house and brutally stab her to death. After doing nothing to stop it, Norman flees in horror with the woman's screams echoing in his ears. As a parody of fairy tale, the film offers delightful touches Haunted by his inaction in the face of murder, Norman leaves the secure comfort of his parents' gingerbread home and sets out in a shiny white Rambler (a guess, I admit) to seek his fortune in The Big City. There he meets Zelda (played by SheUa McCarthy of Rozema's first film, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing), a flamboyant but flaky aspiring Artist who offers him a job running a newsstand and a mattress in her colourful Uttle shack beside a slag heap. That day's front page news is the murder of a weU known pop singer, MadeUne X\u2014the very murder Norman has witnessed. Making a guUt-ridden appearance at the singer's funeral, Norman spies a striking woman cloaked in black (Kate NeUigan) and foUows her\u2014or she lures him\u2014to a secluded rundown house outside the city, secreted behind a jungle of overgrown bushes and trees. He offers himself as a gardener. She cautiously accepts. A deUcately clumsy intimacy develops between this laconic woman and her enthusiastic novice gardener. Norman tames the grounds and protects Jane from intruders. Jane responds to his awkward presence guardedly, but with composure and gentle reassurance. To Norman, Jane presents mystery, knowledge, experience, vulnerabdity, sexuaUty. To Jane, he offers both safety and danger, strength and helplessness. Norman's \"tragic flaw\" is his need to know, his urge to trespass, to observe and experience others whUe remaining unseen and aloot He secretly watches Jane and discovers that she disappears into a hidden room at night (the white room of the title). See ROOM page 18 ie KINESIS November 90 Arts ^^^*22*m2m**2*2jm^ In South Africa: The culture of resistance by Zaniub Verjee Songololo: Voices of Change is a new feature film celebrating Black resistance culture in South Africa. The role of popular culture in South Africa is seen through the voices and Uves of two cultural activists, Gcina Mhlophe and Mzwakhe MbuU. In a two-hour interview with South African-born director Marianne Kaplan, the issues of cultural representation, difficulties of filming in South Africa, censorship and much more was discussed. Kaplan has Uved in Canada for eight years and is a graduate of the EmUy Carr CoUege of Art. Zaniub Verjee: What really inspired and moved you to make the film ? Marianne Kaplan: I have an intense relationship with South Africa, still. I am way more in tune with South African poUtics than I am with Canadian poUtics. I foUow them acutely and I have always had a real love of South African culture. The first music I ever heard in my Ufe was Black music and I heard it because I was tied to the back of my Black nanny. That's the first music that I knew and that's the music that is in my blood. So that is a very deep connection for me. I am not a poUtical animal\u2014I am not the sort of person that would make poUtical speeches. I felt that the way I could contribute was as an artist and, being a filmmaker, I wanted to make a film that hadn't been made before\u2014making a statement that a pohtician couldn't make but that a filmmaker or an artist could make. The way culture reflects poUtics and the way culture reflects change\u2014the possibiUties interest me intensely. I was always foUowing the cultural scene in South Africa. From the early 80s in South Africa, this whole culture of resistance started to gain more and more momentum and community arts projects and those sorts of things were set up. I was [watching this from Canada] and started to foUow certain individuals. What you tend to get on the media [in Canada] is always so incident- and conflict- oriented, rather than issue-oriented. The thing that impressed me and moved me deeply about people in South Africa was that, in spite of the horrible system people have to Uve under, they are so resUient. People are able to rise above and make the best of the situation and keep on going. They aren't totaUy crushed down, and that amazed me. How would I be Uke in that situation? Would I give up? Would I have the strength to continue Uke that? ResUience is expressed in culture, in music, in dance, in singing, in freedom songs, and church songs and also in the way those songs are so often about celebrating peoples' strengths\u2014that was the kind of thing I wanted to do, to focus on the strength of people rather than on what we are getting constantly in the media. So that [inspired me] and so did the love of the place. The love of the people, the love of the culture and wanting to share that. I think that at this stage, we aU know apartheid is a terrible thing. We should never forget that. At the same time we need to know the people have been able to continue their Uves and find meaning in their Uves; they try and move themselves and their communities forward. That's what reaUy impressed me. These are my reasons. Zaniub: You have chosen two very powerful people for your film. How did you go about doing this? Marianne: I had read about Gcina Mhlophe. My mother used to send me women's magazines from South Africa. There is a magazine caUed Fair Lady- it's Uke Chatelaine\u2014which had an article about Gcina. I would always cut out articles about arts and I was really blown away by this person. I thought this was someone I would really Uke to meet. I filed it and kept it for years and years. As the idea for the film started to percolate, I had made a Ust of people I wanted to see and she was one of them. When I went back [to South Africa], I was research- \"At the same time we need to know that people have been able to continue their lives and find meaning in their lives.\" Filmmaker Marianne Kaplan ft ing a real overview of resistance culture. I spoke to visuals artists, musicians, people in theatre\u2014anyone\u2014right across the spectrum. I arrived in Johannesburg and that same day there was a protest of censorship in South Africa\u2014censorship of films and books that were banned or cut. To protest this, weU-known South African writers were reading pubUcly from the works of banned writers. Gcina read a South African writer and someone from the audience shouted at her: \"Do the wedding dancer,\" and she did this poem caUed the \"Wedding Dancer.\" I couldn't beUeve it\u2014I was so stunned. I caUed her up [with my] film idea. I went It was a real exciting time in the country. AU of a sudden the government Ufted the ban on pubUc marches, so for the first time ever there were huge, legal protest marches in every major city. I couldn't beUeve it. It was such a thriU to be in a crowd of 80,000 people dancing down the streets of Johannesburg. You can't imagine what it was Uke. Then the ANC [African National Congress] decided to un-ban itself. There was a defiance campaign where masses of Black people, so-caUed coloured people and white people would just go and converge on a white beach and go have a picnic. Masses of VttKt 1K VStfrfiEtoi**^ around with a bunch of mangoes to her house and we sat for two hours. She gave me an incredible interview that just confirmed aU my fantasies about her. I asked her to do something of her work and she got up and she did the \"Wedding Dancer\" in the garden at her house with such intensity. I came back to Canada. The image of her I had on my video camera is so powerful\u2014 it's reaUy what kept me going with this project. At a certain point I realized that I had to focus down more, but Gcina was always going to be one of the key people in the film because of what she represented and because of her vision for the future. Zaniub: I can see why Gcina was so important. How about Mzwakhe Mbuli\u2014why did you choose him for the film? Marianne: Whilst we were fundraising in Canada, I was foUowing South Africa very closely, especiaUy culture. I get a progressive paper from South Africa every week and I cut out everything on culture and file it under dance, music\u2014you know, the whole thing. Mzwakhe interested me. When I was in South Africa for the research I wanted to meet him but he was in prison. He was supposed to be going on tour with BUly Bragg. The government, to prevent him from touring, imprisoned him for, Uke, the seventh time. I had no way to get in touch with him. I tried to get in touch with his wife and it became very clear that this was not a good thing to try to do. So I left it but I kept on foUowing him. He was always in the back of my mind because he is a very powerful force in the country. I went to South Africa two months ahead of shooting schedule because I wanted to finish the research. The week I arrived, Mzwakhe's house was bombed but I got in touch with him and he agreed to [participate]. There were other people I was planning to use in the film, but things had changed and at a certain point it became clear that a very interesting film could be made counter-pointing Gcina against Mzwakhe. At a certain point I was going to make it solely on Gcina but it was not a good time for her. She was not in an up space to make a movie and it became clear it would be better to have these two very different people. Black people would turn up at a white hospital. This was aU going on. There was an election where lots of people were kUled in the coloured townships in Capetown. Killed by poUce. They released seven veteran ANC leaders and there was a huge raUy to welcome them. We [the film crew] were there the night they were released. Eighty thousand people show up to the ratty, and Gcina and Mzwakhe are invited to perform. It was a real exciting time and suddenly all was possible and everything we have dreamed of was happening. The process was happening. So of course the film had to change. Zaniub: Songololo is going to tour. How are you going to reach the widest audience? There is the Canadian audience and what about the South African audience? Marianne: There are two distributors in Canada. Canadian Filmmakers Distribution West is based in Vancouver and they are going to handle distribution in EngUsh Canada. In Quebec we have Cinema Libre and they will distribute in French Canada. This is non-theatrical distribution. Songololo is ideal for schools; we are going to package it in two half hours so it can be used in schools. In South Africa it has been shown in Cape Town and Johannesburg\u2014there is a print there. I have always wanted the film to be used in South Africa because it can be a real discussion, educational and debating point. FAWO [FUm and AUied Workers Organization] has a distribution wing but they are not organized for this so I want to make a whole bunch of videotapes and send them out to aU the community arts projects, community centres and organizations. People do use film Uke that in South Africa. I also want to get it into the school system. Zaniub: What other work are you thinking about making? Marianne: The history of the Communist Party in South Africa is really interesting. A lot of Jews who came to South Africa from Eastern Europe were in the vanguard of the Communist Party. These people are interesting, eccentric characters and it would be great to get them talking about their experiences. But who would fund this film? KINESIS November 90 SKSSSSS***^^*^^^^ ARTS New anthology: Neither one thing nor the other by Lynn Jones LESBIANS IN CANADA edited by Sharon Dale Stone Toronto: Between The Lines, 1990 BiUed as \"a unique anthology of lesbian Ufe in...[Canadian]...society,\" Lesbians in Canada is a coUection of historical, sociological and phUosophical papers, many of which contain personal and individual experiences. Contributors (mainly from Ontario and the Maritimes) write on a diversity of subjects: lobbying for sexual orientation legislation (Becki Ross); lesbians and disability (Joanne Doucette); Afro-Caribbean lesbians (Makeda SUvera); organizing for a university lesbian studies course (Carolyn Gammon et al)\u2014among others. My favourites are \"Lesbian\/mother\" by Dian Day; \"Lesbians and Aging: Triple Trouble or Tremendous ThriU,\" by Jeanette Auger; and \"The Mind-Drifting Islands,\" by Michiline Grimard-Leduc. AU speak to deeply felt concerns: the extraordinary pressure of raising homophobic teenagers within the women's community; fears of exposure and aUenation in old age; the deUcate balancing of refusing and admitting: as I resist and withdraw from the dominant culture, I must re-learn the process of admitting, recreating identity through community. CCEC Credit Union Serving cooperatives, community businesses, tzfthe non-profit sector. \u25ba Lower interest nates on loans to societies and cooperatives. \u25ba Operating loans. \u25ba Mortgages. \u25ba Term deposits. \u25ba Chequing accounts and other banking services. As Grimard-Leduc writes: The system reUes on our schizophrenic (sic) 'abUities' to ensure an isolation that it does not even have to enforce since it comes from ourselves: the detachment from ourselves and from others. Of course, as long as my dream-island is known only to myself, I actuaUy Uve on a prison-island, in sheer isolation. Editor Sharon Dale Stone would be pleased with this passage, I think. She states: \"The focus of this anthology is on the experiential...Readers looking for unrelenting analysis and theory wUl by and large be disappointed.\" Was I disappointed, overaU? Yes. Was I disappointed because I was looking for unrelenting theory and analysis? No. I was disappointed because Lesbians in Canada is neither one thing nor the other. It is not simply a gathering of voices, nor is it clearly an attempt to articulate our differences and mirror our commonaUties as lesbians who Uve in Canada. Throughout I wanted to ask Stone: What impact do you think Canadi- anism (regional and national) has on our experiences as lesbians? It is, I think, a fair question. Lesbians in Canada is a lesbian feminist text, written primarily by scholars, tackling heterosexism, lesbophobia (the fear and hatred of lesbians), and to a lesser extent racism, classism and regionalism. Yet other than mentioning and defining the terms just Usted, Stone refuses to pursue the construction of Canadian lesbian feminist theory. Why? The answer is to be found within the sociopoUtical context of feminism. There are deep divisions within the feminist movement as to the functions of, and worth of, activism and inteUectuaUsm. Stone intentionally identifies herself as an activist and downplays her identity and role as an \u2022 m Jk ft U AUtll 2250 Commercial Dr. Vancouver, B.C. V5N 5P9 ;sdays 11 am - 5 pm 1 pm - 7 p 254-4100 academic, hence notifying us of her faith in the subjective and distrust of the objective. Thus, women must speak for themselves\u2014 only then wUl the complexities and contradictions of our Uves become apparent, and only then wUl we be able to formulate VANCOUVER WOMEN'S BOOKSTORE 315 Cambie Street Vancouver, B.C., V6B 2N4 (604) 684-0523 Hours: Monday-Saturday 11:00-5:30 pm ^ t\\j*\u00bb a lesbian feminist academic, and this standpoint structures Lesbians in Canada. The majority of contributors are activists and scholars, yet the majority of Canadian lesbians are not. Where are their voices here, other than contained within the writings of The majority of contributors are activists and scholars, yet the majority of Canadian lesbians are not. strategies that wUl enhance the quaUty of our Uves. As an adjunct to this, Stone insists on accessibUity, opposing inteUectual eUtism within the feminist movement. \"Theory,\" this book seems to argue, is simply one byproduct of dady Uving\u2014we direct it, it does not direct us. Nevertheless, Lesbians in Canada does have a weU-defined theoretical standpoint. Stone is both a lesbian feminist activist and these contributors? And how Ukely is it that non-poUtical, non-scholarly lesbians would read a book containing sociological, historical and phUosophical papers on heterosex- iiim, lesbophobia, racism, classism and regionalism? In Lesbians in Canada, theory and analysis are imposed on the unprepared, and are refused to those who are poUticaUy and intellectuaUy sophisticated. The text thereby runs the risk of^empowering those whom it hopes to empower. ROOM from page 16 Jane's white room turns out to be not just her bedroom, but a recording studio, and her voice, the voice of the murdered pop singer. Norman has discovered the \"ghost singer\" of Madeline X. WUl he, can he protect Jane's secret? Norman must grapple with trust, honour, loyalty, action\u2014and the Umitations of his imagined heroic omnipotence. Jane's dUemma is quite different. As a modern \"madwoman in the attic,\" her dUemma is creative success and the public attention that comes with it. To preserve the privacy she requires for her work, she s KINESIS % 1&r~ presents GERTRUDE STEIN And A Companion by Win Wells November 6-10,13-17 8:30 p.m. Station Street Arts Center 930 Station St. Vancouver Tickets $7\/$10 Info\/Reservations: 688-3312 enlisted someone else\u2014MadeUne X\u2014to appear as her pubUc persona. With MadeUne's death Jane's strategy proves unworkable, impossible to sustain. Despite her longing for total retreat, she allows Norman to enter her world, to ignite a spark of desire. But he is a part of the outside world from which Jane has sought sanctuary. Once he enters, the world follows and her sanctuary is forever changed. But we are given two endings to this fairy tale, one tragic\u2014 created by Jane, one \"happUy ever after\" created by Norman, where he plays prince to her Snow White. Though Rozema presents a brooding, somber story, she does so with Ught- heaxted whimsy and humour. As a parody of fairy tale, the film offers deUghtful touches\u2014Norman's parents in their gingerbread house, Norman sleeping in the back seat of his car in freshly pressed pajamas, Zelda's wacky self-interested generosity, Norman's orgasmic writing experience\u2014 sprinkled with animated letters dancing off the page and fireworks going off inside his pupils. Meaningful visual symbols fly by with cavaUer playfulness\u2014 Norman fading backwards into a vat of white Uquid, a teacup spiUing over with blood, Norman flageUat- ing himself with red roses, and of course, the white room itself. The soundtrack is lusciously sensual, the pop singer's music hauntingly aUuring\u2014 originaUy composed by Rozema and Mark Korven, and borrowing lyrics from EmUy Dickinson. Visually the film is Ml of surprises and exquisite camera shots. Even if its plot fads to seriously challenge bleak myths about women artists, the White Room offers a playful journey into visual and aural dehght. November 90 Arts ,^2*s#^#2^%sm^ Liberalism & sex Against women's interests by Bonnie Waterstone THE SEXUAL LIBERALS AND THE ATTACK ON FEMINISM edited by Dorchen Leidholdt & Janice G. Raymond New York: Pergamon Press, 1988 Just reading the table of contents of this book excited me. The Ust of contributors reads Uke a roU call of radical feminists, most of whom have written books that are classics of feminist analysis. The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism is a coUection of essays which began as speeches or panel presentations for a conference of the same name held AprU 6, 1987 at New York University Law School. Conflict between sexual Uberals and feminists is nothing new. In the 60s feminists confronted and challenged the sexual attitudes of hberal and left-wing men. In the 70s femimsts organized against rape, battery, sexual harassment and chUd sexual abuse, and protested beauty pageants and sexist ads. SexuaUy Uberal men reacted with disdain and hostUity. The backlash became more vociferous when feminists began actively organizing against pornography in the late 70s. At this point, pornographers and civU Ubertarians joined forces, calUng the feminists repressive and censorious. Not aU civU Ubertarians defended pornography, but their phUosophy is conducive to that stance. CivU Ubertarians beUeve that the state is the principal or sometimes the sole threat to \"human freedom\" (an individual freedom, distinct from social or poUtical equahty). The onslaught of the civU Ubertarians and the pornographers divided the women's movement. Some Uberal feminists, who had benefited from an aUiance with sexuaUy Uberal men on the issue of abortion, and some socialist femimsts, who historicaUy have remained distant from feminist campaigns against prostitution, rape, sexual abuse, and pornography, did not support the radical feminists' fight against sexual exploitation. A small group of women in the US went as far as to coUaborate with the anti- feminists, forming F.A.C.T. (Feminist Anti- Censorship Task Force). mined. Liberalism, she says, robs women of the critical feminist perspective they need. Liberalism reduces \"concrete positions of power and powerlessness to mere relative value judgments\"\u2014women's experience of abuse becomes a \"point of view.\" SheUa Jeffreys provides an historical perspective by drawing parallels between the backlash against feminists in the early part of the 20th century and today. The so-called sexual revolutions of the 20s and 60s, says Jeffreys, were actuaUy attacks on feminism. Her essay briefly traces how sexologists and sex reformers undermined the efforts of early feminists. These ideas Jeffreys develops in her books, The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880-1930, and Anticlimax. I've read both of these and discovered a hidden history of feminists. When one reads the radical statements women of those generations made, it is no wonder we don't know of them. (EUsabeth Wolstenholme Elmy is not a household name Uke Sigmund Freud.) These feminists were not taken seriously. The sexologists and sex reformers (Havelock Elhs, Freud, etc.) attacked them as \"antisex prudes who were acting against the interests of women,\" says Jeffreys. Today, sexual Uberals, whose roots Ue with the sexologists, attack feminists in the same manner. Havelock EUis, the most influential sexologist of the 19th century, argued that men and women were entirely different biologically and therefore psychologicaUy. Female sexuaUty was passive and masochistic. To Elhs, it was obvious that women enjoyed being beaten up by pimps or husbands: you could teU from the expression on a woman's face during orgasm that it was pain she was feeUng. Ellis went on to argue that because of women's deUght in pain and aggression, sexual abuse could not be taken seriously. Why was ElUs seen as progressive at aU? Because he advocated foreplay \"to prepare the woman\" and for women's right to pleasure in sex. Jeffreys examines the concept of sexual pleasure, noting that: \"we do not have a word in our language which would aUow us to talk about sexual responsc.that is not positive.\" The assumption that any sexual feeUng is pleasurable does not aUow women ...women's experience of abuse becomes a \"point of view\" The Sexual Liberals is divided into six parts. Part I opens with Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon and Sheila Jeffreys clarifying the terms of the discussion. Dworkin and MacKinnon are closely identified with the American fight against pornography through the human rights legislation they tried, unsuccessfuUy, to establish in Minnesota and Indiana. SheUa Jeffreys is a British femimst historian who came up with the name for the conference and the idea for this book. Sexual Uberalism is defined here as \"a set of poUtical beUefs and practices rooted in the assumption that sexual expression is inherently Uberating and must be permitted to flourish unchecked, even when it entails the exploitation or brutahty of others.\" MacKinnon begins her essay: \"Once there was a women's movement...\" that took women's side in everything, that criticized the ways women were sociaUy deter- and girls to describe sexual arousal in a negative way\u2014even when it is forced, when it humUiates, degrades or betrays us. Jeffreys suggests we need a word to describe sexual feeUng that is \"not in our best interests.\" With this in mind, the 100 years of sexology and sex reform aimed at ensuring women take pleasure in sexual intercourse needs to be examined carefully and critically. When Something Hurts Women... Andrea Dworkin's essay, \"Woman-Hating Right and Left,\" dehneates in her incisive style how both the right and the left want to control women's sexuality. The first require chastity, the second orgasmic pleasure in intercourse, but both right wing and left wing men want women available to them and for them. Dworkin caUs for a return to a feminist movement that is very simple: \"When something hurts women, feminists are against it.\" One of the highUghts of Part II, FamUy Structures: The Patriarch and the Pimp, was Louise Armstrong's analysis of what happened to the feminist organizing against chUdhood sexual assault. Armstrong, who wrote Kiss Daddy Goodnight, recaUs how we first spoke out about incest ten years ago. Since then, things have become worse for chUd victims and the mothers who try to protect them. When people say to her: \"But at least we're talking about it now,\" Armstrong repUes: \"Yes. But it was not our intention merely to start a long conversation.\" Armstrong tells a chilling story of how mothers and chUdren who turn to the state name our victimization.) Using the rhetoric of a woman's right to control our bodies. Raymond sees surrogacy as the \"right\" to give up control of our bodies. Part IV on SexuaUty contains five essays that discuss eroticization of women's subordination and suggest ways to resist, to be pohticaUy active against this subordination. I was particularly interested in SheUa Jeffreys' analysis of lesbian sadomasochism and butch-femme role playing. I agree with her that it is necessary for lesbians to confront role playing and, obviously, to reject Contributor Andrea Dworkin for protection are betrayed. She draws a portrait of the \"incest mother,\" created by the professionals who treat chUdhood sexual abuse\u2014the mother who is blamed for \"allowing\" her male partner to sexually abuse her chUdren. This dreadful, collusive woman is the foundation of the disease model of incest, which protects paternal chUd molesters. Armstrong's essay is a caU for change. Discussion and a flourishing problem-management industry are not enough. Another highUght for me was the essay by Ann Jones who focuses on the famUy (as she did in Women Who Kill) and on women who fight back against abuse, marital rape and battering to the point of homicide. Jones dissects the family mythology that serves to keep women as prisoners within a patriarchal structure. She refers to Susan BrownmUler, who showed that rapists serve att men by enforcing male supremacy. Batterers do on the homefront what rapists do in the street. Jones urges us to fight \"not just against domestic violence but against that domesticity which couldn't carry on without it.\" Part III, The New Reproductive Liberalism, features articles by Gena Corea, PhylUs Chesler and Janice Raymond, an activist in the feminist resistance to new reproductive technologies (NRT). Gena Corea analyzes NRTs as a form of violence against women. PhylUs Chesler discusses surrogacy and its exploitation of women. Janice Raymond in \"Sexual and Reproductive Liberalism\" examines the shift within feminism away from beheving that \"women's choices were constructed, burdened, framed, impaired, constrained, Um- ited, coerced, shaped by patriarchy.\" Now a different view of feminism has emerged which require that we \"watch our language of women as victims.\" (i.e. never discuss or sadomasochism in order to create a sexuality that does not merely repeat heterosexual and patriarchal dominance and submission. Sex as we know it is socially constructed and within this construct, inequaUty is sexy. H we do not want to uphold male supremacy and misogyny then we must chaUenge our conditioning. In \"Toward a Feminist Praxis of Sexuality,\" Wendy Stock suggests ways women can develop an alternative to patriarchal sex: \"We must sustain a vision of what the erotic can be,\" nurturing our sexuaUty with a critical femimst awareness. Part V, The Male Backlash, looks at the reaction to feminist organizing against pornography and violence against women from the right, from the left and from the gay Uberationists. Included in this section is an essay by Florence Rush (The Best Kept Secret, about incest) and a Canadian perspective from Susan Cole. This comprehensive coUection closes with Part VI, PoUtics and PossibiUties, which contains two essays, one by Mary Daly, \"Be-Witching\u2014Re-CaUing the Archimagi- cal Powers of Women,\" and one by Janice Raymond, \"Not a Sentimental Journey: Women's Friendships.\" Daly spins a web of words to create a vision for the future\u2014 the possibiUties. Raymond, who wrote A Passion for Friends, speaks of a female friendship that is poUtical: \"Radical feminism befriends women because it empowers women to act on behalf of themselves and each other.\" The anger, clarity and commitment of the women who have contributed to this book shines through their writing. Despite attacks from sexual Uberals, and the undermining of their efforts, these femimsts continue to speak out, to refine their critical feminist awareness, and to work for women. Their vision of feminism is inspiring. KINESIS November 90 The Vancouver Folk Music Festival presents & the Bon Temps Zydeco Band Queen Ida is Back! for an evening of rollicking music from Louisiana with some of the best dance music in the world. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16 COMMODORE BALLROOM Doors 8:30 pm \u2022 870 Granville Mall \u2022 $18 HOLLVAfcAR JUDVSMALL 1 Two singers and writers who have done more than any others in their respective countries to create a music by, of and for women and all those committed to human liberation. . SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 \u25a0 VANCOUVER PLAYHOUSE THEATRE 8 pm \u2022 Hamilton & Dunsmuir \u2022 $21 & $19 X.OKEEjV.t ^fcKEIVJVlTT A virtuoso on the harp and possessor of one of the finest voices in the country, Loreena returns with her band of great accompanists. Wednesday to Saturday NOVEMBER 28 TO DECEMBER 1 VANCOUVER EAST CULTURAL CENTRE 1895 Venables at Victoria \u2022 $15 Wednesday & Thursday \u2022 $17 Friday & Saturday Reservations 254-9578 \u2022 co-presented with the Vancouver East Cultural Centre 40th Anniversary Concert with Pete Seeger Bob Bossin, Stephen Fearing, Mae Moore, Shingoose, Themba Tana, Uzume Taiko A fundraiser celebration of forty years of publication of a magazine which has played a leading role in introducing music from all around the world long before it became fashionable! SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 THE ORPHEUM 8 pm \u2022 884 Granville \u2022 $20, $18 & $16 PERRON A celebration of the release of her new record, Ferron returns to Vancouver for her first full-length concert in a number of years. SUNDAY, JANUARY 27 PLAYHOUSE THEATRE 8 pm \u2022 Hamilton & Dunsmuir \u2022 $18 & $16 co-presented with the Women In View Festival I ICKcLj for all these shows available at Black Swan Records, Highlife Records, the VFMF office 879-2931 or through Ticketmaster 280-4444 (service charges may apply). Call for Submissions TRAUMA\/SURVIVAL Deadline: January 15 1991 Trauma means ordeal, disaster, loss, collapse, its causes ranging from illness, plant closures, separation, rape, and death to war, genocide, and the breakdown of the planet's life-support systems. Grief and chaos follow in its wake, yet most individuals and many communities learn to survive, adapt, even flourish. TRAUMA\/SURVIVAL will be a group exhibition encompassing all media. The curator, Avis Lang (managing editor of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics), wishes to include performance, video, and film as well as work appropriate to a gallery setting. The exhibition is open to British Columbia women artists and is planned for the fall of 1991. Please send a maximum of 25 slides\/photographs or 2 videotapes, plus statements, proposals, outlines of work in progress, resume, SASE etc. Detailed guidelines available on request. WOMEN IN FOCUS 849 BEATTY STREET VANCOUVER V6B 2M6 (604)682-5848 =# Heidi Holland ~ AW)man Under The Influence Of The Last Thirty Years. THE HEIDI CHRONICLES by Wendy Wasserstein with Marilyn Norry Elizabeth E. Brown, Jennifer Clement, Corrine Koslo, Dwight Koss, Nora McLellan, Weston MacMillan, John Moffat Directed by - Svetlana Zylin Set & Costume Design - Fam Johnson Lighting Design - Marsha Sibthorpe November 20 - December 15 REAL LIVE ENTERTAINMENT HAMILTON AT DUNSMUIR Ticketmaster 280-3311 Playhouse 873-3311 20kjnesis November 90 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^^ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ \u25a0 BULLETIN BOARD READ THIS All listings must be received no later than the 18th of the month preceding publication. Listings are limited to 50 words and should include a contact name and telephone number for any clarification that may be required. Listings should be typed or neatly handwritten, double-spaced on 8 1\/2 by 11 paper. Listings will not be accepted over the telephone. Groups, organizations and individuals eligible for free space in the Bulletin Board must be, or have, non-profit objectives. Other free notices will be items of general public interest and will appear at the discretion of Kinesis . Classified are $8 for the first 50 words or portion thereof, $4 for each additional 25 words or portion thereof. Deadline for classifieds is the 18th of the month preceding publication. Kinesis will not accept classifieds over the telephone. All classifieds must be prepaid. For Bulletin Board submissions send copy to Kinesis Attn: Bulletin Board, 301- 1720 Grant Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6. For more information call 255-5499. EVENTS WANNA GET INVOLVED? With Kinesis? We want to get involved with you too. Help plan our next issue\u2014 come to the Writers Meeting on Wed. Nov. 7 at 7 pm at our office, #301-1720 Grant St. If you can't make the meeting, call 255-5499. No experience necessary, all women welcome. EVENT SB EVENT SI EVENTS WOMEN OF COLOUR CAUCUS Women of Colour are organizing at Kinesis and we welcome all volunteers past, present and future to our next meeting on Monday Nov. 5 at 7 pm at #301-1720 Grant St. For more info, please call Terri Hamazaki at 321-0575 or Gwen Bird at 255-2460. SHARING POWER Sharing Power: Is Power a 5-letter Word? is a brown bag series for women in the non-profit sector sponsored by the United Way and the Vancouver YMCA at the Community Room, Metrotown Centre (4800 Kingsway, Bby) Panel discussions Nov. 7 and Nov. 28 will explore women's power in an organizational context from noon to 1:30. For more info, call Deborah Prieur at 683-2531. GROUP SHOW Diane Power, Avery August, and Joe Latin will put on a group show of their paper and wall works in the Sinclair Ctr. Atrium 757 W. Hastings, Nov. 19\u201424. Artist's in attendance throughout. For more info call Mr. Bird at 666-4483. FREE LECTURE SERIES Capilano College: Student Lounge W115. Wednesdays, 7:30-9:30 pm. Nov. 7 'The Midlife Daughter's Dilemma\" with Clarissa Green, assoc. professor of nursing at UBC. Nov. 21 \"Women in Politics and The Media\" with Patricia Graham, editorial page editor at The Province. Call 986-1813 for more info. EVE ZAREMBA Second Story Press invites you to welcome Eve Zaremba to Vancouver. She will be reading from her new detective thriller Uneasy Lies on Wed. Nov. 28 at 7:30 pm at Octopus Books, 1140 Commercial Dr., Vancouver. DESSERT AUCTION VIEW: The Performing Arts Society presents The Third Annual Dessert Auction and fundraising dinner at Isadora's Restaurant, 1540 Old Bridge St., Granville Island. Mon., Nov. 5, 7 pm. Tix: $30 available at 14-2414 Main St., Vancouver, BC, V5T 3E3 Tel: 875-6210 (cash, cheque or VISA welcome.) ECONOMICS PANEL OXFAM presents \"Economic Violence\u2014 where does it leave women?\" A panel with Jean Swanson, Lucy Alderson, and Melanie Conn on Nov. 1 Tix: $3-$5. Call 736-7678 for more info. LESBIAN CENTRE NEWS The Vancouver Lesbian Connection at 876 Commercial Dr. is open Tuesdays noon\u20149 pm; Thursdays noon\u20147 pm and Saturdays 11am\u2014 4pm. The VLC sponsors a whole range of groups, activities and services. For more info, drop in or call 254-8458. INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN WEEK A committee has begun to meet to plan Vancouver's fifth annual International Lesbian Week. As many lesbians were involved with Gay Games this summer, the planning for ILW did not get underway until September. Consequently, ILW will be held in February this year. All lesbians are welcome to join and help organize this year's week of events. For dates of upcoming meetings or for more info: call Mickey at 874-8567. FETISH EXHIBIT The Vancouver East Cultural Centre presents an exhibition of Lori Ann Ken- ney's work Oct. 31 to Nov. 27. Entitled \"Fetish\u2014Fetich,\" Kenney's paperworks and wall sculptures explore the mythic and primordial elements of everyday form. The gallery is open noon to 6 pm daily. Reception Nov. 11, 2-4 pm. .^.MM. ^OJWAStXmSi, Iflfia ^A^Atd&^- (IN)AUTHENTIC (RE)SEARCH The Lateral Gallery at Women in Focus will feature Vancouver artist Jin- Me Yoon's first solo exhibition, (Interference Part II, (In)Authentic (Re)- Search, from Oct. 25 to Nov. 25. This installation confronts memory, institutions, and the reinvention of ethnic identity, and is part of the group show 'Yellow Peril: Reconsidered,\" which is travelling throughout Canada. Artist's talk on Tues. Oct. 30 at 7 pm. Call 682-5848 for more info. FABRIC TAPESTRIES Sima Elizabeth Shefrin will be displaying her fabric tapestries at the Alma Street Cafe', 2505 Alma St. Beginning Nov. 5 in a show called simply, \"Give Me a Stitch, I'll Take a Mile.\" Open everyday 11 am to 11 pm. PERFORMANCE ART The Western Front, 303 E. 8th Ave. will be showing performance art from Japan by Tari Ito (a woman performance artist) and Haruo Higuma (a male video artist), Nov. 1 and 2 at 9 pm. For more info call 876-9343. LESBIAN FANTASY Video In presents Toronto video and film artists Margaret Moores and Almerinda Travassos Nov. 17, 9 pm. Combining wacky humour, dramatic narratives, and lush visuals, their work will explore the world of Lesbian fantasy and seduction. Tix: (members) $2; (non-members) $3. For more info call 688-4336. ANDREA LOWE Photo exhibit by Andrea Lowe on display Dec. 1\u201431, at the VLC, 876 Commercial Dr. Opening Saturday, Dec. 1, 4:30\u2014 8:30 pm. Refreshments. No smoking, no perfume please. Call 876-3104 for information. WORLD AIDS DAY AIDS Vancouver Island will be showing the movie \"Common Threads.\" Dec. 2 at 2pm at the Roxy Theatre, Victoria. This movie documents the making of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and is shown as a benefit for AIDS Vancouver Island. For more info, call Avi at (604) 384-2366. RANCH ROMANCE Ranch Romance, a rollicking all-women country and western band, will be featured in a gala evening benefit for AIDS Vancouver Island at the University Centre Auditorium in Victoria, Dec. 2 at 8 pm. For more info, call Avi at (604) 384-2366. PID SOCIETY The Canadian PID Society sponsors a public discussion on pelvic inflammatory disease at their AGM Nov. 3, 1-4 pm, at the Riley Park Community Centre, 50 E. 30th Ave. Everyone welcome; admission free. Childcare provided on-site. For more info, call 684-5704. HOT DYKE EROTICA Cactus Juice Productions presents But- ches in Leather\/Bitches in Heat. Two evenings of hot dyke erotica. Performances completely obsessed with sex. Striptease to make you stick to your seat. Special out-of-town guests. Wet T- shirt contest. 50\/50 draw. Door prizes by Nyala's Restaurant and other local vendors, and yes!! sleazy cigarette girls. Nov. 30 & Dec. 1, 10 pm. Sliding scale $2- $10. Uncle Charlie's Lounge, 455 Abbott. Upstairs from The Lotus. Watch for more details. MUSIC, POETRY, SKITS The Immigrant Women and Racism committee at Vancouver Status of Women will be holding an evening of music, poetry, and skits at La Quena coffee-house, 1111 Commercial Dr. on Thurs., Nov. 29 at 7:30 pm. All women and children wel- SHREVE & WILLIAMS Sandy Shreve and Jana Williams will read their work Nov. 19 at 8:30 pm, in an evening hosted by West Coast Women & Words at La Quena coffee-house, 1111 Commercial Dr. For more info -contact Gloria at 872-8014. revista Aqudvn magazine Who Are We? We are a group of Canadian and Latin American women. With the passing of time, the Latin Americans among us have experienced a blending of the two cultures. We belong both here and there. The Canadian women among us share an interest in Latin American issues. Why A Magazine? We want to open a dialogue with all women who share our interest in Latin American women's issues. Aquelarre means \"illegal gathering of witches.\" They used to call us witches. What do they call us now? Arpilleristas, weavers, union leaders, women in exile, political prisoners, mothers of the disappeared, artists . . . V; Please send me subscription(s) to Aquelarre magazine. 1 year $18.00 2 year $35.00 1 year\/institutions $25.00 Backissues $2.50 Above prices are for Canada only. Name Send cheque or money order to: Aquelarre, P.O. Box 65535, Sta. F, Vancouver, B.C. Canada V5N 5K6 KINESIS November 90 Bulletin Board RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS Raising Consciousness\/Re-membering the Sacred Feminine! Tapes highlighting the many inspiring speakers who contributed to July 1990's powerful Women and the Earth gathering in Vancouver, BC, are now available (thanks to Marion Yas, Judy Marentette, and Edward E. of Co-op Radio) Levina White, Starhawk, Barbara Smith, Judith Plant, Andrea Miller, Lee Maracle and many more. Please forward a $15 check (includes mailing costs) or $5 plus three used 90-minute tapes for re-cycling to Women and the Earth, c\/o Dianne Radmore, D- 2032 West 5th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6J 1P9. For future event info, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Blessed be! EVENT SI EVENT SIG ROUP SIG ROUPS LIZ THOR-LARSEN The Holy Rosary Cathedral at 646 Richards St. is the setting for folk-singer Liz Thor-Larsen in an evening of songs, dance, and dinner Nov. 24 at 7 pm. Donation $10. Sponsored by the Philippine Women's Centre. For more info, call 464- 7899. ECOFEMINISM AND THE ARTS Are you a visual artist whose work is inspired or significantly influenced by ecofeminist consciousness? If so, I would love to connect with you regarding the Canada Council grant sponsored slide library\/research project I am working on ASAP. Please write Dianne Radmore (Coordinator, Women and the Earth), D- 2032 West 5th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6J 1P9. Tel: (604) 731-2378. SPORTS LEADERSHIP A conference for women in sports entitled \"Leadership: Enriching the Experience\" will be held by Promotion Plus at the Arbutus Club in Vancouver Nov. 23 & 24. Speakers include May Brown, Carol Ann Letheren, and Abby Hoffman (Dir. Gen. of Sport Canada), plus workshops and an awards banquet. Registration: $65. For more info, call 737-3075 COPING WITH BRUNCH The women civic candidates of COPE (Committee of Progressive Electors) will be holding a brunch Nov. 4 from 11 am to 1 pm at the Heritage Hall, (15th and Main). Entitled \"The Inclusive City: COPE Women Speak Out,\" this event will feature breakfast, entertainment, kids activities and speeches on civic issues. Sponsored by the Congress of Canadian Women. For more info, call 874-6441. DROP-IN BASKETBALL For women: Saturdays to Dec. 15, 10:30 - 12:30 - Gym A, Britannia Community Ctr, 1661 Napier. (Except the following dates: Oct. 15, Nov. 17 & 24). $15\/10 sessions or $2 per drop-in. Call 253- 4391 for info. INSIDE WATERS The New Play Centre presents Inside Waters by Deirdre C. Dore Oct. 18-Nov. 10. Set close to home, this character comedy takes place on an island off the west coast of BC. Showings Tues to Sat at 8 pm, with 2 pm matinees Wed and Sun. Tix: $5-$8. For more info, call 685- 6228. WOMEN IN MEDIA The 1st Annual Women in the Media Conference will be held Nov. 16 & 17 at the Westbury Hotel, Toronto. The Canadian Association of Journalists is sponsoring this event, which offers 20 panels and workshops. Registration: $100\u2014 $125. Tel: (613) 788-7424. LEGAL CLINIC A legal clinic for women will be held Oct. 23, Nov. 6, and Nov. 20 by the UBC Law Students Legal Advice Program. Phone 228-5791 for an appointment. Divorce, UIC problems, landlord- tenant, some custody and access matters, etc. G R O U P MEDIAWATCH Concerned about media exploitation of women? MediaWatch, a national feminist organization concerned about the status and portrayal of women and girls in the media, works to improve and diversify these images through lobbying, education, and advocacy. Call 731-0457 for volunteer opportunities and other info. LESBIANS WITH CHILDREN Weekly support group at Vancouver Lesbian Connection, 876 Commercial Dr., every Tues. 9:30\u201411:30 am. Break isolation, discuss the issues (custody, access, relationships), have a coffee. Free childcare at Eastside Family Place. If possible, please register for childcare through VLC, 254-8458. Also, there is now an evening meeting the 2nd Tues. of each month from 7pm\u2014 9pm. | Typesetting :=== Graphic Design p j 1670 \\ Laser Printing I Image or Text Scanning j || File Conversions IBM & Macintosh - \u2014facsimile* flettronic Publishing ~ 1670 Commercial Drive \u2022 Ph 253-3153 \u2022 Fax 253-3073 Stationery & Office Supplies \u2022 Artists' Materials \u2022 Copying 1460 Commercial Drive \u2022 Ph 255-9559 VSW NEEDS VOLUNTEERS A new Committee is being formed at VSW to coordinate our resource and referral centre. If you are intersted in resources for women in the Lower Mainland, curious about issues of importance to women, or simply fascinated with facts and figures, this is the committee for you. Please contact Jennifer at 255-5511 for more information. SFU WOMEN The SFU Women's Ctr., Burnaby Mtn. Campus, offers groups, workshops, and resources for women. The Ctr. Collective, Women of Colour Group, Dyke Talk, and Feminist Discussion Group welcome you. For more info, call the Center at 291- 3670. ROOM OF ONE'S OWN The collective which publishes Room of One's Own, a Canadian journal of women's fiction and poetry, is seeking two new members. The collective meets once every 2-3 weeks to discuss and exchange manuscripts and for other business such as editing, subs, artwork, etc. We currently lack collective members with a keen interest in poetry. If interested please contact Laura Leach: 255- 7712 or Audrey McClellan: 436-2359. MISSING PIECES Missing Pieces Thru Adoption, a national organization, offers ongoing support during the pre-reunion through post-reunion stages. Birthparents, adoptees, siblings, adoptive parents and all interested are welcome to meet the 3rd Thurs. of each month at 7 pm, at the South Van. Family Place, 7595 Victoria Dr. For more info, other meeting times and locations, call 255-0255. BREAST SURGERY SUPPORT Woman who has gone through devastating experience with breast surgery would like to make contact with other women in similar circumstances. Hoping to find or form a support group. Please call Linda anytime at 594-4048. SUBMISSIONS IN OUR OWN VOICES Vancouver Sath, a literary and cultural society is in the process of publishing an English magazine. The purpose of the magazine is to create a forum for dialogue between the generations of Indo-Canadians, and to provide a medium for literary expression. We invite contributions from Indo-Canadians, the younger generation in particular, depicting their experiences in the form of poetry, short stories, plays, graphics illustrations etc. We also request articles, essays, research\/academic papers dealing with contemporary issues facing our community. We especially encourage submissions from first time contributors. Submission deadline: Fri. Nov. 23. Vancouver Sath Literary and Cultural Society, P.O. Box 67681, Stn. 0, Vancouver, BC, V5W 3V2. Fax: (604)271-3347. For more info call Hari Sangra at 321-6436 (work), 322-9730 (res.) or Sukhwant Hundal 688- 2565 (work), 581-3211 (res.) r \u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022 i NEW! Trademark * of Women's * Work Screen \u00a3 Print & Design Studio ? \u2022 Come & see our display at + \u25a0 261 E. 1st St.. North Vancouver \u2022 980-4235 J \u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022* Canadian woman studies les cahiers de la femme CWS\/Cf ANNOUNCES A SPECIAL ISSUE ON NATIVE WOMEN ORDER Native Women NOW1 An incredible double issue of $10 per copy. Special 10% CWS\/cf on Native Women in discount on bulk orders of 20 Canada \u2014 the reality of their or more. Add $1\/copy for experiences recounted in postage; $2\/copy abroad. their own words\/voices. Please send me copies of Native Women. All orders must be prepaid. Enclose cheque or money order and send to: Canadian Woman Studies 212 Founders College York University 4700 Keele Street Downsview, ON M3J 1P3 For faster service call (416) 736-5356 22 lylNbjIS November 90 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^^ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/^^^^ bulletin Board SUBMISSIONSICLASSIFIED POETRY Contemporary Verse 2: a feminist poetry journal, is calling for poetry and recollections (300\u2014600 words) on the themes of race and culture, sexuality and orientation, and women and autonomy. Please forward your contributions, with SASE, to P.O. Box 3062, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3C 4E5 as soon as possible. CLASSIFIED LOVELY PHOTOS Sale of cards, small photos and enlargements, at the art opening of Vancouver photographer Andrea Lowe, Sat. Dec. 1, at the VLC, 876 Commercial Dr., 4:30- 8:30 pm. Lovely, affordable pictures for that gift-giving season. TAIKO T-SHIRTS! And tapes and CD's! Give the perfect holiday gift of music and heritage from Vancouver's own Japanese Canadian drum trio. \"Chirashi\" tapes $10 each; CD's $15 each; new \"Uzume Taiko\" t-shirts $15 each (female figure, white on black, M, L, XL). Include $2 shipping per time. Send cheque or money order to: UZUME TAIKO, 1170 E. Georgia, Vancouver, V6A 2A8, or call 251-3908. Display Advertising: Ask us about discounts. Phone 255-5499 1146 Commercial \u00a7 Phone: 253-0913 EXPERIENCED FUNDRAISER Downtown Eastside Women's Centre seeks part-time experienced female fundraiser. 12 month p\/t contract position; $13,000. Hours negotiable. Job description available at 44 E. Cordova, 681- 8480. Send resumes by Nov. 10. VILLA DE HERMANAS Our all women's Caribbean beachfront guesthouse awaits you. Beautiful, LF owned Spanish style villa on long, secluded beach in the Dominican Republic. Small tropical gardens, oceanside pool, spacious comfortable common areas with large balconies and magnificent ocean view. Private, large, airy guestrooms, sumptuous meals and drinks, relaxing massages and healing crystals. Room rates: $330 single; $440 double per week. For reservations call our Toronto friend Suzi, at (416) 462-0046 between 9 am and 10 pm. FELLOWSHIP\u2014SFU Ruth Wynn Woodward Post-doctoral Fellowship in Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University: Two one year postdoctoral fellowships equal in value to SSHRC Post-doctoral fellowships ($24,648 in 1990) to begin in September 1991. A research allowance of $5,000 is also included. Candidates must have a doctoral degree or equivalent in any area of the arts, humanities, social sciences or applied sciences. To apply, interested applicants must first write for further info to: The Coordinator, Women's Studies Program, SFU, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6. Tel: (604) 291-3593. The closing date for completed applications is Jan. 15, 1991. In accordance with Canadian immigration requirements this advertisement is directed to people who are eligible for employment in Canada at the time of application. SFU offers equals employment opportunities to qualified applicants. FEMINIST AND LESBIAN BOOKS Canada's largest selection in English and French: literature, theory, spirituality, incest, film, erotica and more. Just write for our free annotated catalogue. L'Androgyne Bookstore, 3636 St. Laurent, Montreal, Que'bec H2X 2V4. Tel: (514) 842-4765 TRY CO-OP LIVING City View Co-op, a 31 unit building near Victoria & Hastings, keeps an open waiting list for applications for membership. Rent for 1, 2 or 3 BR apts, is $467, 589, or 683, plus a (refundable) share purchase. To apply, send a S.A.S.E. to: Membership Ctte, 1885 E. Pender, Vane. V5L 1W6. POSITIONS AVAILABLE The Vancouver Status of Women has 3 positions available under a Section 38 (UI Top-Up) Grant. Applicants must be on unemployment insurance. Benefits will be topped up to $339\/week. Applicants must have an interest in working with a feminist community organization and a general knowledge of feminist issues. The positions start in November and run for 20 weeks. Writer & Researcher (to revise Single Mothers' Resource Guide) Kinesis Marketing Officer (to conduct subscription drives) Legal Referral Worker (to expand the legal referral system) For information about these projects, the deadline for applications, and the qualifications required, please call 255-6554. Mail or drop off applications to VSW, #301-1720 Grant Street, Vancouver, V5L 2Y6 What started in a warehouse has ended in a Roundhouse. Artropolis 90 brings together over 175 artists\u2014many women\u2014in a group show that runs October 19-Nov. 18 (10 am to 8 pm Tuesdays to Sundays) at the Roundhouse at 1200 Pacific Blvd. A combination of open submissions and curated mini-shows, video, performance and the stuff that hangs on walls, Artropolis includes the work of Lucy Hogg (pictured above), Margaret Dragu, Chick Rice, Persimmon Blackbridge, Michele Searle, Carole Itter, Melanie Fei-Lin Boyle and Sheri-D Wilson, among many others. (Tix $2, free Thursdays 5 pm-8 pm) CLASSIFIED1CLASSIFIED THERAPIST SOUGHT Visible minority woman therapist wanted to lead a group for visible minority adult women survivors of incest and sexual abuse. I'm looking for someone with education and work experience in this area. Also, the leader must have group work experience, knowledge and sensitivity to different ethnic groups, sexual orientation, and alternative spiritual and religious beliefs. The leader must have a clear understanding of internalized racism, systemic racism, oppression and individual differences. I will compile a proposal, search for funding and have an agency sponsor this project. The earliest I could see this group beginning would be April 1991. If this interests you or for more info phone Linda at 876-3506 by Nov. 13, 1990. RAPE RELIEF Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter offers a 24-hour crisis line, safe shelter for women and children escaping violence, peer counselling, and ongoing support groups as well as a women's organizing centre. Our business hours are 9 am to 9 pm, Mon., Tues., Wed., and Fri.; 9 am to 5 pm, Thurs.; 1 pm to 5 pm, Sat. and Sun. For more info or access to any of these services please call 872-8212. KINESIS Typesetter The part-time position is available for a typesetter with Kinesis. The successful applicant II have word processing experience (a knowledge of desktop publishing would be an asset); an ability to work to deadlines, and an appreciation of feminist journalism values. The rate of pay is $9.92\/hour for approximately 30-40 hours per issue (Kinesis is published 10 times a year). We are in production from around the 16th - 26th of the month; flexible hours. Closing date for applications: November 8 Start Date: November 16 Send applications to: Kinesis, Attn. Hiring, #301, 1720 Grant Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6. For further info, call 255-5499. ROOMMATE WANTED Woman wanted to share clean, quiet, comfy home with 3 friendly people (a gay couple and a lesbian). Non-smoking. Two-blocks from Broadway and Alma. Two bathrooms, W\/D, F\/P, sundeck, large backyard. $400\/month. Available Dec. 1. Sublet also available for a woman or man Jan. 1\u2014May 1. Tel: 736-6936 or 732-0792. MENSTRUAL PADS Many Moons washable menstrual pad The environmentally sound alternative. Comfortable and beautiful. Choice of soft or wild colours in 100% cotton flannelette. 2 styles available. Package 6\/belted only $29.99 or 8\/beltless $36.95. Have a gathering of friends to earn your set. Call Lesley 253-5702. HEARTLEAF Because home is where the art is. A Canadian mail-order book business specializing in the fine and performing arts. Books, tape, and music to encourage everyone to be active as an artist\u2014music, dance, drama, puppetry, writing, visual arts, crafts and storytelling. Owned and operated by mother and daughter. Fast, courteous service. Gift ideas for all ages. VISA\/MasterCard. Free catalogue. Write or phone Heartleaf, Box 40-D, Slocan Park, BC VOG 2E0, (604) 226-7733. A WOMAN'S PLACE Emotional Fitness Centre: New counselling, educational and referral service on the North Shore. Offers feminist and lesbian affirmative counselling, workshops, support groups and information - for general personal growth and healing and women's issues. Call Lou Moreau, founder and registered clinical counsellor, 984- 8738 or 922-7930. BEDROCK Bedrock aims to encourage self-healing and radical political awareness among lesbians. Subs $10 for three issues, or an exchange. Make cheques payable to Doreen Worden. Fall issue includes \"Canada Attacks the Mohawks\" and a review of anti- psychiatry books. Write: Isabel Andrews, R.R. #2, Kenora, Ont, P9N 3W8. KINESIS November 90 LIB1Z86RL 4\/91 LIBRARY PROCESSING CTR - SERIALS 2206 EAST HALL, U.B.C. VANCOUVER, BC V6T 1Z8 \u25a0 A Kinesis subscriber will: a. \u25a1 Save money (one free issue a year) b.D Beat the GST (unless, of course, we beat it) c. \u25a1 Know what a groovy gift Kinesis makes (hint, hint) d.D Act now \u2022UA\\.op opisdrt sn Suxpraj ^j,noi ^asu^j :joa\\su Published 10 times a year by Vancouver Status of Women #301-1720 Grant St, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6 \u25a1 VSW Membership\u2014$30,(or what you can afford)*- includes Kinesis subscripts \u25a1 Kinesis sub. only (1 year) -$20 \u25a1 Sustainers-$75 D Kinesis sub. (2 yrs) -S36 \u25a1 New D Institutions\/Groups -$45 \u25a1 Renewal \u25a1 Cheque enclosed D Bill me D Gift subscription J","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2009\/08\/skos-reference\/skos.html#note","classmap":"oc:AnnotationContainer"},"iri":"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2009\/08\/skos-reference\/skos.html#note","explain":"Simple Knowledge Organisation System; Notes are used to provide information relating to SKOS concepts. 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Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary."}],"Title":[{"label":"Title","value":"Kinesis","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/title","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:title"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/title","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; The name given to the resource."}],"Type":[{"label":"Type","value":"Text","attrs":{"lang":"en","ns":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/type","classmap":"dpla:SourceResource","property":"dcterms:type"},"iri":"http:\/\/purl.org\/dc\/terms\/type","explain":"A Dublin Core Terms Property; The nature or genre of the resource.; Recommended best practice is to use a controlled vocabulary such as the DCMI Type Vocabulary [DCMITYPE]. To describe the file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource, use the Format element."}],"Translation":[{"property":"Translation","language":"en","label":"Translation","value":""}]}