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Kinesis
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September 1990 WHAT'S WRONG WITH PAY EQUITY? CMPA $2.25 ^ Roaring crowds: The Gay Games in review \ Kinesis welcomes volunteers to work on all aspects of the paper. Call us at 255-5499. Our next Writer's Meeting is Wed. Sept 5 at 7 pm at Kinesis, #301-1720 Grant St. All women welcome even if you don't have experience. PRODUCTION THIS ISSUE: Marsha Arbour, Rhoda Rosenfeld, Ginger Plum, Joni Miller, Christine Cosby, Nancy Pollak, Lori Friesen, Jan Pelle- tier, A.AIi-sa Nemesis, Jackie Brown, Maggie Roy, Gwen Bird, Susan O'Donnell, Sim- mah Black, Esther Shannon, Sudesh Kaur, Claire Fowler, Lotus Miyashita, Chris Meyer, Sonia Marino FRONT COVER: Photo by N.J Pollak EDITORIAL BOARD: Gwen Bird, Nancy Pollak, Michele Valiquette, Terrie Hamazaki, Christine Cosby CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION: Jennifer Johnstone, Chau Tran, Lyn MacDonald ADVERTISING: Birgit Schinke OFFICE: Jennifer Johi Chau Tran instone, 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 tbe; 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 Kinesis. 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 are 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—camera ready: 18th; design required: 12th. Kinesis is produced on an IBM PC using PC TeX and an LC-800 laser printer. Additional laser printing by East- side Data Graphics. Camera work by The Peak. Printing by Web Press Graphics, Burnaby BC 00^ Sergia Galvan brings news about women in the Dominican Republic 11 Wasn't it a party? 12 A story of disability, pregnancy and birth 18 INSIDE ~ww Abortion Coalition: big changes 3 Difficulties with Repro. Tech. Commission 3 Nasty plant makes nasty exit 4 Gutless response to housing crisis 4 Unionizing at the teachers'unions 5 FEATURE Gay bashing in Montreal 5 by Susan O'Donnell Pay equity: limited, dangerous 7 by Debra J. Lewis Romania: this is somebody's child 10 by Millie Strgrr Spoken and unspoken: Words Without Borders 15 by Christine Morissette Gems at a floundering fest 17 by Lorraine Chan Frank Chickens: in review 19 by Jean Lum A lighthearted lesbian frolic 20 by Bonnie Waterstone REqMARS Movement Matters 2 What's News? 6 by Linda Choquette Commentary 9 by Rachel Andrews Letters 21 Bulletin Board 22 compiled by Donna Dykeman Kinesis is indexed in the Canadian Women's Periodicals Index, and the Alternative Press Index. CORRESPONDENCE: Kinesis, Vancouver Status Women, 301-1720 Grant St, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6 of Kinesis is a member of the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association. Second class mail #6426 ISSN 0317-9095 KINESIS Movement Matters XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>NC*^^ ^XXNXX^NXXXXXXXXXXXXXX^^ Movement matters listings information Movement Matters is designed to be a network of news, updates and information 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 eleven paper. Submissions may be edited for length. Deadline is the 18th of the month preceding publication. Let's tie up Parliament In continuation of the protests against the budget cuts to the Secretary of State Women's Program, a banner project is being organized across the country. All women's groups and interested individual women are invited to produce a protest banner to illustrate the truth about women's lives. The banners will be collected regionally, then forwarded to Ottawa in time to "tie up" the parliament buildings during the Third Commonwealth meeting of Ministers Responsible for Women's Affairs from Oct. 8-11, and to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Banners should be made from strong fabric, measure four feet high, and have your group's name on it. The Vancouver Status of Women is collecting banners from BC: please send your BC banner in by September 15th. For a detailed brochure or more information, contact Jennifer Johnstone at VSW 255-5511. For information about collection points in other parts of the country, contact Alice de Wolff at NAC, 344 Bloor St. W., Toronto Ont. M5S 9Z9 (Tel: 416- 922-3246) Community projects in EI Salvador The centre for Cooperation with El Salvador, a non-profit, non-partisan organizar tion, recently opened an office in Ottawa to support badly needed community projects in El Salvador. In association with the centre, a group of women in Vancouver have formed Women Care, a committee to look for support for a women's project. They plan to work i«S\de £\c*e \\de yd© vC\« d« This column—Inside Kinesis—first appeared in our June 1989 edition, but the idea for it came out of a meeting the Editorial Board held in March of that year with Vancouver's Women of Colour Group. The Women of Colour Group had sought a meeting with the Editorial Board to discuss ways in which Kinesis could be more for women of colour. Both before and after this meeting, the Board met to discuss what it would mean to be an anti-racist paper. We made a few tangible moves, some based on suggestions made by the Women of Colour Group. We developed a Volunteer Kit: a kind of who-what-where-when-why of Kinesis. The Kit also included a Bias and Language Sensitivity Guide which examines the sexism, racism, classism, ableism and ageism embedded in the newswriting traditions of the mainstream and (all too often) the alternative press. We started the Inside Kinesis column as a means of reporting on our own current events, and we made information about our monthly news writers' group more accessible to our readers by running a notice in Bulletin Board—even we forgot to advertise in Kinesis. There were editorial changes. We now use the byline "As told to" whenever an article is based on an interview. Women of colour had suggested this as a means of making the subject of interviews (the woman whose voice was to be heard) more visible. with the Association of Salvadorean Women (ADEMUSA) and the University of El Salvador in developing a health clinic that will provide medical care and preventative information for about 750 women and their families. The Vancouver group is looking for support for the project. They are also planning a women's tour to El Salvador in November. The tour is being coordinated with the Women's Office of the University of El Salvador and will coincide with Semana de No Violencia Contra La Mujer—a week of activities in San Salvador being organized to protest violence against women. Tentative dates are Thursday Nov. 15 to Monday Nov. 26. For more details contact: Myra Johnson, 12-404 East 43rd Ave., Vancouver, BC V5W 1T4. Tel: 325-1094 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 over the summer months: Betty Baxter • Mary E. Billy • Florence Bishop • Margaret Black • Jennifer Bradley • Robin Brown • Sandra Bruneau • Wendy Chappell- Ivey • Linda Choquette • Jo F. Coffey • Judith Crawley • Inez Curl • Holly Devor • Ellen Dixon ♦ Ardelle Dudley • Jo Dun- away ♦ Barbara Elliott • Barbara Eyles • Rebecca Frame • Ellen Frank • Eira Friesen • Keith Fryer • Stan Gabriel • Maura Gatensby • Carole Gerson • Patricia Gessey • Teresa Gibson • Ann Goldblatt • Jill Gould • Barbara Grantham • Clarissa Green • E. Hamazaki • Aphrodite Harris • Michele Hopkins • Alison L. Hopwood • Rowena Hunnisett ♦ Karen Hunsen • Suzanne James • Pamela Jay * Faune Johnson • Nola Johnston • Angela Kelly • Florence Koeleman • Penney Kome • Inger Kronseth • Lorraine Kuchinka • Barbara Kuhne • Pat Landrecht ♦ Mary E. Lane ♦ S. Ledingham • Susan Lewis • Elenore Lindahl • Vett Lloyd • M.K. Louis • Glenda Macpherson • KeUy Maier • Catherine Malone • S.J. Matheson • Mary McKenna ♦ Louise McLean • Carlin Miroslaw • Margaret Mitchell • Geraldine Morley ♦ Myrtle Mowatt • Cynthia Nagel • Karen Nordlinger • Laura Parkinson • Susan Penfold • Brenda Pengelly • Tracy Potter • Barbara Pulling • Elinor Rat- cliffe • M.A. Read • Pega Ren • Stuart Rennie • Ronni Richards ♦ Janet Riehm ♦ Laurie Robertson • Paulette Roscoe ♦ Rosemarie Rupps • Catherine Russell • Sarah Sample • Mary Schendlinger • Patricia Schwartz • Eva Sharell • Jeanne Shaw • Gillian Smith • Helen Sonthoff • Elf Stainsby ♦ Eunice Stronach • Johanna Teboekhorst ♦ Sarah Tessaro • Susan Thompson • Mildred Tremblay • Michele Valiquette • Janet Vesterback • Helen Walter • Philippa Ward ♦ Christine Waymark • Jill Webb • Shelagh Wilson ♦ Mary Winder ♦ Mary Woo Sims • Meredith Woods • Susan Wortman • Katharine P. Young ♦ Cecilia Yung When editing articles, we change common phrases and words that are unawarely racist, ableist or classist. As feminists, we are mindful of how sexist English usage is and of the challenge of creating strong, non- sexist styles of writing. We also accept the challenge of writing while mindful of racism, ableism and classism. For stories about women of colour, we try to find a woman of colour reporter. Because Kinesis has historically been a paper where the editor, production workers, writers and readers are predominantly white women, there are relatively few women of colour at the paper. We believe that must change, which means Kinesis must change. Women of Colour are organizing at Kinesis. On Monday, September 17, Terrie Hamazaki and Gwen Bird welcome all women of colour interested in volunteering at the paper. This informal meeting is at 7 pm at our office, (#301-1720 Grant St., Vancouver) and is open to all volunteers past, present and future. For more information, call Terrie at 321-0575 or Gwen at 255- 2460. Another new development at Kinesis: The Board has decided to hold an evening planning meeting each month, in order to devote more time and involve more people in the paper's processes. Volunteers are invited to attend the Writers Meeting September 5th, 7 pm in our offices. This will be the time to perform the "post-partum" evaluation of the last issue and conceive the next issue. Story line-ups, photo assignments, graphic concepts, and news tips are all part of the process of the birth of Kinesis and we welcome volunteers to take part. It is time for sorrowful goodbyes to some Kinesis volunteers. Tarel Quandt, Lisa Schmidt, Shelly Quick and Susan O'Donnell are moving to the other side(s) of Canada. They have all helped tremendously with the paper over the past months/years and we have really appreciated them—and we will miss them. But who knows, you may soon see bylines from our Halifax Bureau. All is not sad 'though. Kinesis managed to grab some new volunteers and to them we say welcome and "there's no escape, we have your phone numbers." Writing for the first time are Diane Dupuis, Yvonne Peters and Rachel Andrews. Wielding X-acto knives and other creative acts for the first time are Lotus Miyashita, Simmah Black, Lori Friesen, Jane Pelletier and Cer- rolyn. Wielding a decrepid outdated computer program for the first time was Ginger Plum—temporary typesetter for this issue while Joni Miller was on holidays. And last, but certainly not least, we welcome Chau Tran—VSW's new Bookkeeper and Circulation Coordinator. Chau is taking on some of the most important behind- the-scenes responsibilities at Kinesis. Women of Colour Caucus Want to write a story? Design a graphic? Snap a picture? Sit on the Editorial Board? We welcome all Women of Colour interested in volunteering at Kinesis. Our first meeting is on Monday, September 17 At 7 pm at #301-1720 Grant Street (at Commercial Drive) Open to all volunteers past, present and future. For more information, please call Terrie Hamazaki at 321-0575 or Gwen Bird at 255-2460 KINESIS September 90 /////////////////////^^^^^ News Abortion coalition "Feminist, woman" criteria dropped? by Nancy Pollak On September 16, the BC Coalition for Abortion Clinics (BCCAC) will consider a restructuring proposal that will eliminate "feminist" and "woman" from the criteria for serving on its steering committee. Under the present structure, 11 of the steering committee's 20 positions (a 50 percent-plus-one formula) must be held by female representatives from feminist groups or groups whose main focus is pro-choice. The other nine positions are open to individuals of either gender. Under the proposed new structure, any representative from any member group may form the 50 percent-plus-one majority. The individual positions will remain unchanged. The proposal is being put forward by the steering committee— not all of whom agree with its details. The September meeting will also consider a new basis of unity for the three-and-a-half year old coalition, one which will shift the BCCAC's focus from establishing feminist reproductive health clinics—to a broader, more diffuse pro-choice agenda- No problem to date This debate about the composition of the steering committee is one of several the BCCAC has faced. At its inception, feminist groups such as the Vancouver Women's Health Collective and the Vancouver Status of Women argued against any individuals serving on the steering committee because of their lack of accountability. Thompson, Roseanne Mitchell, and Will Offley (who has re- Wendy Frost was part of the original re-structuring committee struck last year (it eventually merged with the steering commi- tee) and supports the proposed changes. According to Frost, the committee's proposal to eliminate the "feminist" criterion for groups arose for a number of reasons. "There was no consensus on what constituted a 'feminist' group," said Frost. "Some said it was an "autonomous" women's group, but where did that leave women's committees in unions, or women's committees in student groups? " Frost also referred to practical difficulties. The steering committee always had trouble filling the slots allotted for women's and pro- choice groups. "Women's groups are in crisis, and they're having a hard time finding someone to serve," said Frost. As well, the BCCAC is striving to be a broad-based coalition. One argument for eliminating the feminist criterion is that the present structure, in the words of the steering committee, sets up "two levels of political qualification for participation in the BCCAC," a concept the committee evidently finds problematic. The steering committee believes that removing the guarantee of feminist leadership will not diminish that leadership. "We couldn't see what the threat would be," said Frost. "There hasn't been a problem to date." The BCCAC membership may not agree to eliminate the feminist criterion. At a general meeting last February, the idea of reducing At a general meeting last February the idea of reducing the feminist majority... ran into heavy opposition. Others argued that individuals supplied an important source of energy and broadened the coalition's base. In the end, the fledgling coalition embedded into the steering committee structure a feminist—and female—majority. The BCCAC steering committee has had only two male members in its history. The current committee consists of representatives from Rape Relief, the NDP Women's Committee, the Canadian Federation of Student's Women's Committee, the Canadian Congress of Women, the Communist Party Women's Committee, and the India Mahila Association. Individual members are Wendy Frost, Jackie Larkin, Jackie Ainsworth, Helene Wizotski, Liz Bennett, Janet Vesterback, Joy the feminist majority to one third (from one half-plus -one) ran into heavy opposition. Eliminating the "woman" criterion for the steering committee should also get a rough ride. Kim Zander, the Communist Party Women's Committee representative on the steering committee, disagrees with the proposal. "I believe the leadership must remain with women and that it must be enshrined in the structure," said Zander. "And why should we fear saying that? It's going to be the women anyway." Zander has no problem with dropping the femimst criterion but beheves the BCCAC needs to attract women from other organizations: "Women in trade unions, women in community groups—we need them and they need us." Maintaining the woman criterion is one way to enlist their participation. In its proposal, the majority of the steering committee describes the existing restrictions on men "as a mistake, and another attempt at a structural solution to a (potential) pohtical problem." Frost beheves that women's— and feminist—leadership of the BCCAC can be ensured by other- than-structural means. "Our basis of unity, our program—those are the ways to [maintain feminist leadership]," said Frost. Basis of unity The proposed overhaul of the basis of unity reflects the BCCAC's pohtical work in the last year—and its difficult experience setting up Vancouver's Everywoman's Health Centre (EWHC). The current basis of unity held "the establishment of women's reproductive health clinics throughout the province " as the coalition's primary aim, with an interim goal of a Vancouver abortion chnic adhering to "feminist concepts." In a nutshell, the new basis of unity calls for the BCCAC to build "a broad-based pohtical movement which undertakes pohtical action and public education and which assists in establishing abortion services for women." The shift from clinic-building to movement-building comes at a time when the BCCAC can claim to have acheived the first, and to have assumed leadership of the second. "We ought to do pro-choice work wherever we can," said Wendy Frost."This will give us the scope to provide different levels of support to all kinds of abortion services." Kim Zander sees the evolution of the BCCAC into the pohtical sphere as "crucial ... there is a real demand for us to take up the issues." The coalition gained two- thirds of its 1,500 members last summer—during Chantal Daigle's crisis. (The BCCAC also has 50 member groups.) Zander also cited the immense toll of setting up the EWHC: issues around structure, staffing, power dynamics between the two bodies, and money. "The BCCAC does not have the resources to set up other chnics," said Zander. As, well, the Lower Mainland-based coalition should not consider itself the expert on what other regions in the province require. Frost and Zander see the proposed basis of unity as one in which the BCCAC can lend expertise to other groups seeking to establish chnics, but makes it clear the coalition's work is mainly to lend support to any abortion service which is accessible and supportive of women's choices. Vancouver's annual Gay Pride Parade was boosted this year by thousands of out-of-town visitors, courtesy of the Gay Gar Pictured above are some vocal locals. Commission rife with problems by Vera Ritt Women's groups have growing concerns that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies is inaccessible, disorganized and unlikely to fulfill its mandate. The Vancouver Women's Reproductive Technologies Coalition, which formed this spring to coordinate the efforts of Vancouver feminists wishing to address the Commission, says women are getting delayed, different—and often discouraging—information from the Commission about its activities and deadlines. In particular, the VWRTC is concerned that the July 31, 1990 deadline for informing the Commission of an intention to appear at its hearings was poorly advertised and simply too early. "Women's groups operate on shoe-string budgets and rely heavily on volunteer work," said VWRTC spokesperson Catherine Martell. "Most find it necessary to suspend activities during the summer. We need more time to prepare presentations for the Commission." Martell added that some women waited six weeks or more for information from the Commission. The Commission's chair, Dr. Patricia Baird, responded to the VWRTC's concern in a letter on July 25: "H July 31 causes undue problems, we are prepared to discuss alternative proposals ... No one who wishes to address the Commission will be turned away." In hght of the Commission's schedule of public hearings, it is hard to imagine how that will be. Beginning in September, the Commission will travel for three months, with mainly one-day stops in various cities. Vancouver, Victoria and Kamloops (or Prince George) will each get a day of the Commission's time (November 28- 30). The VWRTC, which consists of over 15 groups and individuals, could easily take up the Commission's schedule of 14 presenters a day, each allotted 20 minutes. The VWRTC has been frustrated in its efforts to find out how the Commission will decide who it will allow to appear. (The Commission will accept written briefs from any group or individual.) On August 1, the Commission held a by-invitation theme consultation in Vancouver to discuss the definition of reproductive health. Invitees included women from the DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN), the Quebec Association of Women's Centres, and feminist groups from Hahfax and Winnipeg. An uninvited observer from the VWRTC found the meeting unfocused and the atmosphere among the Commissioners "ripe with dissension." (The Commissioners (see Kinesis November 1989) come from a variety of pohtical perspectives, from anti-choice to feminist.) There also appear to be problems with the Commission's research program. Dr. Susan Mann- Trofimenkoff, a respected feminist historian at the University of Ottawa, was appointed Director of Research and Evaluation earlier this summer and resigned soon after for unspecified personal reasons. Sylvia Gold, a former president of the government-appointed Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW), replaced Mann-Trofimenkoffin mid- August. During Gold's term at CACSW, turnover and unhappi- ness among researchers was high. The VWRTC welcomes newcomers to its next meeting, Sept. 12 at 6:80 pm at #301- 1720 Grant St. KINESIS September 90 Nasty plant makes nasty exit by Diane Dupuis After ten years, the Levolor blind assembly plant in Burnaby has closed and is relocating in Alberta. The move results from a breakdown in contract negotiations between the company and its recently unionized employees. The International Woodworkers of America (IWA) Local 357 represents the 120 workers who were certified earlier this year. Eighty of the workers are women (approximately 50 are single parents) and many are immigrants. The workers decided to unionize because of intolerable working conditions including harassment of photo by Doon* Hcnningson Gutless response to housing discrimination by Susan Prosser In July the Social Credit government introduced Bill 51, legislation intended to deal with one of the major issues in BC's housing crisis: discrimination against families with children. In fact, Bill 51 will saddle these families with an appeal process which is unwieldy, time-consuming and legally faulty. As well, the Socreds have failed to address other root causes of the crisis, such as the lack of rent control, demolition of affordable housing and discrimination based on income. Bill 51 amends the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) to disallow discrimination against renters with children, in some cases. However, the BC Human Rights Act (HRA), which fails to prohibit discrimination on the basis of age, family status or income, remains unchanged. Laura Stannard of the Vancouver Tenants Rights Coalition sums up the major problem with Bill 51: "What raises the eyebrows of tenant groups, human rights groups and children's advocacy groups is that the RTA has never had jurisdiction over discrimination in housing. Discrimination in housing on the basis of race, rehgion, gender and physical disabihty has always been covered by the Human Rights Act." Why did the government fail to amend the HRA and bring it into Une with the Canadian charter? Government spokesperson Ian Fisher of Labour and Consumer Affairs would not comment in Minister Norm Jacobson's absence, saying simply, "I'm not a lawyer. I can't advise you." Under the amended act, a family refused housing because they have children would file a complaint under the RTA at the Human Rights Council "as though it were nled...under section 5 of the Human Rights Act." Section 5 does not mention discrimination on the basis of age or family status which, in Stannard's view, "leaves a legal loophole the size of Minister Norman Jacobson's house." An even greater concern is that pursuing a discrimination complaint could take up to two years because the Human Rights Branch lacks the Residential Tenancy Board's powers of expediency and its power to grant an order of Ostensibly, Bill 51 prohibits discrimination by landlords against tenants with children, but it contains several exemptions: buildings designated for seniors, for disabled people and any building which the Lieutenant Governor might decide to exempt, are not required to accept families with children. Parents with disabled children and disabled parents will be particularly vulnerable. Mark Tatchell of the Human Rights Branch readily admits there are uncertainties with interpretation. For example, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, the age requirement for seniors' buildings is 10 years lower than the limit the new legislation exempts, and it is unclear how the legislation will impact there. As Karen Gallagher, Director of Housing Services for the YWCA, says: "Either it is illegal to discriminate against families or it is not: the inclusion of this gigantic loophole suggests that it is not." Finally, according to Bill 51, tenants will now have 24 months, rather than the present one month, to vacate premises where the birth or adoption of a child causes them to exceed the occupancy of those premises. This amounts to business as usual: for 24 months the baby is protected by law, but then it is abandoned into the above morass. Bill 51 will come into effect on September 1 and groups hke the Tenants Right Coalition and the BC Pubhc Interest Advocacy Centre will watch closely as the first complaints are filed. Tatchell says they cannot anticipate the degree of landlord compliancy, but chances are the government's shck ad campaign has fooled everyone except the landlords into believing it's serious about dealing with discrimination against children and parents as tenants. the women by male supervisors. Intimidation tactics, including verbal abuse and physical threats, were common. Worker Sharon Berryman cites one example: "The plant manager smashed a head rail over one woman's desk and scared the hfe out of her." Another woman was severely reprimanded for taking time off for a doctor's appointment. The plant ran on a point/quota system: workers were paid according to the number of pieces assembled during their shifts. H someone was late or made a mistake she would be penalized points which would come off her quota and thus lower her pay. There was never a set wage. The union's proposal for a first contract included a set wage and an elimination of compulsory overtime. Berryman says, "We just wanted to be treated hke human beings." Turnover at the company was high. Berryman was 25th (out of 120) on the seniority hst after working at the plant for just four years. MA Local vice-president Joe LeClair said while there is nothing to prevent companies from moving out of the province, "there is a need to promote legislative penalties for employers who do this. It is not acceptable that companies can shut down." LeClair describes Levolor's owner, Canadian Window Coverings, as a turnaround company which has made "gunny sacks full of money" off their workers. CWC has plants in Toronto and Montreal. LeClair thinks the company was concerned that workers in those plants would unionize if Women Unite: Vancouver was successful and they didn't want to deal with that. A company spokesperson said no one was available for comment. A previous attempt to unionize (with the Teamsters) in 1988 was also squashed by management. The BC Federation of Labour is bringing a motion at their next meeting to declare Levolor products 'hot.' The motion is expected to pass. The IWA has instituted a placement committee to find jobs for the Levolor workers. (So far four have found new jobs.) A severance package has also been negotiated including one and a half week's We just want to be treated like human beings pay for every year of employment, remaining on the company's medical plan for four months and any other monies owed to the workers. LeClair said, "it is costing them a fortune to do this." Says Berryman: "I think the union did everything it could. The company did not want a union and wouldn't have negotiated with any union. They told us beforehand that if we joined a union they would leave. We have no regrets about unionizing." Take back the night by Anne Dolina In 1978 an ad hoc group calling themselves the 'Fly By Night' CoUective organized the first Take Back The Night in Vancouver. Women came to a beach in the West End dressed in witchy costumes, carrying an effigy which they set alight. They were protesting violence against women on the streets of this city—and the fact that women are never safe from sexist attacks. We have marched in many parts of the city over the years—from new Westminster to KitsUano. Always colourful, always loud, we ask no man for permission to walk in the street—no pohce "protection" and no government permission. We come out of our kitchens and bedrooms—out from behind locked doors. Our rage and our coUective voices have echoed the screams of many women. In this time of anti-feminist backlash, we hope that many feminists—old and new—wUl gather on September 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Oppenheimer Park (at PoweU St. and Jackson St. in Vancouver) to renew ourselves and remind the world that violence against women, from murder and rape to the exploitation of our bodies for profit, must end. Since 1981, Vancouver Rape ReUef and Women's Shelter and other member groups of the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres have coordinated Take Back The Night marches from coast to coast and in the US on the third Friday of September. Bring your banners, bring your noisemakers, bring -your friends. Women Unite—Take Back The Night. 4 KJlNbSIS September 90 NEWS ///////////////////^^^^^ Getting bashed in Montreal by Su; i O'Donnell Determined not to be sUenced, Montre'al lesbians and gay men are mobilizing public support for their fight against the brutality of Montre'al pohce. A series of confrontations have taken place in Montreal streets, including one that turned violent when city poUce officers forcibly broke up demonstrators gathered to protest the brutality of pohce officers who raided a lesbian and gay party mid-July. Patrizia Tavormina of Lesbians and Gays Against Violence (LGV) told Kinesis the Montre'al lesbian and gay community wUl not tolerate any more pohce brutality. Referring to the pohce raid that sparked the protests, Tavormina said: "This time they hit on the wrong group of lesbians and gays." The raid occurred at 4:30 am Sunday, July 15, when Montreal pohce crashed a party at a downtown warehouse, claiming they were responding to a complaint about the noise. (A few days later, poUce admitted no such complaint was made.) When pohce found alcohol on the premises and no permit to seU it, they ordered the 300 party- goers to leave. One man tried to return to the buUding to retrieve his jacket and was met with a pohce nightstick. Pohce reinforcements arrived. About 50 officers—half of whom had removed their name badges in direct violation of regulations—started marching on the crowd assembled outside. Taunting the party-goers with cries of "tappette" (fag) and "bitch," some officers hit them with their nightsticks and slammed their faces against the sidewalk. Others threatened to shoot anyone who tried to run away. Pohce arrested eight people (two at gunpoint) on various charges and injured fifty. Later that Sunday, 400 people gathered in protest outside a pohce station in the Gay ViUage. The protesters had three demands: the withdrawal of aU charges; an inquiry into the pohce brutahty; and lesbian and gay participation on a pohce committee that consults with minority groups. A pohce spokesperson assured the group that their demands would be considered and responded to at noon the foUowing day. The crowd dispersed. The next day, about 300 protesters gathered outside another downtown pohce station to await the response. Shortly after noon, when it appeared that no response was forthcoming, the protesters moved to the street, sat and formed a hnked circle, blocking traffic. Pohce responded by sending out a riot squad of about 70 officers from three stations. Again, many of the officers had removed their identification badges; some wore latex gloves. Montrealer Ming Dinh, in her official complaint to the Montreal Pohce Commission, described what happened next: "The pohce marched toward the demonstrators and began by throwing their belongings aside. I watched as they pounded unresisting demonstrators with their clubs before dragging them away to the wagons or to the station. I saw demonstrators who were resisting being moved, by holding on to each other, beaten on the shoulders, arms, body and groin area before being dragged apart. Some of the demonstrators who were at tempting to get up on their own were repeatedly beaten down with clubs before being aUowed—or dragged—up. "I saw people staggering away from the square doubled over or rubbing injured arms and shoulders. A few were screaming. Some women were dragged away by their hair, and I saw people who were talcing pictures get shoved and beaten. "After clearing the square, the pohce proceeded to clear the street leading to it by pushing and shoving innocent bystanders and demonstrators alike, hitting with their nightsticks if anyone complained. As we were herded down St-Mathiew toward Ste- Catherine, we encountered a Black woman heading toward the metro. She was jabbed in the stomach without warning by a policeman. Surprised, she cried out: "I can walk wherever I want to." The policeman's response was to hit her again and again, without saying anything, untU she turned around and walked back the way she came." This time, pohce arrested 48 people and $ 125 were injured. Back, head and groin 2 injuries were common, as were disloca- ■§ tions, sprains and abrasions. Twenty sought K hospital treatment; two were hospitalized t overnight. Some of those arrested sustained 1 their worst injuries in pohce custody. Please see LGV page 6 WARNING: Montre'al lesbians will fight police brutality Teachers' unions Office workers organize by Jean Rands Employees of local teacher unions in BC have met opposition from some teacher- employers in their bid to unionize and, as a result, had to withdraw their certification appUcation last spring. The employees have joined the Union of Teachers' Federation Employees (UTFE) which already represents approximately 120 janitorial, clerical and technical employees of the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF) in Vancouver. WhUe the employees of the BCTF have been organized for almost ten years, employees of local teachers' associations (affiliated to BCTF) have no union representation. Each of BC's 75 school districts has a local teachers' association, a union which represents teachers in negotiations with that school board. The majority of these associations are too smaU to hire clerical staff. There are 28 teacher unions that have offices and employ support staff on a regular basis. In most of these, there is only one clerical worker (caUed secretary, office manager, or executive secretary) who works closely with the elected fuU-time president of the teachers' union. The teachers hold elections annually, so the clerical workers' immediate supervisors—and often working conditions, job descriptions and procedures—are subject to frequent change. "We began organizing mostly because there's no job security without a union," said Cathy Brugge, who works in the Maple Ridge Teachers' Association office. "There are women out there who are completely alone, with no one to back them. We need a union so we can stand up for ourselves and for each other. Some of us have good benefits, while others have none at aU, and some have very poor working conditions. We need a union contract so that everyone concerned wUl be treated fairly." The employees began organizing shortly after the teachers unionized themselves in 1988. A majority joined UTFE, and the union appUed for certification May 8, 1990, under Section 40 of the Industrial Relations Act which aUows for coUective bargaining with multiple employers. Under this section of the Act, unanimous consent of aU 28 employers must be given or the Industrial Relations CouncU wUl reject the union appUcation. Before the Labour Code was changed in 1984, consent of a majority of employers would have been sufficient to aUow a vote of employees. It's not surprising that Social Credit labour law makes it difficult for women office workers to organize, but it's disappointing that other union members seem prepared to use such a law to prevent their own employees from winning union rights. One-third of the employers refused consent which meant the appUcation would have faUed. Consenting employers were: Central Okanagan, Abbotsford, Langley, Surrey, Richmond, Vancouver Elementary, Vancouver Secondary, Maple Ridge, West Vancouver, PoweU River, Greater Victoria, Saanich, Cowichan, Nanaimo, Alberni, Courtenay, CampbeU River, Vancouver Island North, and Shuswap. Those who did not consent were: Vernon, Kamloops, ChiUiwack, Delta, Burnaby, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, Prince George, and Sooke. BC teachers have long supported the concept of unions for themselves and for other employees. They have also supported the ideals of the rights of women and have vigorously pursued those ideals internaUy, at the school level and within their own union, the BCTF. ExternaUy, the BCTF Status of Women Committee has actively participated in programs to promote the rights of women in aU aspects of their hves. It is hoped that the concern which teachers have been expressing for fair, equitable treatment of women in general wiU now extend specificaUy to the democratic right of their clerical employees to seek union representation. The teachers' association employees have not given up. They have formed a sublocal of UTFE and elected an executive. This faU, they wUl have another organizing drive and they are confident they wUl again sign up a strong majority of local association employees. They hope that by getting information out to teachers they wiU succeed in convincing aU 28 teacher unions who have employees to consent to the multi-employer unit this time. Organizing 40 workers in 28 offices scattered across the province is a difficult and expensive proposition. If you would like to help out with costs like conference calls and mailings, please send a donation to UTFE Sublocal Organizing Fund, c/o Cathy Brugge, Sublocal President, 81279 Dewdney Trunk Road, RR 7, Mission, BC V2V 6H5. For more info, call Cathy at 462- 9952. Jean Rands is active in the UTFE. KINESIS September 90 Across Canada WHAT1 S NEWS? by Linda Choquette Damages awarded for abortion firing An employer has been ordered to pay damages of $2,400 to a young woman who was fired because she decided to have an abortion. The BC CouncU of Human Rights ruled in July that Donna Dodd was discriminated against on the basis of her sex. Dodd, who had worked for Coquitlam's Helping Hands Agency for eight months, told the councU she learned she was pregnant in June 1988, decided to seek an abortion, and asked her employer for two weeks off. Nettie Helgason, who runs the home- making agency, asked Dodd to consider continuing her pregnancy and putting the baby up for adoption. "I went home, thought about it and decided to stick to what I was going to do in the first place," Dodd testified. The next day she told Helgason of her decision by phone, and that evening Helgason came to where Dodd was working, and told her "what you are doing is murder." Dodd was never called in for work after that. Helgason testified that she had "no problem with Dodd's work," and that relations had been amiable untU the incident. Dodd, now 20, said she has had no luck finding work in the past two years, partly because of the trauma of the firing. "You can't do that to people," she said. Motherhood costs too much, holds women back Motherhood sets women back in their careers and makes them vulnerable to poverty, the National CouncU of Welfare says. It warns that Canada's population wUl continue to decline unless famiUes receive more support from government. "Given the enormous cost of motherhood for most women, it is amazing that so many of them continue to have chUdren," said a report on women and poverty released mid- August. Louise Dulude, a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, wrote the report. Dulude hsted chUd-care responsibiUties, labour market inequities, marriage breakdown and widowhood as the main causes of women's poverty. In 1987, women made up 59 percent of Canadian adults hving in poverty, the same proportion as in 1975. The report cited the lack of low- cost chUd-care, discrimination by employers against mothers and spouses who don't help in chUd-rearing as reasons why mothers must limit their paid work to part-time or part-year. "A very large proportion of women who have chUdren stiU leave the labour force for relatively long periods, and many of those who return take part-time jobs," said the report. "This cannot faU to have very damaging consequences for their capacity to earn a decent hving and become financiaUy independent." Calling for a "complete transformation" in Canadian attitudes to parenthood, the council urged the Canadian Radio- Television and Telecommunications Commission to enforce guidelines on sex-role stereotyping in media where women tend to be depicted as sex objects or care-givers and men who care for chUdren as "ridiculous" or "saintly." The report also recommended more government money for chUd-care and the full indexing of family aUowance payments. More misogyny as judge uses polar bear logic In a June ruhng, yet another Northwest Territories judge revealed his misogyny by giving a man a hght sentence for assaulting his wife because she wore, in the judge's opinion, a provocative t-shirt. "Women are extremely upset by the concept of provocation by what someone is wearing being a justification of assault," said activist Lynn Brooks. "This was hke being punched in the gut," said Brooks, chairperson of the YeUowknife- based Society Against FamUy Abuse. In the judge's opinion, wearing a t-shirt depicting cartoon polar bears having sex could imply "at least the possibihty of sexual perversity and promiscuity." Wearing the shirt "could be understood by the other spouse as an imminent threat," that the woman might commit adultery, said the judge. The woman, Joann Oakley, put the shirt on after she and husband Wayne returned home from an evening out. He demanded she take the shirt off, she refused, and he assaulted her. Judge Mark de Weerdt fined the man but said he would have considered a jaU term had Joann Oakley not worn the shirt. The Crown wUl appeal the decision. This is the second NWT judge to be involved in controversy in a case of violence against women. Last December, judge Michel Bourassa told a reporter that rape in the North is not as bad as rape in southern Canada. **$& Do typos turn you into a raging monster? There is a vocation for you - proofreading Kinesis. Please call Sleeky long-haired foxes bite back at brewery bull A summer advertising campaign by Mol- son Breweries has been derailed by femimst groups whose complaints have moved the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) to puU posters from the subways. The poster, part of a campaign entitled "Canadian WUdlife" shows a woman in a halter-top, holding a can of beer. The caption reads, "the rare, long-haired fox." The ad concept was introduced in a television commercial that used a Canadian wUdlife theme featuring men as a moose, a wolf and a loon, and a woman as a fox. "The fox is an attractive creature with sleek hair and lovely colouring," is one of the statements made in the Molson advertising copy. Responding directly to a complaint from MediaWatch, TTC's marketing manager agreed that the posters were sexuaUy exploitive and in violation of new TTC guidelines. Molson stated the ads may be used elsewhere in Canada where alcohol advertising on public transit is permitted. WorldWatch cites deaths from illegal abortions A new study released in July estimates as many as 200,000 women die each year from Ulegal abortions. The Washington-based Worldwatch Institute says that restrictions on pregnancy termination do not curb abortions, they only cause more deaths. According to the report, titled The Global Politics of Abortion, 50 miUion abortions—half of them Ulegal—are performed around the world each year. LGV from page 5 Since the arrests, LGV organizers have worked around the clock to keep the struggle in the public spotlight. The largest demonstration was held July 29, when 2,000 supporters raUied in sweltering 34-degree temperatures outside the main pohce station in Old Montreal and marched to a park frequented by many lesbians and gay men. SoUdarity demonstrations were held the same day in Toronto, Washington and New York. To date, Montre'al pohce officials have not made a public statement about the violence but a pohce internal investigation is underway. LGV is considering legal action against the City of Montreal and is demanding inclusion on the agenda of the PoUce and Community Relations Conference in Montreal in September. LGV is soliciting funds for their expenses and for the legal fees of those charged. Their address is: LGV Legal Fund, c/o Centre communautaire gais- lesbiennes de Montreal, C.P. 476, succ. C, Montreal H2L 4K4 "A moral smokescreen effectively obscures the huge public-policy, health, human-rights and social costs of restrictive abortion pohcies," said the report's author Jodi Jacobson. Abortion should be a legitimate family- planning component "instead of making it a crime," said Jacobson. In countries where legalized abortion is included in family- planning, abortion rates drop rapidly. When abortion is legal, it is the fourth choice among types of birth control—after female sterUization, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and oral contraceptives. But where contraceptive methods are inadequate, because of poor information, religious or supply reasons, abortion is the most used birth control method. The Worldwatch Institute is an independent research group financed by private foundations and United Nations organizations More bucks for men, more jobs for women? In a plan to increase the presence of women in senior management positions, two of Canada's largest daily newspapers— owned by Southam Newspaper Group (SNG)—have decided to partly tie managers' salaries and advancement to the efforts they make in the recruitment, development and promotion of women. However, and sort of quota system was expUc- itly ruled out. The concept could become pohcy at aU 16 SNG dailies across Canada. It is being tested at The Gazette in Montreal and the Ottawa Citizen. The plan is one of 10 recommendations made by a task force on women's opportunities launched in 1988. The task force, struck to probe barriers to women's advancement within SNG, revealed a serious lack of women in senior positions. Other recommendations in the report say SNG should: • ensure short hsts for promotion and recruitment to senior management include at least one woman • establish or support on-premise or nearby day- care • circulate a pohcy statement declaring its commitment to "fuU equahty of women" • appoint a full-time equal opportunity coordinator The Gazette's Joan Fraser, who co- chaired the task force, said she is "extremely pleased," and called the compensation tie "clearly one of the core recommendations." Commenting on the lack of a quota system, SNG president RusseU MiUs acknowledged that the compensation recommendation could end up as a meaningless token, but said he was determined not to let that happen. John Fisher, president and chief executive officer for Southam Inc. which owns SNG, expressed what he called a "personal view," stating "I'm somewhat reluctant to accept something that is a force feeding, to work for any sort of ratios...I think we want to level the playing field, not tip it the other way for the catch-up." Sources: Globe and Mail; Vancouver Sun KINESIS September 90 NEWS x>^^^^^^^^^^^^ Pay equity Limited, even dangerous, response by Debra J. Lewis Everyone supports pay equity. Or so it seems. Polls show that the majority of the population supports it. Popular magazines proclaimed it as the "working women's issue of the eighties." Most provinces have some form of pay equity legislation or program, and even BC's Social Credit government has announced that pay equity is on the agenda for the pubUc service. However, an increasing number of feminists are criticizing pay equity programs as a limited—and even dangerous—response to women's unequal pay. In Canada, the term 'pay equity' has come to mean a very specific kind of reform. Although it is just one possible response to the broader issue of wage discrimination, in recent years it has eclipsed other strategies. Many women's hopes are raised by the promise of pay equity. And, indeed, some women do get some money from pay equity schemes. But pay equity programs do not meet women's demands for equal wages. They may, in fact, limit future possibilities for organizing women around the issue of wage discrimination. To understand why, we need to be clear about what pay equity What Is Pay Equity? All pay equity programs to date have five characteristics in common: 1) They are proactive programs. Proactive means that employers are required by law to take action to implement a pay equity plan. Previous legislation to address wage discrimination (such as the Canadian Human Rights Act provisions for equal pay for work of equal value) have been complaints-based; that is, individual employees (or their unions) have been required to identify discrimination and make a complaint. 2) They are based on a comparison of job content and require some form of job evaluation. Comparison of job content is done by assessing the skiU, effort, respon- sibUity and working conditions in male and female dominated job classes. This means a job evaluation plan must be used. Job evaluation plans are generaUy extremely compU- cated, and often controUed by management consultants. Using them assumes that it is both possible and desirable to determine the "value" of work as a basis of pay. It also assumes (wrongly) that historicaUy there has been a rational means through which male wages have been determined, and that it is only necessary for women to fit ourselves into this rational system. 4) They are phased-in programs. Pay equity programs take years to implement. In ah existing legislation, the shortest time period for employees to receive their final wage adjustments is six years—two years to determine and implement a job evaluation plan and four years to phase in wage increases. For other workers, the time period may be much longer. 5) They claim to end gender-based wage discrimination in the workplace. 3) They address wage discrimination only within individual workplaces. Pay equity programs only consider people who work for the same employer when making comparisons. While there is some variation in how employer is defined, people who work for different employers cannot be compared. Although feminists who support pay equity programs often speak of them as only a first step toward addressing wage discrimination, many others (including governments who pass the programs, the media, pay equity consultants and others) most often present pay equity as the solution to the Then there's wage equity... by Anne Harvey Wage Equity means closing the wage gap between women and men. Pay Equity is one method of closing the wage gap. It means using job evaluation to close the gap. Wage equity—as a strategy— means simply closing the gap. Pay women more. There's power in those words and anti- feminists know it. Wage equity, systematically eUminating the 20 percent wage gap which social statisticians can show is the result of gender discrimination, would lead to a fundamental restructuring of society. A feminization of society. A profound shift in our value system. H we earned more money (and welfare rates were indexed to the average wage), daycare would be easier to arrange. Women who suffer violence in the home would not be blocked from leaving because of financial considerations. There would be less incentive for employers to keep us in boring jobs. Pensions would be higher because they are hnked to wages. We'd have more energy to lobby for choice and for feminist education in schools. H we win wage equity, men wUl lose financially relative to women, and status and power relations wUl change. In absolute dollars, men wUl not lose. In social benefits, they wUl gain, as we aU wUl. Most family units now, whether heterosexual or gay, need two incomes to pay for rent or mortgage. Wage equity wUl mean families with chUdren, whether they include one or two adults, wUl hve above the poverty hne. So how do we get wage equity? We're going to need legislation: wage equity legislation. Who's going to get us that legislation? Now there's a question. Individual unions might have some success bargaining wage equity for workers in particular industries. Health care workers in the hospitals for example, have a good chance of making progress. The BC Federation of Labour (BCFL) however, has not moved on this issue, and no action wUl be taken unless there is pressure from women trade unionists in the next few months. The big white coUar union, the BC Government Employees Union has decided that legislation—any kind of equity legislation— would interfere with their bargaining rights. So despite the fact the BCFL passed a resolution at its 1988 convention to "form a community/labour coaUtion to educate and lobby for pay equity legislation..." nothing has been done to begin a lobby. The provincial New Democratic Party has taken a position in support of equal pay rates, but they have not decided how or when they would bring this about. For the NDP to implement legislation we wUl need a large public lobby to offset the heavy pressure they wUl surely feel from big and perhaps smaU business, as soon as they say the words wage equity. The Socreds have announced they wUl bring in a pay equity pohcy. We can expect it not to have any substance and to apply to a very narrow group of women. They wUl use it to try and buy the women's vote in the next election. If we are going to win wage equity, we need a lobby of feminists from the women's movement and the trade union movement to raise the issue in the next provincial election. You can join in the lobby by contacting: Anne Harvey - 438- 3148. She is I the former president of the Office and I Technical Employee's Union problem—that is, once we have done a pay equity program, the problem is solved and wage discrimination is a thing of the past. What's Wrong With Pay Equity? Despite the limitations of pay equity programs, many women have supported them as a first step in addressing wage discrimination. But is it such a good first step after aU? Some feminists are realizing that there are at least four good reasons why we should rethink pay equity and develop other strategies for addressing wage discrimination. The first problem with pay equity is that it is a procedural reform. This means that pay equity describes a process but promises no result. So once a job evaluation is carried out and wage adjustments are made, pay equity can be said to be accomplished— whether the results are good, bad or indifferent. Trying to criticize the results of procedural reform afterward is rather Uke trying to nail jeUo to the waU. If nothing is promised, it is difficult or even impossible to criticize when Uttle is dehvered. A second problem with pay equity is that it is based in a comparison of job content. It is, supposedly, to assess the "value" of men's and women's work and make wage adjustments accordingly. But people—male or female—have never been paid "according to the value of their work. Why should women have to prove that we logicaUy fit into a system that isn't logical to begin with? Furthermore, compeUing women to be compared to a male standard of value means that questioning that standard becomes impossible. Pay equity is not the only reform for which the women's movement has faUen into this trap. Increasingly, feminists are realizing that when men define the norm and women are expected to fit in, women's reaUty gets lost. Some gains wUl be made for those women who are most hke men. But when women differ—through the work we do in the paid labour force, through domestic labour, or through our responsi- bUity for chUdren—the gains are generaUy marginal or non-existent. Another problem with pay equity is that it divides women workers. We often hear of how pay equity can divide women and men. But, frankly, to me that's a secondary concern. Far more insidious is the way it divides women. Pay equity programs offer some limited gains to groups of women workers who have some degree of relative power—large groups of unionized women. It provides a way of buying them off. There is some debate about how many women are left out, either because they are completely excluded or because they cannot use such legislation effectively. But there is no doubt of who these women are—women in small workplaces, the lowest paid women, immigrant women and women of colour: the very women who most need to be included. The fourth problem with pay equity that it completely relies on bureaucrats and technical experts for implementation. Women are expected to give control over to the experts. The women who pay equity should benefit become invisible and certainly demobUized. Furthermore, the fact that pay equity is a bureaucratic and technocratic reform means that it is very expensive. It's costing literaUy miUions of doUars and thousands of hours across Canada—time and money that are not avaUable for other strategies. And that's the final beauty of pay equity for governments and employers. Playing the pay equity game simply consumes so many re- See PAY page 8 KINESIS ^ NEWS Yes, Virginia Computers make us sick and stressed by Kinesis Writer In March, 1990, researchers at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommended that the electromagnetic fields emitted by most computer monitors be designated "probable human carcinogens," a classification currently shared by the pesticide DDT, dioxin and PCBs. However, WiUiam Farland, Director of EPA's Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, ordered the researchers' recommendations deleted from the report. The study only suggested and did not prove a causal Unk, and Farland felt it was "inappropriate" to designate electromagnetic fields (ELF) as a carcinogen "at this time." Yet a recent editorial in Macworld (a computer industry magazine) claims that extremely low frequency magnetic emission—the ELF radiation common to most office VDTs—could become one of the most troublesome issues for information technology in the coming decade. The debate over video monitors and health risks began soon after computers appeared in workplaces in the 1970s. Since then researchers, workers (mainly women) and manufacturers have argued over findings that suggest a Unk between magnetic radiation and cancers, birth disorders and other health problems. Yet another display terminal hazard has been uncovered by researchers at the University of EvansvUle in Indiana: the connection between women afflicted by headaches and tension at work and the high frequency squeal emitted by their computers. Caroline Dow, one of the EvansvUle researchers, first suspected a hnk when she was working in a computer laboratory at another university. "These computers bugged RAY from pay 7 sources that there's very Uttle left for anything else. Re-Seizing The Issue I must admit that I often despair about the future of action on wage discrimination. Despite some discussion of the need for a model that is defined by the results, not the process, httle progress has been made. We seem trapped inside a framework that forces women to compare job content and accept the male standard as the norm. Pay equity has overshadowed other strategies that could dehver much greater gains for the women who need them most desperately— hke a campaign for hvable minimum wage, for example. And there is currently no nontechnical, non-bureaucratic method for action on wage discrimination. There are two possible responses to aU of this. The most common response so far has been that, since pay equity is the only game in town, we have to play it. But it wUl be a huge loss for women if we allow pay equity to remain the only game in town; if we let it consume aU the resources we have at our disposal; if we accept that pay equity is the And Opening Soon The Annex Our Electronic Publishing storefront 670 Commercial Drive Telephone: 253-3153 issue and not just one possible solution— and a limited, even dangerous solution at that. The alternative is for women to re-seize the issue. We need to get out of the box that says comparing job content is the only way of addressing wage discrimination. We need solutions that don't abandon those women who need them most. And we need strategies that mobihze women, rather than teU them to put their trust in the experts. At a conference on pay equity this spring, one speaker said that the practice of pay equity shows that as a reform it is less radical than supporters had hoped, and less radical than opponents had feared. But we have learned that women's economic situation in general, and women's wages in particular, need a more radical response. It's time to re-think pay equity, to develop a new agenda on wage discrimination, and to mobUize women around it. Debra Lewis is the author of Just Give Us the Money: A Discussion of Wage Discrimination and Pay Equity published by the Women's Research Centre. Send $9 (plus $1.50 handling) to the WRC, #101 2245 W. Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6K 2E4 me," said Dow. " I was very, very strung out. Sometimes I could hear it, sometimes I couldn't." Her suspicions deepened when she and her co-workers observed fatigue, headaches and irritability in women students working with classroom computers. Dow co-conducted a study in 1987 which revealed that clerical workers exposed to a conversation-level sound tended to speed up and double their errors. " Those are symptoms of high stress," said Dow who pointed out that women are especiaUy vulnerable to the squeal from a VDT because women hear high-frequency sounds better than men. A study last March showed that women are affected by the noise even when they do not consciously hear it. Avoiding this high-frequency squeal from computers is nearly impossible at this stage, since the sound is present in almost aU North American computers. DeaUng with low-level magnetic radiation is also problematic. However, it may be possible to minimize exposure by sitting at least 60 cm (2 ft) from the front of the monitor and 122 cm (4 ft) from the sides or back of a co-worker's monitor. ^ ^^ Stationery & Office Supplies • Artists' Materials • Copying • Facsimile • Electronic Publishing ^^5? 1460 Commercial Drive • Ph 255-9559 • Fax 253-3073 3 KJlNbbl J September 90 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 (604)682-5848 V6B 2M6 ////////////////////^^^^^ /////////////////////^^^^ Commentary Prouder and prouder What roadblocks are really about by Rachel Andrew I was a white person once. Or at least I thought I wanted to be. I grew up in a white school with white best friends. My grades were good and I felt different than other kids from my reserve. Maybe a httle better. I kept thinking this way for quite some years. Well at least until I found out for myself. When I scored the highest mark on three District Math exams and averaged 99 percent, it never occurred to me that maybe I didn't get any formal recognition because I was from the Mt. Currie reserve. I know that my white classmates got plenty of attention when they did well. In my early teens I always commented, "I hate Mt. Currie, it's full of drunks, girls get pregnant at 13, there's too many break- ins, I can't wait to get out of here." One day my mom told me off. "You never see the good things happening here," she said. "Our people are getting better. More people are sobering up and less girls are having babies. I think you just don't know what being Native is really about." After I graduated, I decided to go to college and take Creative Writing. I kept on writing "Indian stories." I realized that I wanted to be recognized as part of our unique culture. As I learned more and more about the Lil'wat ways I became prouder and prouder of who I was. I went to sweat lodge ceremonies, Stein Festival meetings, hstened and talked to people about the old ways and I hstened to our hand drummers. Sometimes I would sit there and feel a shiver starting from the bottom of my spine and moving outwards through my whole body. It balanced me emotionally, physically and spiritually. I'm now 21, and I hve with my boyfriend. I've been home from college for half a year. I would talk about land claims with my mother and father, who was Chief for eight years. I fully supported the Stein Valley Festival, but I never really hke to think about land claims too seriously. It just seemed hke a cause that always went nowhere. It was the entire reason I was frustrated with all the people on my reserve. Everyday they woke up knowing that they were forced to hve in an area, a "reservation," that they wouldn't have chosen for themselves. My boyfriend Dean used to say, "reserved for highways, trains, airports and power hnes." When I thought about what could be the core to all the problems Native people have, I soon realized it came from what the white people did to us. There were 50,000 people hving in our Lil'wat territory once. Now there's 1500. The white settlers traded blankets to our people. But our people didn't know that the blankets were contaminated with small pox. Thousands and thousands of people died. We became a weaker people. Every time I think about it a ball of hate spits out from me to the people from Pemberton. Sometimes I feel sorry for white people because they seem so lost in their materialism and capitahsm; sometimes I hate their guts for doing all the things they did to the Native people. My parents were put in residential and my father could only speak Indian. He was seven years old when he was shipped to Kamloops. Everytime he spoke a word of Indian they beat him. I hate the Catholics now. I hate the priests for abusing boys and girls and starting the chain of sexual abuse amongst our people. That also leads to alcohol, drug, wife and child abuse. We've been hving in this white shme ever since the white man stepped foot on our land. And can you beheve we welcomed them with open arms? We fed them during the depression. "Our people didn't have no Depression," someone told me. "The white people almost starved, so we fed them." My dad told me that we never signed any treaty stating that we were giving up any of our land. We were never forced to or agreed to. Every tree on every logging truck that passes my house, I thought, belongs to our people. It should never have been cut from the grounds that we call sacred. There's a huge scar on the mountain in our front view from our home. I was told that there were burial grounds and pic- tographs there that the loggers clear cutted through. The logging companies were informed of this but do you think they cared? White people claim to have all kinds of solutions for the Native people. There is only one solution that will work. What is ours is ours. If you want this world to be saved then put your support into all Native land claims because we are the people who are going to save it for you. Forests cannot be harvested. They do not grow to be 50 feet in one year. The animals have almost no ' place to go. Many are becoming extinct. We are afraid to eat our traditional foods because we fear the pesticides and other toxics that have gotten into the animals and fish. I want to have children. I want to eat fish and deer and berries. I want to swim in our rivers and travel to our most sacred grounds. I want to be able to drink clean water and breath good air. I want to be able to sit in the sun and not worry about skin cancer. But most of all I want to be proud of who I am. I want to be able to say, "I am from the Lil'wat Nation." white people and their ways of hving. We would have to wake up and stand up to be the people we once were. I was watching the evening news when I saw that the Indians in Quebec had put up a road block because white people wanted were going to finally stop being shoved around and start standing up for our rights. It started with the poorest people. The people on welfare who hved day-by-day, hating it. Tension dropped and the feeling of strength awakened when our hand drum- U/L'tV/AT NATION BloLKAVB to build a golf course on their land which had a burial ground on it. A few people from Mt. Currie already had an information roadblock on Lilloet Lake road. The next night I watched the news again and saw that the pohce had started shooting at the blockade. This made me sick. "Holy shit. Some- mm+mm*m$m0mm If you want to know what's going on then...educate yourself on the environment, land claims, history of white settlement and history of Native people. Dean would talk about his frustrated feehngs towards white people and the way they've treated us and our land. I would get tired of hearing his grievances every time we were on a long drive together. Finally after an argument about what Mt. Currie should do and after we called each other a few names, I yelled at him, "Don't ever talk to me about land claims again unless you're going to do something about it. You have no right to criticize until you do something about what's going on." The truth was that I felt the exact same way as he did, but I was hoping it would all go away. My neighbour told me that the Indian people were just all asleep. Lulled by the thing big's going to happen. Do you know what's going to happen? Roadblocks are going to go up all over now," I said to Dean. Thank God I was right. The next evening the people from my reserve put up a roadblock. Dean and I went over that night. There was a fire in the middle of the road and people were standing around it, talking. The night was warm and everyone was under the blanket of stars. There was a httle bit of tension in the air. Everyone knew about the roadblock in 1975 and some people spoke about it. Everyone seemed to feel, oddly enough, happy. I now realize it was because we knew we mers began singing. We all knew who we were and why we were there. We felt hke we were finally allowing ourselves to be Lil'wat. Elijah Harper spoke at the Stein Festival in Tswassen this year and told us that the Meech Lake Accord did not have any concern for the Aboriginal people. How can a society such as the French cry discrimination and then turn around and do it in their own backyard? I recently received a letter from Quebec saying that the KKK were involved with trying to stir up some trouble between the pohce and the roadblocks there. You all saw the effigy of an Indian on the news. You can't deny what is happening. Canada prides itself on being a multicultural society, a society that offers equal opportunity to all people. All except the Native, French, gay and other so-called minority groups. I will tell you that our roadblock has brought nothing but good news for us. We can now stand and fight for what is ours. Now we are on our way up the ladder. It is a peaceful and nice atmosphere at the roadblock site. We drum, sing, talk and get to know each other again. If you want to know what is going on then my advice to you is educate yourself on the environment, land claims, history of white settlement and history of native people. Not the histories your white people wrote for you—you've all learned that—but the Native side of the story. Come and see for yourselves. Rachel Andrew is of the Lil'wat Nation. She may be contacted at P. O. Box 71, Mt. Currie, B.C. VON 2K0 KINESIS International Romania This is somebody's child by Millie Strom Twenty-four years ago a despot gained control of an East European country and turned fetuses into "the property of the state." Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceaus- escu, in an effort to increase his country's population from 22 million to 30 million by the end of this century, relegated women to the role of modern-day handmaids. Abortion, birth control and sex eduction were forbidden. The 1966 anti-abortion policy was enforced by Ceausescu's "menstrual pohce" who randomly monitored women's cycles for signs of pregnancy. Women risked imprisonment nine months later if a baby was not delivered. Only women over 45 with five children under 18 years of age, and those whose hves were endangered, were permitted abortions. Ceausescu's pohcies also severely restricted heat and electricity to a few hours in the evening, and 80 percent of food products were exported to reduce the foreign debt. Linda Mezejewski, a Fulbright lecturer in a Romanian university in 1985, observed not only the poverty, but the bleak mud and concrete coloured, hghtless envi- The orphans are not nobody's children —the majority have mothers and families. ronment. She described it as "a world constructed to be asexual, carefully designed to extinguish any hint of human capacity for eroticism." Pornography was banned, but "it was no feminist victory, but rather a sign of control." In order to avoid patriotic motherhood, birth control was smuggled in and illegal abortions were procured. According to an official of the Bucharest Medical Hospital, at least 1,000 women a year died of botched, illegal abortions in the capital city alone. Passive infanticide pushed the mortality rate so high, the government delayed birth registrations for a month in order to avoid documentation of the deaths. "Orphanages" were filled with children abandoned by mothers who struggled to main- tain the rest of their families. In the few years before the revolution, Ceausescu permitted the selling of some babies for adoption to Israeli, German and French parents, again, to help with the debt. Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu were executed in the December 1989 revolution and the Council for National Salvation became the provisional government. Some of the first changes were to legalize abortion, permit birth control, turn on the heat, process visas, and stop the exportation of food. But the orphanages remained full of children. These orphans have grabbed the public attention. Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney and Barbara Bach Starkey (whose husbands were the former Beatles) are raising money through their Romanian Angel Appeal project. However, the title song of the album, Nobody's Child, is erroneous and misleading. The orphans are not nobody's children—the majority have mothers and families. Enter the Romanian Orphans Support Group of Canada, a BC-based group of married couples intent on bringing Romanian children to Canada to fill the vacancy that infertility has left in their hves. Media headhnes portrayed the group's efforts as: "Mission to save orphans," and "Mercy trip to Romania;" in other words, they were heroes. No one could help but feel happiness as Mark Biech and Coreen Biech displayed their newly adopted nine-month old Romanian baby, Catlin when they returned from Romania this summer. This altruistic image is a microcosm of society's attitude towards adoption. And a closer look at the efforts of the Romanian Orphans Support Group will illustrate the misogynistic nature of adoption practice. Instead of separating these children from their mothers, siblings, families, culture and country, the money generated by the support group could assist mothers to keep their families together. While North Americans abhor the horrific conditions in the orphanages—some children were infected with the AIDS virus by dirty needles used during blood transfusions—we do not seem to react to the horrific conditions the children's mothers and families hved in during Ceausescu's regime. None of the medical supplies brought by the Romanian Orphans Support Group contained contraceptives. At a meeting I attended this summer, the group's founder, Sonya Paterson was queried by a prospective parent who was concerned about the Don't be shy At Kinesis, we know that writing is a brave act, availability of babies now that motherhood was not mandatory in Romania. Paterson rephed, "Don't worry, the supply [of babies] won't dry up yet because birth control will take awhile to become readily available." Preventing this tragedy is not one of the aims of the group. The Biechs addressed the Romanian Orphans Support Group recently to help other parents on their "adventure to Romania." Mark Biech made it very clear that to get cooperation one must tip a lot. Tipping in Romania does not mean in currency but rather in products—shampoo and soap are particularly in need. birthmother and family, Biech quickly responded: "Well, we'll deal with that when he's grown." Perhaps an attractive feature of adopting a foreign baby, such as Romanian Catlin, is that the birthmother is so far away. The country's pohcies have been changing from week-to-week regarding adoption, and it is unhkely there will be records to open for a reunion, let alone for a birthmother to afford to travel to North America in search. This is unfortunate for adoptees, particularly those adopted at an early age who have no memory of their history. Jan Lutke, chair of the Society of Special Needs Adoptive Biech also advised not to drive to the birthmother's home in a rented car when seeking her signature on the adoption papers—she would know you were a foreigner. Said Biech, she may not want her child leaving the country or would ask for monetary compensation for her loss. "This would be seen as buying babies, and well, we can't do that." When asked by adoptee and adoption- reform filmmaker, Chana Fay Aldrich, about Catlin maintaining contact with his Parents (a BC-based group) has said: "It's a hollow feehng. They have a dual history—a curiosity that can't be satisfied can become Women artists discuss their v and ideas in this beautiful a thought-provoking publicati. Subscribe! 4 Issues a year-$24 Gallerie Publications Box 2901 Panorama Drive North Vancouver, B.C. Canada V7G 2A4 Romanian mothers may end up with some extra cash and goods, but that will not make up for the loss of a member of their family. When the best interests of the mother—to keep her family intact—are given validity, then we will see an end to the syndrome of "nobody's children." Adoption will cease to provide children for couples, but rather provide homes for children. i . 1146Commercial* 253-0913 .i , KINESIS September 90 International. Dominican Republic The traffic in women by Sergia Galvan edited & transcribed by Jill Bend The Hermanas Conference in Harrison Hotsprings (July 6-8) had an agenda of powerful voices: sisters bringing news of their political movements in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Canada, to link and contrast them. This month, Kinesis carries the message of Sergia Galvan, an activist from the Dominican Republic. In upcoming months, we will bring more coverage of the Hermanas Conference. Sergia Galvan has worked for the last 12 years designing women's programs and women's production co-ops in the Dominican Republic. As part of the Dominican Centre of Educational Studies since 1982, she has headed up the educational program of the National Peasant Women's Confederation (CONAMUCA) which, with 10,000 members and 600 local branches nationwide, is the country's largest women's organization. She also works with the Dominican-Haitian Women's Movement (MUDAH), which groups Haitian women migrant workers periodically employed in the Dominican sugar harvests. Galvan is a founding member of the Dominican Republic Black Women's Collective. The collective is currently preparing alternative activities to the celebration of the "discovery" (conquest) of America, slated for 1992, and has published the book Women and Racism in the Dominican Repubhc. There is little known about the traffic in women which has made more than 10,000 Dominican women captive in brothels in different European countries, after having signed on to emigrate to jobs as domestic workers or entertainment personnel. In the Caribbean area, you see the evidence of the most brutal violations of human rights and of the violent robbery of the social, economic, ethnic, and cultural history of the people. It is the landing-pad of groups of people who were relocated from their original lands and forced to develop a new identity on the basis of being whipped. The Caribbean has been considered one of the most important regions from a strategic point of view because of the economic interests held there by the USA—direct investments of over $15,000,000,000. Equally crucial are the maritime routes that cross the Caribbean area from the Panama Canal. These routes, in war times or in confiictive times, are converted into supply routes for the military. From 1809 to 1965, the US realized 214 interventions and aggressions. In total, there are 16 US military bases in the Caribbean, 7 military bases in Puerto Rico, and 9 installations of their reserve army. It is very difficult for us to find answers to this situation in the Caribbean because the US does all that it can to maintain a separation and eliminate communication between the islands, and communication between the Caribbean and Africa If you want to go to Puerto Rico, which is only 25 minutes from Sato Domingo [capital of the Dominican Republic], you need a US visa. To go to Cuba, "g j you will have problems because then you will be accused of communism. Between Haiti and the Dominican Re- 3 1 public, which are the two parts of the same || island, all economic and pohtical plans and education programs are designed to further the separation and rivalry between the two peoples. At this moment, there is a plan of great significance for all the Caribbean region— the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the supposed "discovery" of the Americas, which we don't call a discovery but rather the first intervention in the Americas. It bothers us that they try to present this occasion as a meeting between two worlds, and that the entire Caribbean is hke a mixture of "cafe con leche," coffee with milk. This is their way of trying to erase the few remnants left of our African roots. It is a way of giving validity to colonialism, and we still have colonies of Enghsh, French, US and Dutch dominion. This is their way... to erase the remnants... of our African roots. In spite of all these problems, women of the Caribbean have tried to do their best to overcome the situation and this goes back to the time of colonization when Black women aborted as a protest, as a rejection of colonial domination because they were pregnant from the rapes of the colonial aggressors. As in all the Latin American countries, women are affected in the worst way by the conditions. In the Caribbean, 67 percent of women are illiterate. There is a very high rate of unemployment, and women are forced into the lowest part of the productive scalc.the "informal economy." In the Dominican Repubhc, 25 percent of economically-active female population works as domestic servants or, as an extension of women's work in the home, as street sellers or textile industry workers. One of the most alarming examples of our economic phght is the commercialization and sale of our bodies—the traffic in women. It is a commerce organized by a strong network, normally with the support of the governing class. In Curacao, there is a site where trafficked women are taken called Campo Alegre (Happy Camp). It is a famous spot. The government of Curacao issues all the required entry visas to these women, knowing that they are being trafficked to prostitute themselves in these places. Other women are trafficked or sold to the military bases of the US (for example, in Puerto Rico) to satisfy the sexual needs of the soldiers. Other women are tricked into thinking they will work as domestic help or go to work as dancers. They are taken to Europe, usually Holland, Switzerland or Italy. When they arrive in these places, they discover that they are not really going to such work but are being forced to prostitute themselves. Their documentation is taken away from them, they are locked up in a room or house somewhere, and they really have no other means of leaving. They don't speak the language, feel completely helpless, and have no legal route out of these countries. They must remain there until some organization or individual helps them to leave. I want to read the testimony of a trafficked woman whose story, thanks to the help of some women in the Netherlands who helped her escape, we are fortunate to have: "They took about 20 or more of us women to Italy, Germany and Greece. They told me, when I was tricked into doing this, that I would be taken to work as a maid in a hotel. They took us to this cabaret and, if we didn't want to work in the cabaret, they gave us injections of drugs or pills and then put us to work doing everything. When they see that a woman is lazy or can't deal with all the "work" of accommodating 5 or 6 men in the same night, they give her an injection of a drug called jobina. This drug produces a sensation in the woman so that she doesn't lose the desire to con tinue making love and, when she gets to a point where she is almost fainting, then they take the men away and they lock her into a room where they give her a tranquilizer. In this way, they give her time to recover herself." Another situation in the Caribbean, also very dramatic, is that of the "illegal voyages." Thousands of women, because of unemployment or low wages, are forced to go to the US or other countries in search of jobs. In 1985 in the Dominican Repubhc, women were asphyxiated in the cargo room of a boat they were locked aboard en route to the Dutch isles of San Martine. One of the most tragic abuses is that if a woman begins to menstruate, in the majority of cases, they are thrown to the sharks in the open sea. The sailors who run these small boats beheve that if there is blood on the boats from menstruating women, then it will attract the sharks and they will all die from shark attacks. So, they prefer to throw these women in the sea. The women's movement is very recent in this region, since 12 years. The feminist movement is also very recent and really exists only on the bigger islands—Dominican Repubhc, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and San Bizet. The most important intent has been the creation of a network that can move forward together. The Caribbean women have much grief that the people of Latin America do not know what is happening in the region; they don't know how many islands there are, and they don't know how many or which languages we speak. If I travel to Mexico or Peru or Columbia, this information is also new for the Latin American women. They don't know the Caribbean reality although we form part of the Latin American context. To conclude, I want to say as a Caribbean woman, as a Black woman, that I think we are making significant advances in eradicating these walls, these separations that exist not only in the Caribbean but also in relation to Latin America as a continent. Sergia Galvan KINESIS ^ C«w jww beUeve the roar of the crowd? by Esther Shannon 18 Hours To Go: Friday Night, August 3rd The lounge at the Lotus Hotel is normally a quiet place to have a beer and banter with the drag queens. The real lesbian action takes place in the downstairs bar where the permanently pre-orgasmic disco music indiscriminately pounds everyone whether they are too hot to touch, too cool to dance or just hopelessly enthusiastic. The night before the Gay Games, with the line-up to the downstairs bar stretching around the corner, the lounge was packed. I don't think there are many who would argue that a lesbian bar can feel hke the coldest place in the universe but that night it felt hke a scene from the Deviants Welcome Wagon Convention. You hardly settled into your seat, before you were shaking hands with almost delirious dykes from Nova Scotia to Hawaii, from Houston to Berlin. Midge, a stocky, older woman with her blonde hair styled in a very new look, is a Houston pool player. She looked hke a certain kind of pool player. The kind who suggests a little side bet on the game, "Just to keep it interesting." The kind who will probably buy you a beer because after just four or five interesting games you find your pockets areN£mpty and Fm not talking about the ones on the pool table. When I asked Midge whether she was going for the gold. She took a long drink of her Canadian beer, swung right around in her chair, to give me the full benefit of her dead serious look and drawled, "You got that right." I didn't argue. Midge said she came to Vancouver to have fun, take in the Gay Games and get to know some Canadian lesbians. But she wanted me to know she had a mission to win the gold. She had played pool in the 1986 Gay Games and had gone home with a bronze. That was okay but for a Texan, Midge said, it was nothing to brag about. In fact, she hardly ever mentioned it. It's a long way from Houston to Vancouver, but not if you know where you're going every step of the way. A Job That Had To Be Done Celebration 90: Gay Games and Cultural Festival had a taghne that often didn't get included in the event's endless promotional materials. The taghne announced a 'Celebration of Individual Triumph and Courage.' lesbian games For Vancouver's lesbians and gays, finding the courage to participate was often an individual triumph but more powerfully it was also the courage of a community battling overt homophobia- In the weeks before the Games, most news reports in the local media focused on one angle: How worried were the Games' organizers about event security? Security was an issue because the fundamentalist Christian campaign against the Games had legitimized homophobia to an unprecedented degree. It is alright to hate faggots and dykes because God the Father is one hell of a gay basher. Praise the Lord. I don't know how many lesbians I talked to who confessed, as I did, to realizing that something could go frighteningly wrong during the Games. That someone, who would later be found to be "crazy," was also in training, pumping up on hatred and looking for a target. I am not concerned with establishing whether this fear was valid or rational—we are all accustomed to having our fear dismissed as irrational. Rather, let us simply note that in civilized, peace-loving Canada, Games organizers, the gay community and law enforcement agencies saw the necessity to mount a massive security operation to protect gays and lesbians during the Games. " Hundreds of people served time as security marshals protecting participants at every venue from BC Place Stadium to neighborhood baseball fields. The Games Security Committee held meetings with local pohce, organized orientation sessions for volunteers and produced handouts and stickers educating fans and athletes alike on personal safety. The bill for walkie-talkie rentals alone must have been astronomical. We did the job because it had to be done. We might wonder when the heterosexual community would recognize the work they need to do. Outrageous Gaydom: Saturday, August 4th Almost propelled to BC Place Stadium, Vancouver athletes arrived by bus, skytrain, on foot or by car from points all over the city. Dressed in our sporty Team Vancouver sweat suits with identity badge accessories, we were met by dozens of caught up in the excitement, blue-shirted security guard volunteers at the stadium entrance and directed to the marshalling area at Gate B. On the rush along the stadium walkways, athlete after athlete skidded up to the parapet which over-looked Gate B. Beneath us in glorious, outrageous gaydom, cheering, clapping, chanting and carousing, spread hundreds of lesbian and gay athletes from all over the world. The Pope was there beaming and bowing and bestowing blessings upon all. The Gay and Lesbian Marching Bands of America were there, tuning up their instruments and crashing their cymbals to add to the uproar. Square dancers, clog dancers, hne dancers and Native dancers were there jumping and jiving their way into the stadium. Everyone was reveling in their first taste of the upcoming week of gay and lesbian nation. For all those years, months and weeks of organizing, training and practicing, Vancouver had been waiting for all of them in a way we didn't understand until the first moment we saw them, waiting for us. That's when the Gay Games truly came home to Vancouver athletes. Can you beheve the roar of the crowd? Living The Politics of Lesbian Pride A friend of mine told me about catching some of Vancouver Co-op Radio's coverage of the Gay Games and getting a politically-correct earful from two British lesbian participants. The Brits were over to play soccer and drill the locals on the pohtics of the Gay Games. According to them, the Games were nothing more than an appalling white, middle-class North American spectacle. My friend, who's no slouch herself when it comes to pohtical analysis, knew these earnest criticisms were valid but she kept thinking, "They're missing the point." Gay Games organizers are at pains to keep "pohtics" out of the Games, whose guiding philosophy is one of inclusion, regardless of age, race, abihty, sex or sexual orientation. Vancouver gays and lesbians, particularly after the all-out assault from the Christian fundamentalists, kept public debate on the Games' shortcomings to a minimum. When you come right down to it, we all wanted to have a party, a party unhke any other celebration Vancouver had ever seen. But in the midst of that party, many gays and lesbians were caught up for the first time in hving the pohtics of gay and lesbian pride every day. Perhaps they only had to find the nerve to wear their Gay Games t- shirt to the corner store or use their Gay Games bus pass on the local transit; perhaps they told their co-workers what they were doing on their vacation or their sister why they were going to Vancouver. Some of these decisions may seem hke small stuff to the politically pure, somewhat hke amateur sport to the highly-paid professional athlete. But as any professional will tell you, practice makes perfect. In one way or another, all of us at the Gay Games were practicing at taking pride in our hves and our community. Eventually, capital 'P' pohtics will erupt around the Games. Too many vital issues, including race, class and male-female power imbalances, are being confronted by gay and lesbian communities for it to be otherwise. I only hope when we get to that stage, we'll all be doing our personal best at inclusivity. 90 Miles An Hour: August 6th "Volleyball is a power game. When the ball is coming at you at 90 miles an hour, you only want to protect yourself, but you have to stay in control, you have to hit the ball." At Bonsor Community Centre, three women's games are going simultaneously when I arrive. Occasionally I can hear the squeak of sneakers on the shiny hardwood floors or the slap of a ball being served but mostly my ears are repeatedly pounded by the booming slams the ball makes as it whistles from the spiker's fist through darting and diving defenders to the gym floor. The force of the ball is so great you almost feel its impact could rip open the floor but of course it only rebounds, sometimes up to the ceiling rafters 50 or 60 feet above. From time to time a defender manages to keep a spiked ball in play, earning a burst of applause from the astonished fans. As luck would have it, I happen to arrive at Bonsor just as the home town's best hope for a gold medal, the Vancouver Team, are beginning a game against a Los Angeles team. This early in the tournament, both teams still have lots of energy, but Los Angeles has a httle stutter in the feet, a split-second hesitation that sends them to the ball just a httle too late. You have to know and go (or not go) in the same instant otherwise the whole complex web of interaction breaks down, the team falls into parts. Vancouver wins decisively two games to none. On the next court, an aggressive Long Beach team also puts on an impressive performance. Vancouver and Long Beach fought through a gruelhng week-long schedule of games and met in the gold medal contest on Friday night. Long Beach won the gold, the home town dykes won the silver. How The Media Got The Message Games media workers, whether paid staff, board members or volunteers, worked hard behind the scenes trying to ensure the Games coverage was tolerant. They deserve a lot of praise from the lesbian and gay community. When I talked to Alex MacGillvery, one of the Vancouver Sun's editorial writers, about what led the Sun to write a positive editorial on the Games, he mentioned some of these people. He said the Sun's Editorial Board had met with the Gay Games Board and had been impressed with their openness and sincerity. MacGilhvery said the Sun "...thought we should accept the fact that gays were always with us and would always be with us and we should try to emphasize tolerance. We should welcome these people." Province editorialist Bill Clarke "suspects" his newspaper is ahead of the community with its editorial in support of the Games. But, said Clarke "... homosexuality is, to use a cliche, coming out of the closet and society will have to deal with it. It can't be ignored." The Sun's daily coverage on the Games focused on a range of issues and included interviews with a cross-section of the community. The Province's coverage wasn't as extensive but they covered the highlights and did it well. Local television and radio stations also devoted a lot of attention to the Games and their coverage was equally positive. Response from their audiences was pretty predictable. The anti-gay cadres penned four or five letters to the Sun, complaining that the coverage suggested they be tolerant of queers. BCTV's Barry Thompson said viewers were about two thirds opposed to any coverage of the Games and one third supportive."No one is in the middle on this issue," he said. The positive media coverage during the Games went a long way to undermining public homophobia, which always works most powerfully when we are silenced. And then there are those whose first step to an open lesbian or gay identity may have come because they read a Games story in their local paper. Never underestimate the power of the mass media. Of course, lesbian and gay organizers will have to make sure our issues are not shelved now that the Games are over. But the positive relationships that Games media workers built with local media should prove to make that job just a httle easier in the future. Never underestimate, and always give thanks for, the power of a hardworking organizer. see next page KINESIS September 90 intinued from previous page Cheerleaders From Hell: August 8th The Cheerleaders from Hell made only one documented appearance during Gay Games III. A motley and hysterical crew, dressed in funeral taffeta and polyester mau-maus, wearing purple fright wigs, smoking cigars and modelling pig noses, they snaked into the Prince of Wales gym just after the whistle opened play on the long awaited basketball showdown between the Vancouver Furies and the San Francisco Slammers. All of them admitted, sourly, to being bounced from cheerleading squads from one end of the country to the other. Ostensibly knowledgeable hometown fans, the Cheerleaders' idea of a supportive cheer was "Let's do brunch," and "Make basketball a contact sport." With typical cowardice they rejected a suggestion to put on a half-time show, warning all and sundry: "We don't take orders from butches." Backed by such destructive hometown support, the Vancouver Furies, their concentration shattered, met a sad fate at the hands of the Slammers. A close fought match disintegrated into a rout as the Furies were slammed 75 to 49. This heartbreaker, marking the Furies' third straight loss, pushed the team into the consolation round of the tournament. / tell her she's fantastic. And we both know, I got that right. Despite their dejection, the Furies, gracious competitors to the end, refused to even chastise the Cheerleaders from Hell. One valiant athlete said: "Well, gee, I dunna know, we worked awful hard out there. Did you see the basket I got." The Furies coach, visibly distraught at the wanton destruction of such a high-powered team, told this reporter: "These players are all high scorers in my heart. I know they can put this squeaker behind them. They're really a great bunch of girls." A parting shot from the Cheerleaders From Hell: "Dunk if you love Jesus." In Which Personal Best Breaks Even The 1988 Seoul Olympics made a profit of $500 million. The Olympic logo, owned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was rented out to 1988 corporate sponsors for $120 million. The six cities bidding on the 1994 Olympics will spend $70 million dollars on their campaigns. H Toronto should win the Olympic Games, the final price tag to stage the event would be $2.5 billion. Only 20 percent of Canada's national Olympic team are women. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics there were 165 events for men, 72 for women and 14 for men and women. Thirteen out of 14 athletes who participate in the Olympics never win a medal. Because winning Olympic gold is seen as everything, both by the countries sponsoring Olympic teams and by the athletes themselves, performance enhancing drug use is increasingly suspected of being the rule rather than the exception among Olympic competitors. m,\WtqamP!s 14l\lNb Jl J September 90 ^~* The Gay Games operated on a budget of $2.2 million. Early reports of a $250,000 profit are exaggerated, although organizers expect to break even. The event was estimated to have generated $20-30 million of spending in the local economy. Almost 8,000 athletes from 28 countries registered to participate in 29 sports, 43 percent of these were women. An estimated 20,000 supporters came out to participate in the Games related activities. By the end of the Games, 2,650 people had volunteered their time. Over 5,000 visiting athletes and participants had been billeted by the local community. Gay Games organizers work hard to promote the philosophy that is the corner stone of amateur sport, that the successful athlete is one who achieves her or his personal best. The promotion of amateur sport was a founding philosophy of the modern Olympic Games. The Marathon: August 11th On the last day of the Gay Games, when most athletes and fans are blurry-eyed from the rigors of a week-long sporting and party extravaganza, the marathoners gather at Stanley Park at 6 am. Because runners can suffer de-hydration and calcium depletion, an early start—sparing the runners from the heat of the day—is vital. Shortly after 7 am, the runners move out, beginning the lonely mental and physical obstacle course that is the marathon. At the 12 mile mark some runners have to pull out of the race. Most are the victims of lactic add build-up in the muscles, a condition that causes severe muscle cramps. By 9:45 am, excitement is growing at Second Beach. Two hnes of cheering supporters stretch past the finish hne to applaud everyone who goes by. Pretty soon the runners with the fastest times will be completing their races. Three hours, five minutes and .9 seconds after she moved out with the other runners, San Diego's Debbie Chaddock, the 1986 gold medal winner, crosses the finish Une to win the women's gold medal. "I never felt so awful in my hfe," is Chaddock's first comment on the race. And then between gasps of breath, she laughs. For several hours, runners continue to cross the finish hne to the appreciation and cheers of the spectators. The marathon is the final sporting event of Celebration 90: Gay Games III. The long run, which began at the close of Gay Games II in 1986, is over. A Week The Whole World Seemed Gay Behind the gigantic stage set up for the Closing Ceremonies, thousands of athletes gather for the last time. In contrast to the tumultuous energy and excitement of the Opening Ceremonies, we are quiet as we wait to march past our friends and lovers, fans and supporters for the final uproar—the farewell, until New York in 1994. As I'm cruising through the Houston team looking for Midge, I hear a yell and there she stands, waving me over. So I ask her, "How did you do?" and she's grinning as she points to the silver medal hanging around her neck. I'm thrilled and impressed and I tell her she's fantastic. And we both know, I got that right. The Tuesday night after the Gay Games, I packed up my gym bag and set out to play basketball at Trout Lake. I got there a httle late and the other regulars were already fooling around and shooting warm-up baskets. One of them, still lacing up her sneakers, asked me, "How goes it, now that the Games are over?" We talked a bit about how it was to have a week when the whole world seemed to be gay. And how it was different now, you had to put away that instinct to kiss your girlfriend just whenever and wherever it occurred to you. Yes, it was different. We played four pretty fast-paced games of basketball with no substitutes, since only ten of us showed up that night. At the end of the evening, as we sat catching our breath and changing our socks, one woman said she was really happy to get out to the gym. And we ail agreed, it felt good to be playing basketball, really good. The women are better fighters by Joni Miller In my six years as a karate competitor, I've never been to a friendlier meet than the Gay Games Martial Arts competition. Competitors came from as far away as Berlin, and were a mixture of seasoned competitors and beginners. They represented diverse styles— karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, tai chi, poekeUan, ju jitsu. Seminars held before the competition included aikido and judo. It was the first time Martial Arts were included in the Gay Games. "The spirit was very, very good. A lot of friendliness—a lot of tolerance to refs," said Teresa Gillote, a 3rd degree black belt tai kwon do instructor from Philadelphia. Gillote has been training for 12 years. "It was certainly a legitimate tournament," said Amy Valentine, who practises Chen style Tai Chi Chuan in Portland, Oregon. "It was really tough competition and fair judging. It looked hke a tournament, everyone was doing tournament things and then I looked around and thought 'We're all gay and lesbian.' It felt wonderful." Christina Biadje, a tae kwon do instructor from New York, found the competition invigorating and very challenging. "I've never been with a bunch of women that were so good," she said. "I think that lesbians maybe take it [martial arts] more seriously. They have less trouble doffing off the expectations that society has of women, because they've already done that work." In a reverse of most tournaments, women outnumbered men. There were more women black belts than I've ever seen in one room. "The women are better fighters," one male black belt remarked. Martial Arts competitions have two main categories: kata or forms, and sparring. Kata/forms are performed individually. Competitors are judged on focus, accurate technique, power and spirit. Gloves and other protective gear are used during sparring. Matches are timed and ruled by referees. "It was incredibly diverse, which was real intimidating to the judges," said Linda Ki- noier, chief instructor of the Feminist Karate Union in Seattle, Washington. Kinoier is an experienced tournament referee and has been practising karate for 17 years. The Feminist Karate Union is an all-women's school about to celebrate 20 years of operation. "Karate has basically been my hfe," she said, "It's the thing I feel hke I've accomplished. It's the place that I come to centre myself." One of the most unusual styles present at the tournament was poekeUan kung fu. PoekeUan forms combine the grace of dance and the power of martial arts. Pracitioners leap, faU to the ground and make hissing noises. "PoekeUan comes from Indonesia and is ancient," said Jessica Dube, a practitioner from Portland, Oregon. PoekeUan has only entered North America in the last decade. "The quality of the movement is based on four animals—tiger, monkey, snake and crane. We take the spirit of the animals as weU as the physical movements. It is flowing hke a soft style, but very combatitive." One moment stands out for me. I was with four other black belts from various styles, judging a coloured belt event. A woman came out on the floor to perform her kata. As she approached the row of judges, it was clear she was terrified. Her eyes were moist dams about to burst. Teresa GiUote motioned the woman closer. "Just relax, take it easy," she said. The other judges joined in, offering encouragement and advice. The competitor relaxed, took a deep breath and announced she was ready to go on. At a straight tournament, this woman probably would have been disqualified. "We were great today—but we'll be dynamite in '94," GiUote concluded. "Martial arts is definitely here to stay." Spoken and unspoken words without borders by Christine Morissette "We are the explorers of a new terrain in a world without borders. We are creators of our lives, of our communities." So states the official program for Celebration 90 in describing Words Without Borders, the hterary gathering held in conjunction with Gay Games III and Cultural Festival last month in Vancouver. There, lesbian and gay Uterary tradition was explored, analyzed, argued, praised and promoted by nearly 60 authors, editors and publishers over a five day period. Panels, workshops, luncheons, presentations and readings—aU provided a forum for writers and readers to reveal and redefine the boundaries of our worlds. Lesbian and gay writers make their hves—and our worlds—more real through fact and fiction. They write from the experiences of their communities, and they write what we need to hear. Their voices become our voices and together, in the cooperation of writing and reading, we break our sUence. But do our voices speak together? Do we speak "words without borders?" Although attending the Literary Festival of Celebration 90 was, for me, exciting, stimulating and empowering, and although our rich hterary tradition and future was in evidence, I felt at times an unwilling and uncomfortable witness to worlds and words within borders. Despite the appearance of such buzz-words as "diversity," "community" and "spirit of openness," it was the unspoken words that struck a deeper cord: ethnocentrism, racism, sexism and lack of access. Item: According to the program, "Celebration 90 brings together writers from around the world." According to the Festival's Who's Who of almost 60 participants, only seven were from outside of North America, and aU used EngUsh as their hterary language. Although the Festival was preceded by an unlearning racism workshop, and one panel—From the Outside Looking In—dealt with racism in our communities and in our writing, less than one-third of the participants were people of colour. And after hearing Mohawk poet Beth Brant say that white writers should examine why they create characters of colour, in another panel a white gay male writer stated with some pride and not a httle arrogance that he writes Black male characters because he hkes to have sex with Black men. e next page KINESIS; continued from previous page Item: Lesbians and gay men were almost equally represented. The differences lay not in the numbers, but in the motives for writing and in the level of analysis. New York writer Sarah Schulman observed that men teU stories, anecdotes, but rarely go further. In virtually all of the panels I attended, that was the case. Almost without fail, lesbian writing seemed to be a poUtical act, whereas gay men's writing seemed devoid of any pohtical analysis, with the exception of writing on AIDS. And it was in a panel on AIDS that a gay playwright, responding to a comment about the controversy of lesbians working in ADDS activism, said with dismissal and impatience, "I don't understand how aU this [lesbian and gay division] got started anyway." Item: Celebration 90 promotional material stressed the idea of inclusion for participants and observers. Although individual workshops and panels were reasonably priced from $6 to $14, this was reasonable only if you wanted to attend one or two. H you wanted to attend two each day, you'd have to have more than spare change. And what if you had chUdren to • care for? Not only was there no shding scale, but there was no cluld care available. In terms of accessibiUty for the disabled, none of the sessions I attended was sign language interpreted, and only one of the workshop venues was wheelchair accessible. ShamefuUy, the one panel that Gahano Island writer Jane Rule attended was in an auditorium with several sets of stairs, and Rule moves about in a wheelchair. Certainly the Literary Festival of Celebration 90 was a unique and important event, the largest gathering of lesbian and gay Uterati ever held in Canada. I hope it wUl happen again. I need to hear our stories, and I need to know how writers teU them. These stories—my stories—help to keep me out, and keep me open. But to truly write words without borders, aU our ways of speaking and experiencing must be in evidence, and aU our voices must be heard. Challenging Analysis and Insights Having said all of that, I am obUged to acknowledge some of the panels which provided the most chaUenging analysis and insights. Banning Our Words focused on censorship, both from the outside world and from within our own communities. We learn an early lesson as lesbian and gay people: that we are punished for speaking out, and so we keep sUent to survive. Toronto writer Dionne Brand said "Homophobia takes us to the waU so often that it prevents us from being deeply critical" and ultimately prevents us from seeing our own (self) censorship. We are censored by Canada Customs when they seize lesbian and gay hterature at the border and we are censored by granting agencies when we let them determine what and when we wiU write. Brand caUed censorship "an abberation of free speech," one that undermines our experiences and alters our perceptions. Strategies for dealing with censorship were varied. Jane Rule urged us to support the Writers' Union and the CivU Liberties' Association, but not the legal system: "the law is no place for us to go." Brand said we need to make our own culture, rather than fight for inclusion in the dominant culture; this "keeps our integrity [and] secures our humanity." And Sarah Schulman felt chaUenged by certain kinds of censorship. "To ban a book is to celebrate it," she said, "to ensure its fame." photos by Andrea Lowe, Jan A Her/History of Our Own provided perspectives on self-evaluation and the creation of lesbian archives. H we have been taught, both as women and as lesbians, that our hves are not of value and that nothing we have to say is of any importance to anyone, then we do not come easUy to the idea of a femimst re- evaluation of history—to herstory. But we need to write ourselves into history in the same way that we have written ourselves into Uterature. Carol Seajay, publisher of Feminist Bookstore News in San Francisco, said: "The people who have no history have no future." It isn't enough that we Uve our history; we must also record it to ensure our survival. Salt Spring Island poet Daphne Marlett reminded us that our current sense of lesbian history has been influenced by this feminist re-evaluation of history as a whole , and that with it has come the recognition of a unique kind of psychic survival. "The crazy women are the keys to lesbian history," Marlett said. "Recognizing our foremothers is the essence of lesbian history, and it is essential to recognize in ourselves our historical foremothers and our contemporary foremoth- One woman who is writing our history as we hve it is Alison Bechdel of Minneapolis, creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For. Bechdel refers to herself as a lesbian cartoonist. "I can't separate my lesbian identity from my work," she said. "They're interdependent." She calls herself a "propagandist," and beheves it's important to see yourself in the world around you. "Seeing people is incredibly chaUenging, an act of "Homophobia takes us to the wall so often that it prevents us from being deeply critical" —Dionne Brand •4k r J** s KINESIS 0ames love," Bechdel explained. She wanted to create loveable women who love other so that we could see ourselves, love ourselves as women. What started this cartoonist on her way to becoming the chronicler of sisterhood soap-opera? As a cluld, Bechdel realized that in cartoons, men were portrayed as people, and women as female people—"other," sexual props for male characters. She was sensitive to this and outraged by the unfairness. As a result, she disassociated herself from being a girl and, consequently, her drawings only featured male characters. Bechdel drew cartoons before she could read. In high school, drawing was "a catharsis, an energy release," she said. In coUege she used unlined paper in her classes so that her class notes wouldn't interfere with her drawings. Bechdel says she came to terms with being a woman only after she realized she was a lesbian. And in fact, she apparently drew herself into existence, since untU that point she had been unable to draw women from her imagination , unless they were lesbian. It was when she "found it possible to draw a woman," she said, "that it was possible to be a woman." Bechdel's characters are drawn from her hfe, from our community. They are women we have loved, have struggled with, have gossiped about. They are us. And we are lovingly drawn, with aU our crises and contradictions. In Dykes To Watch Out For, text and subtext, conversation and body language fiU the page with both the fularity and the dUemmas of our personal and poUtical Uves. Bechdel began her cartoon career in 1983 with two drawings in Womannews, a feminist newspaper in New York. Today her work is carried in 26 lesbian and gay pubUcations in North America. She succeeds in telling our stories with a loving blend of irony and compassion, with a resonance that rings true to our ears. V///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////S//// ////////////////////^^^^^ ////////////////////////^^^^ Arts Montreal Gems at floundering fest by Lorraine Chan The Sixth Montreal International Festival of Films and Videos by Women, June 6-16: Attending this festival was a Uttle Uke going to a party and discovering everyone had already left because of a bad smeU. Attendance was low, except for a few screenings. The energy was definitely flat. Missing were the usual elan and excitement of women-centred events. The muggy Montreal streets in June are a parade of the righteously hip and politically active, but few were slapping down their piastres to see the festival offerings. Word had it that Montrealers were generally festivaUed out and that, specificaUy, the women's community was pissed off. There was a petition tacked up at venues protesting the exclusion of lesbian work. There were complaints about the lack of Canadian films. The programming was Western/Euro-centric and contained a ridiculously token number of works by women of colour and Third World women. Other paying customers just thought there were too many dogs for their money. This festival is one of the largest showcases for women's films and videos in North America. And it's the only women's film festival that Telefilm Canada wUl fund. For these reasons, it's critical the Montreal women's festival finds out what its constituents want and need, and show the right thing. It was unfortunate the screenings were so poorly attended because, despite its floun- derings, the festival did offer some exceUent work among the 100 plus films and videos. Here's a smaU sampling: SONG OF EXILE As a sometime Hong Kong film goer, I found Song of Exile a welcome rehef from the usual fare of melodramas and costume action-pics. It was somewhat strange to be sitting there, an anglophone, with my kitchen-sink French and Cantonese, watching a Mandarin-language film translated by French subtitles. I stiU got the story, however, and enjoyed it immensely. WeU-acted and beautifuUy shot, this is the most recent film from Ann Hui, Hong Kong director of The Romance of Book and Sword. This semi-autobiographical drama poignantly explores a mother and daughter relationship within the context of Sino- Japanese history. Hueyin is a London graduate who returns to Hong Kong in 1973 for her sister's wedding. Immediately, she and her mother begin bickering over which dress, which hairdo—small misunderstandings that are underscored by years of bitterness. Through flashbacks, we learn that Hueyin's mother, Aiko, is Japanese. She had met Hueyin's father, an interpreter, in Manchuria when China recaptured the area from Japan. They married. WhUe he worked in Hong Kong, Aiko Uved in Macao with his parents. As a chUd, Hueyin prefers her doting grandparents to her sUent, lonely mother, the despised Japanese daughter-in- law. Hueyin chooses to remain in Macao rather than accompany her parents to Hong Kong. The adult Hueyin recaUs only happy times of running through sun-drenched gardens and eating special treats prepared by her grandmother. Her mother remembers the betrayal of her own chUd. Their slow reconciliation comes only when Hueyin, after returning from London, travels with her mother to Japan. There Hueyin is the outsider and she begins to understand what her mother might have experienced. At the family shrine, her mother remarks to Hueyin, "It's funny, you're my daughter. You come from my body, but you don't resemble me at all." This moment marks the beginning of their abihty to speak honestly to each other and their acceptance of each other's differences. In a tender, funny moment when they are sitting in a Japanese bath, Aiko admits to her daughter that she finds Chinese food tastier the Japanese food, the same comment that had infuriated her years before when make by Hueyin's grandparents. From Kiyoko's Situation The voyage aUows Hueyin and her mother to come to peace within themselves and with each other. The film ends with Hueyin's visit to her grandfather's deathbed in China during the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Her grandfather exhorts, "Don't lose hope in China. I'm old, but you're young." Song of Exile spoke to me equaUy of diaspora, the effects of war and the immutability of Chinese identity. Hui tells an epic tale, but refreshingly through the eyes of women. A NICE ARRANGEMENT This 11-minute drama from talented British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha zings with fast, witty dialogue and in-jokes. As in her previous documentary I'm British But... (shown at the In Visible Colours Festival last fall), Chadha articulates the hybrid cultures of British-South Asians. The film centres around the big day of Meena's wedding. AU the relatives have gathered around to admire "a real Indian bride." An uncle shoulders his ubiquitous video camera; aunts gossip about Meena's friend, Sita, the divorcee. Women tell each other to move over, "You're crushing my sari." Everyone's happy except Meena who's having a few last minute doubts. She has chosen to marry within her Hindu community, although she's in love with a Mushm man. The film offers no resolution, only a glimpse of the dUemma that Meena faces. When asked about the plot, Chadha firmly corrected the white questioner who suggested that the film is about forced marriages in Indian families. "This isn't at aU about the horrors of feudal, arranged marriages. Meena does exercise choice. She decides to do what her family wants. Person- aUy I think she's stupid," she said with a laugh. Chadha explained that she wanted to look at the kinds of difficult choices she and other Black women have to make. "I want to address our understanding and consoU- dation of what we are as second-generation sons and daughters hving in Britain." My only disappointment is that A Nice Arrangement is too short. We have to leave the wedding party before it's over. KIYOKO'S SITUATION Kiyoko's Situation is about wanting to paint too much and mother too httle. Japanese video artist Mako Idemitsu takes on her favourite subjects—rigid gender roles and sexist oppression. Past works such as Hideo, It's Me Mama, Great Mother series and The Marriage of Yasushi criticize the traditional expectations for Japanese women to excel as sUent, submissive, super mothers and wives. Kiyoko is a frustrated artist whose mother, husband and mother- in-law aU forbid her to paint. Kiyoko turns to drinking in her desperation. She's told that she's selfish. It's unnatural to waste time on herself when there's a cluld and a husband to take care of. Kiyoko continually looks at her reflection in the video monitor. She applies make up to her face on the screen. She drapes herself over the monitor. But she remains separate and alienated from that electronic self. The video screen reviews Kiyoko's past, constructing and reinforcing her proper role as wife and mother. Idemitsu's work brings home sharply the enormous pressure families and society exert upon women in Japan to conform to the norm. THROUGH THE WIRE This documentary keeps you on the edge of your seat and the information it delivers is hke a punch to the gut. Through the Wire's subject is pohtical prisoners and their treatment in the US judicial system. Director-producer Nina Rosenblum combines interviews, dramatizations and TV footage to tell the story of how the US government treats its "daughters gone wrong." In 1986, three women with radical-left affiliations became the first inmates of the Female High Security Unit (HSU) at a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. They had been convicted of non-violent crimes. Confined to this subterranean prison within a prison for nearly two years, they Silvia Baraldini, Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres in Through The Wire See FILM page 18 KINESIS s,""m"e .^^J^^^^^^^^^ Arts Disability: rethinking 'choice' PAST DUE: A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth by Anne Finger Seattle: The Seal Press, 1990 by Yvonne Peters couraged and indeed prevented from becoming pregnant. Thus the right of reproductive choice must not only include the right not to reproduce but must also include the right to reproduce. As weU, the existence of an ever increasing array of prenatal testing techniques ifest itself untU weU into adulthood. The issue of choice thus becomes an issue of choosing whether or not to participate in prenatal testing, and then choosing what to do with the information. Finger's greatest concern relates to the choices confronting women who undergo The struggle for disabihty rights and women's equahty rights have aU too often been divided into two separate and unique struggles. However, these divisions begin to diminish when women with disabihties teU their stories and describe their struggle to overcome discrimination and oppression perpetrated by sexist, ableist society. What we discover is that there are many common threads between the struggle for equahty by the women's movement and the disabihty rights movement which should be used to foster solidarity rather than divi- Anne Finger is both a feminist and disabUity rights activist. At age three she contracted poho and as a result now walks with a cane. Her particular interest is reproductive rights and how they relate to women's rights and disabihty rights. Her book is an autobiographical account of her pregnancy and the birth of her son. However, Past Due is much more than a personal recounting of pregnancy and birth. The book provides some thoughtful insights into the pohtics of reproductive rights and the personal struggles which reproductive issues can precipitate. In particular, the book deals with issues such as abortion, home births, caesarean births and the use of reproductive technology. The central issue in the book is the author's struggle to develop an analysis of reproductive rights which respects both women's rights and disabihty rights. For example, Finger suggests that we may need to rethink what is meant by reproductive choice. Typically, there are some women, such as disabled women, who have been dis- gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'reproductive choice.' Prenatal testing is not only capable of detecting "defects" in a fetus but can also identify a predisposition to a particular condition which may not man- FILMfrom page 17 were subjected to 24-hour camera surveU- lance, frequent nocturnal wakings, brutal strip searches and conditions of extreme sensory deprivation. They were denied fresh air, sunUght and human interaction and were kept isolated in rooms painted blind- ingly white. Susan Rosenberg, a member of the May 19 Communist Organization, is an antiwar activist and supporter of radical Black movements. She was sentenced to 58 years for possession of weapons and explosives. This is twice the average given for first-degree murders. Alejandrina Torres, of the radical Puerto Rican-independence movement FALN, received 35 years for seditious conspiracy to bomb a US military instaUation near Chicago. SUvia Baraldini was sentenced to 43 years for conspiracy and racketeering in connection with the prison escape of Black militant Assata Shakur. She drove the back-up car. Rosenblum compares these terms to the three-year sentence given to Ku Klux Klans- man Don Black, who was released after 23 months for weapons possession. (Similarly an American man recently convicted of bombing an abortion chnic received a seven- year sentence.) The Kentucky unit is beheved to be using experimental methods of breaking down prisoners. The film graphically shows how the HSU took its toU on the three women, causing mental and physical deterioration. Baraldini, who developed cancer in Lexing ton, sums up the purpose of the experiment: "They made it clear to us that we could stop the torture any time if we renounced our poUtical behefs...The object of the experiment was to make us lose our defiance and become mentally incapacitated." Although visibly weakened by the conditions of her imprisonment, Torres passionately declares in her interview that, "They wUl never, never break my spirit." FoUowing a federal suit launched by the women's lawyers and the American CivU Liberties Union, the Lexington facility was closed down. However, an appeal overturned this ruhng stating that a prisoner's pohtical behefs and associations are a legitimate basis for placement in a control unit. The Bureau of Prisons is now buUding 16 new prisons, many with units hke those experienced by the three women. In 1988, the women were moved into other facUities: Rosenberg is currently in a Washington, D.C. jaU; Torres at federal prison in Pleasanton, CA; and Baraldini in a New York City correctional centre. Also in 1988, the Bureau of Prisons opened a new "high risk" federal women's prison in an isolated area of Marianna, Florida, where it wUl be more difficult to monitor, mobUize citizen protests and launch any htigation. This new prison has the same conditions as Lexington. Through the Wire is available from International Telefilm, 1200 W. Pender St., #201, Vancouver, B.C. V6E 2S9. Telephone: 685-2616 prenatal testing. As an advocate of the pro- choice movement, a worker in an abortion chnic and a woman, who at one point in her hfe chose to have an abortion, Finger clearly supports a women's right to choose. Nevertheless, she worries that the decision to abort a "defective" fetus is fre- vwenm :iHmHjiP>ms:m quently based on information which is steeped in discriminatory and stereotyped attitudes about disabihty. Moreover, the abortion of "defective" fetuses tells people with disabihties that to have a disabihty is to have a Ufe not worth Uving. The choice in this instance is further compounded by the lack of support services for parents with disabled chUdren and a society which tends to ignore and exclude people with disabiUties. Also, questions such as whether or not it makes a difference if the disabihty wUl cause extreme pain and early death must be considered. Clearly, the issue of choice arising from prenatal testing has no easy answers. However, Finger argues that these issues can only be resolved by feminists and disabUity rights activists working together. IronicaUy, Finger had to confront her own fears and anxieties about having a chUd with a disabihty. Due to a prolonged birth which began at home and ended with a caesarean section in hospital, Finger's son ran the risk of being brain-damaged and ultimately disabled. Her struggle to cope with this possibility reveals how vulnerable we aU are to the quest for perfection and the desire to reproduce healthy babies. In hght of the recent appointment of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, whose hearing wUl take place this faU, Anne Finger's book is timely. Despite being an easy read—can be read in an evening—Finger's book raises many difficult issues and gives the reader a lot to think about. As a woman with a disabihty and a femimst, I was pleased to find an author who endeavoured to develop an analysis which respects both feminist and disabihty rights perspectives. The book is a must for women interested in the issue of reproductive rights. Yvonne Peters is the national Coordinator of the Canadian Disability Rights Council Maureen McEvoy ba ma (Cand.) Counselling Psychology Areas of expertise: sexual abuse, relationships, sexuality, depression, ACOA VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL September 28 - October 14, 1990 INFO 738-4567 WOMEN FILMMAKERS FORUM THE cinematheque PARADISE THEATRE PARK THEATRE RIDGE THEATRE STARLIGHT CINEMA Free programs available at theatres, libraries and usual outlets September 15 • Tickets at Ridge Theatre September 17 • 3 KINESIS September 90 Arts //////////////////////^^^^^ Spirited soprano + Gravelly alto = Frank Chickens by Jean Lum Frankly, I didn't know what to expect of the Frank Chickens and their performance at Vancouver's 13th Annual Folk Music Festival. I had no famUiarity with their work. Frank Chickens, was that a version of chicken katsu deep-fried and chopped up by a chef named Frank to the melody of the Top 40 chart-topper of the week? It turns out that the Frank Chickens are two Japanese women based in Tottenham, England. Eight years ago Kazuko Hohki shed her feathers as a chUd psychologist and found/ed herself a Chicken. Atsuko Kamura, a Chicken since 1988, helped form Polka Dot Fire Brigade, a Tokyo all-women's punk band. The daring duo's goal, as stated in the Festival program, is "to create a subversive world where East meets West at street level. The Japanese culture we represent is Ninjas not Samurais, sleazy bars not elaborate restau- rants...strong women not sweet geishas." The Frank Chickens appeared on stage in colourful short robes and leggings accompanied by a succession of non-life-threatening equipment difficulties. Hohki was a good- humoured and entertaining host in spite of this. The audience chuckled, the stagehand ran about hke a chicken with his head cut off. Did the Frank Chickens arrive on that stage through the lengthy toils of musical education? Says Kamura, in an interview with Kinesis, "Not especially, but I started some local band about ten years ago. During rehearsing our band I did learn a bit how to play bass guitar...or how to be singing, but that's aU just only my own way." Speaking of singing, Kamura croons their original lyrics in a husky, graveUy alto that sounds enjoyably mismatched against the easy-listening/disco-y pre-recorded pop tunes of Karaoke. Hohki sings in spirited soprano. Of her musical background she recaUs: "In Japanese culture we have to learn music. Like how to read music and aU that business, Beethoven and the Fifth Symphony...I never dreamt me singing on a stage." She arrived in England during a period which provided fertUe ground. "I came to England twelve years ago," says Hohki, "and that time was briUiant. Not that briUiant, but it was a Labour government and lots of subsidy was going on to art and art education...Straightaway I became involved with a musicians' and experimental performers' organization called London Musicians' CoUective, and I could go to adult education class to learn." How is it being Japanese and female in the British music scene? Hohki laughs: "When we started, which was in 1982, we exploited that to the maximum. Because we are Japanese, we are very hip that time in 1982—especiaUy in London—and we are women, so we became poUticaUy right...And the people thought going to see Frank Chickens is ideologically sound, very hip thing to do. We became kind of phenomenon there, and now Frank Chickens is settling, in a more substantial way. We are more ourselves, but stiU it's quite difficult in the business side, the creative side is not that difficult." So, who is their audience these days? Hohki guffaws, "Mostly kind of right on peo- pie." A highhght of their show was, in Hohki's words, their "highly disciplined choreography." Their dance is an eclectic combination and re-interpretation of martial arts, maybe kabuki (traditional Japanese dance), mime, maybe Saturday Night Fever, goof- \dilderne$fr \0cft\etv J4ikiru -H"ip© -for lOerwerv -f# <2*0c*tz_ -ftz^ +V»e, £arV^y Play And hgal vOe, are, ofper'ma opportunities •£*■ tfone^ -r» erpzr\e*c&, ■*& wMderreSS ^coA-frer \r\ a. safe- Atmosphere.. These -trips Kill fc^ a*.p\craMot& of- r«cla«u*s °*. C0*«ec*c*§- 10HK +*e &*■*. o*3 gacbj oVnzs. (M qoo\ is-to be ace«s&,bv^ -te as, ^cm as P«6,b\e- iOz, pw^e^pw^it^peria-fe^.ftBS, *steto*ce, ictth. cwidtao^.akiii cWiop,*atr, *,-eivxhi. •ne.xSax'c ar.a co»*uM»\i5»\«Xip, ■—> ' <-5 Otv^ Cvcr <x*Q pWJu ire +*£> Vocds lOVK W§\ For mfo. registration, or to help out, can or write us at: V.O.V. Box 54fl. Tofino. BC. VCR 2Z0 (604)725-3230 Attn: Carolyn May or Catherine Berry. Donations of time, money, and equipment are greatly appreciated. Kazuko Hohki and Atsuko Kamura ing around, and having fun. Their performance was very theatrical. Hohki comments, "There are lots of good underground theatres in the 60's and 70's in Japan—Uke the one called Red Tent—and it's big influence by Brecht...mixing low culture and popular song and sometimes very pohtical message in it. And they were very good, very energetic. And they kind of influenced, in some way, Frank Chickens." Although the Frank Chickens grapple with many issues in their songs, including racist images, sexist stereotypes and maU- order brides, the sometimes groggy microphone hindered my abihty to functionaUy comprehend them. Also, my scant know!-, edge of Japanese culture was not always helpful when trying to decipher and place their actions into context. However, some of the things which sounded intelligible to me were very funny and direct. Of their artistic influences, it wasn't surprising when Hohki reveals: "Now, it's Gary Larson [the Far Side cartoonist]...he's brU- Uant...I reaUy respected Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys, but Gary Larson is far better than any. And Matt Groening, he's briUiant. American's cartoons, they are very good. I am sorry to say something good coming from America." Kamura has been formed By a contrasting group of influences. "When I was a teenager my favourite pop singer was David Bowie but actuaUy I was influenced by Japanese butoh dancer." I inquired about the artistic scene for artists of colour in their adopted homeland and about organizations that try to bridge such people. I was surprised and disappointed to- hear about the lack of cross- cultural unity. Hohki says, "There are Black artist newsletter and things Uke that, but Japanese are not reaUy included there, Uke we don't get any invitation for example, so we kind of don't take much notice of it. Probably we get more events women- oriented." Kamura adds: "It's very difficult to find out the whole idea of the scene, it' so divided." Finally, why has Hohki quit her day job to do this? "If you don't want to work in a normal business...don't want to get up at eight in the morning, you have to do something else, and this is kind of the most handy thing to do." The Frank Chickens are fierce and funny. Beware if you're chicken-hearted: these clever Chickens bite. BOOK MANTEL ^ Under New Management EXCELLENT SELECTION OF OVER 40,000 GENTLY USED BOOKS Feminist • Literature • Philosophy • Poetry • General Selection 10 % DISCOUNT WITII TfflS AD 20% DISCOUNT WITH TALID STUDENT CARDS Open Tuesday - Wednesday, 10 am - 6 pm. Thursday - Sunday, 10 am - 9 pm. Closed Mondays. 1444 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C. V5N 2R5 879-2247 WOMAN OWNED AND OPERATED KINESIS Such foolishness Lighthearted lesbian frolic THE FAIRY PRINCESS AND THE PRINCESS FOOL by Nora D. Randall directed by Jackie Crossland by Bonnie Waterstone H you never could quite identify with the traditional fairy tale princess, Nora Randall and Jackie Crossland of Random Acts have a new .story for you. The Fairy Princess and the Princess Fool, written by Randall and directed by Crossland, is the light- hearted lesbian frolic that ran during the Gay Games in Vancouver. With two princesses, a fire-breathing dragon, a wise mule, two newscasters, a scribe, hve music and a large quantity of props, this is the first fuU-scale production for Random Acts. RandaU and Crossland The cast: Martina Griffiths, Nora Randall (front), Karen White, Lesley Wyatt, River Light (middle), and Roseanne Johnson (back) said "Mostly we do one and two women shows but in honour of the Gay Games we wanted to do something bigger to celebrate our sexuaUty." Many women came forward to help and the production became "a community event." The Fairy Princess and the Princess Fool is good for a laugh: the night I attended, the audience laughed from beginning to end. The basic storyline? A princess is castle born, amid much to-do. The same day, a baby dragon is also born and forced from her home into the castle moat. The princess is spoUed and pampered; the dragon lonely and bitter. Through a series of events, the Fairy Princess—older but not yet wiser—ends up trapped alone (except for some goats) inside her castle. The dragon has burned down the drawbridge and threatens the Fairy Princess every time she approaches the castle waU. This proves to be good for the Princess. She learns to be self-sufficient. Soon we see her planting garlic, washing clothes by hand, fixing things. And, yes, there's a love story: a wandering princess, the Princess Fool, and her trusty companion, Mongo the mule, come upon the princess locked in a castle guarded by the fierce dragon. Sounds traditional, except for the der. And except for the fact thai Fairy Princess is not languishing away, s. is shoveling goat manure and scrubbing clothes. And except for the fact that the Princess Fool hves up to her name and is far from being a dashing hero. Foraging the Fringe fest by Kinesis Writer The Vancouver Fringe Festival wUl roU through the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood again this faU—September 6—16, to be exact. Featuring over 550 performances at 10 indoor venues, the Fringe offers advance tickets at $8 a pop this year (tU Sept. 1) from #15-2414 Main Street, 11 am to 8 pm or by telephone: 853-3646. (At the gate, tix are $7.) This year's Une-up, Uke previous year's, offers Uttle for the feminist audience: by our reckoning, women are the playwrights/creators in less than 20 percent of the shows offered. We have, however, puUed together-.the foUowing Ust (our apologies to anyone we've missed). The fuU program is avaUable around town. Dancing in the Garden...Like Momma On the twentieth anniversary of her sister Angel's suicide, Laura is haunted by her sibhng's shadow and forced to confront the truth of their shared history. Written by Elizabeth Dancoes, performed by Kandra- mas Theatre CoUective. Maharani and the Maple Leaf A one- woman show that focuses on the conflicts that arise when traditional values of East Indian culture colUde with hfe in Canada. A series of vignettes with a mixture of pathos, humour and passion. By Veena Sood. Side Saddle The Sensible Footwear Theatre Co. is back with lurid tales of treachery, lust and revenge. Find out what happens when a dispossessed rancher, a demure widow and a faUed whore are flung together. A Characters Cabaret In a basement club in New York City strange things hap- pen. Meet Kathy the cosmic comic, take a flight with LoueUa Layover and catch Lorna CampbeU, the cow queen of country music. By Lindsay HUI. Shades of Contrast Diverse solo dances of modern works ranging from the so- ciaUy conscious to' the pure and simple joy of movement. By two independent dancers/choreographers, Dorothy Anderson and Jacquehne Taylor. Green's Keen—Drown Brown Lots of futuristic elements on the planet Zorfu combine with large bunraku-style puppets and rear screen projections to offer a light- hearted yet thoughtful plea to protect our environment. By Wendy Passmore. Lifeafterbirth Described as a hilarious show describing joys, frustrations and upheavals experienced from pregnancy during early motherhood. Moira Keefe and the Domestic Rep. Co. The Rules Nowadays A mix of song and poetry with feminist perspectives in a world where friendships, love, chUdhood and aging are of as much concern as violence, racism and poUution. With the Euphoniously Feminist and Non-performing Quintet, Helen Potrebenko and Sandy Shreve. Smoke Damage: A Story of the Witch Hunts Five women journey back in time to the witch hunts, the forgotten holocaust of the 16th century. Here they encounter betrayal, reincarnation, rock and roU ... and themselves. By Banuta Rubess. Lunchroom An emotional play examining the aspirations of Indo-Canadians and the obstacles and discrimination they encounter whUe trying to Uve and work in Canada. Produced by the Vancouver Sath CoUective. Romp in the Briars The first independent offering of dancer/choreographer Cori Caulfield: "She makes bloody communion with blackberry bushes and the wind ..." He, She and 3 This frightening play explore the hypocrisy of people who criticize torture and then unwittingly endorse the torture of someone else. By Maria Irene Fornes. Boy Meets Girl. Girl Meets Elvis Playwrights Danette Boucher, Robin Platte and Donna Tunney "just wanted to do a play about sex ... and Elvis." Karen White gave an exceUent performance as the Fairy Princess. On stage and in character for the entire play—from baby to independent woman—White brings an authenticity to a wide variety of emotions, including petulance, resignation, frustration, determination, curiosity, and of course, faUing in love. When she sees the Princess Fool approaching the castle, the clothespins faU right out of her mouth. The Princess Fool is a comic character and Lesley Wyatt's mobUe face and dramatic gestures got a lot of laughs. Wyatt can really hold the audience's attention. In one of my favourite moments, Mona the scribe comes upon the Princess Fool bawhng her head off over the Fairy Princess. Waning, Wyatt suddenly grabs Mona's leg and lavishly buries her face in it. Nora Randall is typecast as the scribe and provided the continuity of the storyline- -not an easy task. Her talent for understatement shone in this role. Mongo the mule was a part that needed more development. The character could have been the lesbian friend of the Princess Fool—and lesbian friendship is multi-dimensional. But Mongo remained one-sided, and as an animal wiser than her mistress, a stereotype. River Light played Mongo, a mother duck, and the dragon. While aU the women join to make the dragon, River Light was most consistently the dragon's voice. I had difficulty distinguishing between her three characters. A certain beUigerence characterized them aU. And what were newscasters doing in a fairy tale? Roseanne Johnson and Martina Griffiths moved the action along with their snappy comments. Their timing was good and the incongruence was often hUarious: "We're coming to you tonight from inside the dragon..." An important aspect of this play was the make-believe atmosphere. It's a fairy tale, full of wonder, a place where magic happens. The music, by Jacqui Parker-Snedker and Carol Weaver, was an essential ingredient in creating this ambience. British pantomimes—extravagantly dramatic renderings of fairy tales and chUdren's stories—have been transformed in recent years by lesbian theatre companies in London, England, who parody these plays with all-women casts. Random Acts gave Vancouver audiences a taste of this kind of wUd and wonderful parody with The Fairy Princess and The Princess Fool. ARIEL BOOKS SALE 20 % OFF ALL THE LOVELY LESBIAN STOCK serr5 - e 20 l\| lN L JI b September S .^•X^V^iVyVVO^/Z^^/W^^ //////////////////////^^^^^ LETTERS A few things need clarifying Kinesis: This letter is more than a httle bit late— my hfe is just now settling down, and I can actuaUy find time to read things. I am writing in response to Nancy PoUak's article in your May, 1990 edition regarding the fight against cuts to the Women's Program ("Feminists in spirited resistance..."). The article was very good, and very thorough, but I feel I must clarify a few things. I was one of two women representing Newfoundland at a meeting with Secretary of State Gerry Weiner in Montreal. The article stated the representatives were chosen by Judy Wright, director of the Women's Program; this was certainly not the case in Newfoundland where the representatives were chosen by the Women's Centres. My second point is that Weiner's representatives did not tell us the night before the meeting that national groups would not be discussed. It was during the actual meeting that the issue of national groups was first raised, and we were told at that time that meetings with representatives of national groups were in progress. This turned out not to be the case, but we made the rather unfortunate mistake of be- Ueving them. They were very effective in their attempts to isolate the groups from one another. Because we were not aU meeting together, it was difficult to assess what was real and what wasn't. A lesson for next time... Thirdly, the group that attended the meeting in Montreal was under intense pressure. We had no intention of "negotiating" on behalf of the groups, but we were in a position of having to say something. It was clearly understood by everyone, however, that anything that came up during the meeting would have to go back to our respective provinces for further discussion. The proposal that we arrived at did not "veer sharply from the demand for fuU restoration of funding," nor were we "negotiating an end to federal responsibiUty." "1 4 ! The proposal, in fact, demanded funding reaffirmation of federal responsibiUty, and demanded funding at the previous year's levels, which was significantly more than we had asked for in the first place. After that painfuUy long battle, there is stUl so much left to do. I remain inspired by the energy and soUdarity displayed by women across the country. These things wiU keep us strong when we begin to fight this battle aU over again. Best wishes. In sisterhood, T. Mackenzie St. John's, Newfoundland When patriarchy is threatened Kinesis: Non-native womyn everywhere in Canada should think seriously about the impUca- tions for them of our governments' behaviour towards the Aboriginal peoples. The clear message is "we wUl tolerate no defiance of our rule over you, nor wiU we deal with you as responsible, autonomous adults. And, if you refuse to remain subservient, passive, and quiet, we wiU use force against you." As indeed they have done in the past. The behaviour of patriarchy is consistent; under pressure it merely shows more clearly its true, and violent, nature. The Natives of North America, and in particular Native womyn, have always been treated as incompetent chUdren at best, at worst, sub-human beings to be shunted off onto 'useless' land and beaten, kUled, jaUed, and revUed when they get out of hne. This is uncomfortably simUar to the way aU womyn have been treated from time immemorial, and stiU are in large and smaU ways: physicaUy, psychologically, emotionaUy. The present outrageous situation at Oka, Quebec has more to do with patriarchal control than with land claims or even Aboriginal right. Eariier, we had the immoral performance of the PM and his cohorts over the Meech Lake fiasco. We should not be surprised at this latest example of what happens when patriarchy is threatened by its supposed slaves. rfe. Clyde Wells' crime was to violate the Old Boys' Club's first rule, soUdarity; EUjah Harper's primary role in defeating Meech could be conveniently ignored since, as a Native, he's not in the Club. Now, however, the 'slaves' are rising and cannot be ignored. The response is official sUence whUe the poUce are sent in. Womyn can expect no less, a fact speUed out in Montreal and daily in rising rape statistics and other violence against us and our chUdren, if we escalate our demands for basic freedoms and selfhood. Both Native groups and non-native womyn must prepare for an escalation of violence against them. For both, the only solution may weU be complete refusal to participate any longer in this society—a declaration of unUateral separation with the high price that wiU exact. But which is worse? slavery and begging or the possibiUty of seU-determination and dignity. We are not helpless, hopeless, and without resources of our own. A large number of Aboriginal people seem to have made their decision about which is worse. When wUl womyn as a group do as much? Sincerely, Eva Durance Penticton, BC Extremely surprised Kinesis: On behalf of the West Coast Domestic Worker's Association (WCDWA), we would Uke to respond to your article titled "Common denominator is anger" (June, 1990). We wish to inform you how extremely surprising it was for us to read about ourselves in a paper. No one in our Association has been asked about this, nor did we ever receive a caU about this. We feel so bad that readers of your pubhcation have been given false information. For your information, our members come from different nationaUties. We organize ourselves to work towards the improvement of our working conditions. We give support and friendship, disseminate useful information, and work to change laws that are not fair to domestic workers. We feel our organization is carefuUy set up to give our members as much power as possible over their situations. As women's work, domestic work is often invisible, undervalued and underpaid. Even when we are paid for this work, we often experience long hours, low pay, sexual harassment, and invasion of privacy. Under the foreign domestic movement program, we come in on visas which require us to hve and work in a particular employer's home. We are totaUy isolated, especially in our first months. When our place of work and residence are dependant on our immigrant status, aU aspects of our Uves here are totally under the control of our employers and that puts us in a very vulnerable situation. Our organization attempts to help women from many nationaUties to deal with the problems they experience in this situation. We hope that this wiU give you a better sense of what our organization i It's so unfortunate that in the issue we were not given a chance to express who we are and what we do. But we think its not too late for your readers to be correctly informed. We would Uke Kinesis to include in its September issue an interview of some of the women involved with the WCDWA. Sincerely, Mary Banasen for WCDWA Vancouver, BC Editor's note: Kinesis will run an interview with the WCDWA in a future issue. Thanks for a refreshing piece Kinesis: We want to thank Jean Lum for her article which appeared in the June issue of Kinesis ("Layers of passion and pain"). It was a very refreshing piece of painstakingly dedicated journalism based on independent analyses on the heart of the matter at hand. Like Jean, we have also been waiting a long time for the coming of this great event which heralds a novel possessing the velocity and magnitude of Disappearing Moon Cafe by Sky Lee. Now after half-a-Ufetime of hovering and hankering for works that depict the abstract rawness and intensity of humanity, we are to a high degree appeased by the exceUence of this major work of literature which graces the beauty and pathos of Ufe, outreaching to the summits of grandeur. We also want to comment on Jean's perplexity over the Chinese coUoquiaUsm in the usage of the phrase 'a wolf's heart and a dog's lung.' The essence of the quote becomes clear, if one defines the heart and lung as the vital organs inherently appertaining to aU higher creatures. In this instance, Sky Lee imbibes into that hne the dominant characteristics that are generaUy ascribed to the heart of a wolf as the traits synonymous with prowhng and incalculable fierceness, and a dog's lung as the counterpart traits of the heartfilled misgivings of a dog-in-the-manger. Once again, thank you very much, John Lee and Shirley Chan Vancouver, BC m VANCOUVER WOMEN'S BOOKSTORE 315 Cambie Street Vancouver, B.C., V6B 2N4 (604) 684-0523 Hours: Monday-Saturday 11:00-5:30 ER^l p^J KINESIS, Bulletin Board READ THIS AU Ustings must be received no later than the 18th of the month preceding pubhcation. 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 wiU not be accepted over the telephone. Groups, organizations and individuals eligible for free space in the BuUetin Board must be, or have, non-profit objectives. Other free notices wUl be items of general pubUc interest and wUl 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. DeadUne for classifieds is the 18th of the month preceding pubhcation. Kinesis wUl not accept classifieds over the telephone. AU classifieds must be prepaid. For BuUetin Board submissions send copy to Kinesis Attn: BuUetin Board, 301- 1720 Grant Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 2Y6. For more information caU 255-5499. EVENTS WANNA GET INVOLVED? With Kinesis? We want to get involved with you too. Help plan our next issue— come to the Writers Meeting on Wed. Sept. 5 at 7pm at our office, #301-1720 Grant St. If you can't make the meeting, call 255-5499. No experience necessary, all women welcome. MARK YOUR CALENDAR The Vancouver Status of Women is holding its Annual General Meeting on Wed. Oct. 17 at 7pm at our office, #301-1720 Grant St. All members and prospective members are urged to attend, so mark your calendars today. Call 255-5511 for more info. WOMEN OF COLOUR CAUCUS Women of Colour are organizing at Kinesis and we welcome all volunteers past, present and future to an information meeting on Monday, Sept. 17 at 7pm at #301-1720 Grant St. For more info, please call Terrie Hamazaki at 321-0575 or Gwen Bird at 255-2460. THE BANNER PROJECT Every women's group across Canada is being asked to produce a protest banner. In October these will be collected and taken to Ottawa to form one huge banner big enough to "tie up" the Parliament Buildings. See "Movement Matters" on pg. 2 for details. WALK FOR LIFE '90 The Vancouver Persons with AIDS Society's 4th annual walkathon for AIDS awareness and services will take place Sun. Sept. 30 on the Stanley Park Seawall. Breakfast and ceremonies in Ceper- ley Park at 9am, walk at 11am, with concert and barbecue to follow. All proceeds to PWA support programs. Call 688-WALK (688-9255) for more info. BACK TO THE SOURCE "The Carved Stones Suite," works by Pn- ina Granirer, will be shown at the Sandstone Studio, Page's Marina, Gabriola Island, until Sept. 30. Call Gabriola Island, 247-8931 or Vancouver, 224-6795 for more info. TAKE BACK THE NIGHT Sept. 21 gather in Oppenheimer Park at the corner of Powell St. and Jackson St. in Vancouver at 7:30pm. Social following march. Wheelchair pushers and childcare available. Call 872- 8212 to preregister or for information. 05 WRITERS READING Join the Burnaby Writers' Society for their 1st literary reading of the season, Sept. 23, 1:30pm, Burnaby Art Gallery, 6344 Deer Lake Ave. Admission free, everyone welcome. Call 525-7915 or 291- 9441 for more info. INSIGHT '90 Edmonton's Third Annual Women's Film and Video Festival will feature Canadian and Australian works, including animation and experimental videos, and workshops. Oct. 19-21. For info about tix & childcare, contact In-Sight, 2nd fir., 9722- 102 St., Edmonton, AB T5K 0X4 or call (403) 424-0724. WOMEN'S DINNER DANCE "Together Again," WPBC's Women's Dinner Dance, happens Sept. 8. Doors at 6:30pm, dinner at 7pm. Tix $12 members, $15 non-members. For more info, call Lois or Rita at 437-3965. WOMEN WAITING A series of 10 large paintings depicting pregnant women, will be shown at The Lateral Gallery, Women in Focus Arts and Media Ctr., 849 Beatty St., Sept. 6-Oct. 4. Opening Wed. Sept. 5 at 8pm, with artist Joy Zemel Long in attendance. Call 682-5848 for more info. TRADES EXPLORATION BCIT Trades Exploration Program for Women starts Wed. Sept. 19, 6:30- 9:30pm. This 14 wk. course, taught by women, will familiarize women with trades so that they may make informed career choices in these areas. Cost: $100. Location: Burnaby Campus, BCIT. Contact Coordinator, Women in Trades at 432-8233 for more info. FREE TRADE CONFERENCE "Free Trade: The Mexican Connection," sponsored by the BC Federation of Labour, will take place Thurs. Sept. 27 at the Westin Bayshore. Featured speakers include Dave Barrett and Marjorie Cohen. Registration: $25 (includes lunch). Call 430- 1421 to register or for more info. SALVAIDE WALKATHON Walk together toward a new El Salvador. Join the annual Salvaide Walkathon Sat. Sept. 29 around the Stanley Park Seawall. Registration 8:30am, Ceperley Picnic Area. Guest speakers, prizes, Salvadorean music and food. Proceeds to development projects and rural villages in El Salvador. For pledge forms and info call Diane at 254-4468. WOMANCARE 1990 A forum on women's health, will take place Oct. 11-12 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The first in a series of annual forums presented by the Women's Health Clinic will focus on women and mental health and post partum stress. Keynote speaker: Susan Penfold. Cost and registration info through: Women's Health Clinic, 3rd fir., 419 Graham Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3C 0M3. WOMEN'S HEALTH, GLOBALLY The Third International Women and Health Meeting will be held in Manilla, the Philippines, on Nov. 3-10, 1990. The theme this year is "In Search of Balance Perspectives and Global Solidarity for Women's Health and Reproductive Rights." The conference is being organized this year by women's organizations in the Philippines. For more information, contact Celilia Diocson in Vancouver (604) 464-7859. MtjsMirawM THE FRINGE & S.H.E. PRODUCTIONS present The Rules Nowadays, a blend of poetry and song with feminist perspectives on a world where love, friendship, childhood and aging are of as much concern as war, violence, racism and pollution. A show of laughter and tears, rage and caring, featuring: The Euphoniously Feminist and Non-Performing Quintet, with Nina Cole (flute and piano) and Sue Malcolm (bass); and poets Helen Potrebenko and Sandy Shreve. Shows are at The Main Dance Place, 2214 Main St.; Tues., Wed., and Thurs., Sept. 11, 12 & 13; 7:30-8:30pm nightly. $5 - employed, $3 - under/unemployed. WORKING WITH RITUAL ABUSE SURVIVORS Working with ritual abuse survivors—an introductory workshop will take place in Nanaimo on Oct. 12. Topics include: identifying survivors; working with alcoholic and addict survivors; special skills for working with survivors. Facilitators are Daniella Coates, Executive Director of TRAANS (The Ritual Abuse Awareness Society) and Cheryl Hughes and Maureen McEvoy, therapists in private practice with survivors. For further info or to obtain a registration form, write to Maya House, 6731 Auldes Rd., Lantzville, Vancouver Island, BC VOR 2H0 or call 390- 2100. Deadline: Oct. 4th. THE TRIALS OF EVE is a limited edition book by Vancouver artist Pnina Granirer. It explores in visual and poetic form the history of woman based on the ancient story of Adam and Eve. A series of drawings will be on show at Hycroft, the University Women's Club in October. The book is available from Gaea Press (224-6795), 4557 West 4th MAKING CONNECTIONS A conference exploring the connections among addictions, childhood traumas and eating disorders. Organized by the Nat'l Eating Disorder Info Centre in Toronto. Oct. 24-26. To register or more info call (416) 340-4188 or write to: CW 1-328, 200 Elizabeth St., Toronto, Ont. M5G 2C4 FEMINIST COUNSELING The Feminist Counseling Association meets on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Daphne McKeen's office, 2nd floor, 3590 West 41st Ave. at 7:30pm. On Sept. 11, Monica Carpendale, an art therapist in private practice will discuss using art as a therapeutic approach. NATURAL BIRTH CONTROL Throw away your pills and learn the Ovulation Method of natural birth control at the Van. Women's Health Collective. Next class in mid-Sept. For info call 255- 8284. WEST COAST EAGLES HEALING RETREAT with Shirley Turcotte. September 27- 30, 1990 on Gambier Island. A retreat designed for survivors who have already done some work around sexual abuse issues. The cost of $350 includes food, accomodation and transportation. For registration or further information call Penny Wardell at 875-0779. THIRD ANNUAL GALA Victoria Status of Women and Hot Flashes Cafe are gearing up for the social event of the season. The 3rd annual Lesbian Dinner Dance, Sept. 29, will feature Key Change. Tix on sale Aug 1 at SWAG; all out-of-town tix must be purchased before Sept. 14. Dinner/dance $30, dance only $12. Mail cheques/money orders to: SWAG, #320-620 View St., Victoria. BC. TALES OF SEDUCTION A new anthology by the lesbians who brought you "Dykeversions". Now accepting submissions for a seductive, sexy and humourous fiction and non- fiction anthology. Send short tales of your best seduction, best line(s), most bizarre approach, or the seduction you're still waiting for to: Tales of Seduction, Women's Press, 517 College St., Suite 233, Toronto, Ont. M6G 4A2. Deadline: Feb. 28, 1991. GROUPS KARATE FOR WOMEN Self defense, fitness, confidence. All women's karate club seeking new members. Shito-ryu karate taught by a female black belt. Tuesdays & Thursdays, 7 pm, Carnarvon Community School, 16th & Balaclava. Observers welcome. Call Joni: 734-9816; Rose: 737-0910 or Mi ica: 872-8982. SUPPORT GROUP For women going through our criminal/civil justice system and who have been survivors of sexual assault as children. Please call Diana at 530-8265 between 7-10pm. LESBIANS WITH CHILDREN Weekly support group at Vancouver Lesbian Connection, 876 Commercial Dr., Tuesdays 9:30-11:30 am. Break isolation, discuss the issues (custody, access, relationships), have a coffee. Free childcare at Eastside Family Place. If possible, please pre- register for childcare through VLC, 254-8458, or Susan, 254-9164. CCEC Credit Union Serving cooperatives, community businesses, & the non-profit sector. ► Lower interest rates on loans to societies and cooperatives. ► Operating loans. ► Mortgages. ► Term deposits. ► Chequing accounts and other banking services. • II J | 2250 Commercial Dr. Vancouver, B.C. V5N 5P9 1 pm - 7 pm 10 am -1 pm 254-4100 A1NESIS September 90 ////////////////////^^^^^ /////////////////////^^^^^ bulletin Board GROUP SIG ROUPS MISSING PIECES THROUGH ADOPTION is a national organization that provides support for those who have been separated by adoption. The S. Vancouver chapter will meet Thurs. Sept. 20, South Van Family Place, 7595 Victoria Dr., at 7pm. Birthparents, adoptees, adoptive parents and others welcome to meet on third Thursday of each month. Info: Millie Strom 255-0255. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED WAVAW/Rape Crisis Centre is looking for women volunteers to do rape crisis work. Training begins Sept. 26 and runs 10 weeks (Wed. 7-10pm and Sun. 11am- 5pm). Childcare and transportation costs provided. WAVAW strives to be anti- racist, anti-classist and anti-homophobic. Call Terrie 875-1328 for info. WOMEN & AIDS HIV-POSITIVE WOMEN'S DROP-IN. At the Vancouver Women's Health Collective (255-9858), #302-1720 Grant St. Call Bridget (AIDS Vancouver) at 687- 5220 or Jackie (PWA Society) at 683- 3381 to find out more. TO YOUR HEALTH The Vancouver Women's Health Collective needs volunteers. Our next training will begin in October. Join us and learn more about women's health issues. Please call 255-8284. WOMEN IN TRADES Meets the last Saturday of each month, 2 pm, in LI of the Brittania Comm. Ctr. Library, 1661 Napier St. All women are v>'»lcome. MEDIAWATCH A national feminist organization concerned with stereotypical, degrading and violent images of girls and women in the mass media, works to improve and diversify these images through lobbying, education and advocacy. Speakers Bureau Training & other volunteer opportunities: call Kristin Schoonover 731-0457. SUPPORT GROUP Support Group for Womyn Healing from sexual abuse. Leaderless, non- judgemental, confidential, supportive atmosphere. Prefer womyn who are in or have done therapy. Meeting Tuesday evenings. Leave first name message 251- 4233. TO YOUR HEALTH The Vancouver Women's Health Collective needs volunteers. An opportunity to be involved in women's health issues. Please call 255-8284. EX-INMATE SUPPORT A support group for women who have been in psychiatric hospitals is being held every Fri. from noon to 1:30pm at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, 44 E. Cordova. 681-8480. CLASS F ED CERTIFICATE IN WOMEN'S STUDIES The Women's Studies Program at Simon Fraser University now offers a Certificate in Women's Studies. This certificate provides students with a combination of academic training in Women's Studies and practical training in community work on behalf of women. It is of particular interest to those wanting to become involved, ; as well as for those already involved, in ' promoting the well-being of women in . the community. Program requirements in- , elude completion of about 10 courses (31 . credit hours) and a 13-week practicum. Call 291-3593 for further details on the program and admission requirements. PRESS GANG PRINTERS A feminist collective print shop, is needing 2 collective members this fall to fill the positions of full-time small press operator and bookkeeper/production worker (will consider two part-time). We need an experienced bookkeeper but will consider a printer trainee. Please send resume by Sept. 12 to 603 Powell St., V6A 1H2 AIKIDO CLASS Multi-level women's class in Aikido runs every Friday 6 to 7:30pm at Trout Lake Community Centre, 3350 Victoria. Learn falls, rolls, blocks, neutralizing techniques, and how to use your energy efficiently. Taught by Tamami Ko- take, second degree black belt instructor. Beginners welcome. Info: 253-5109 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. SHIATSU TREATMENTS Ready to work on your stuff? Do it with your body. I work from the basis that our bodies remember joys, sorrows, fear, frustrations. Unexpressed, these feelings play havoc in our lives, undermining our true potential. Using touch, breath, imagery and body awareness, my Shiatsu treatments help you free unexpressed emotions and gain clarity. Astarte 251-5409. WALKING TOGETHER TOWARDS A NEW EL SALVADOR SALVAIDE NATIONAL WALKATHON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 STANLEY PARK SEAWALL tii "With your help we can rebuild our lives, plant our crops, open our own health clinics and send our children to school... with your help we can win the peace we all desire." Registration 8:30am Co-Sponsored by: Burnaby Municipal CouncB; Bumaby-Kingsway Riding Association; Comunitas Unitarian Church of Vancouver. Proceeds to SalvAide Projects For a pledge form please cat 254-4468. Veena Sood stars in "Maharini and the Maple Leaf at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, Sept. 6-16. See page 20 for more information CLASSIFIEDIC LAS SIRED SALTSPRING RETREAT Watch the deer browse as you relax on the deck. Cozy up to the wood stove and dream a little (wood provided). Escape to Saltspring Island for a weekend or a week. Fully equipped women's guest cabin in a country setting. Close to sea, lakes and hiking trails. $35 single, $50 double. Special rates for week or month. Call 653-9475 or write Gillian Smith, C85, King Rd., RR1, Fulford Harbour, B.C. VOS ICO. GROUP FACILITATOR/ PEER COUNSELLOR TRAINING Battered Women's Support Services will be offering Group Facilitator/Peer Counsellor training in the Fall of this year. If you are interested in working with battered women and would like to be considered for the training program, call 734- 1574 for an application form. We look forward to hearing from you. Deadline for applications is Fri. Sept. 7, 1990. NEW PUBLICATIONS Strategies for Change: from women's experience to a plan for action (100pp., $9) and Keeping on Track: an evaluation guide for community groups (84pp., $15) To order these, or to receive a complete listing of our publications, contact Women's Research centre, 2245 W. Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6K 2E4, (604) 734-0485 RESEARCHER WANTED Maya House is a residential treatment centre for chemically dependant women We run a holistic program with a feminist orientation. We are looking' for an MA or MSW candidate who would like to work with us this fall doing some outcome research. We can pay an honorarium and have some travel funds. Write: Maya House, 6731 Auldes Rd., Lantzville, Vancouver Island, BC VOR 2H0. Attn: Susan Strega. Tel: 390-2100 READ LESBIANEWS: Monthly events, information, ideas from Victoria's lesbian feminist community. Sample issue/back issues $2 each. Yearly subscription (mailed in plain lavender wrapper) $18. Cheques to Debby Gregory, LesbiaNews, PO Box 5339, Station B, Victoria B.C. V8R 6S4. 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, Quebec H2X 2V4. Tel: (514) 842-4765 UPRISING BREADS BAKERY Try our new fruit scones — blackberry, blueberry, raspberry & strawberry — plus our regular whole wheat, cheese, ham & cheese, and raisin scones. Jalapeno scones available on Fridays & Saturdays. 1697 Venables Street Vancouver 254-5635 A part of CRS Workers' Co-op HOUSEMATES WANTED Three mature, non-smoking lesbians looking for two more lesbian housemates to complete our lovely, spacious Kitsilano home. We are looking for housemates who will have the energy and commitment to live communally. As we already have two cats, we are unable to accept any more pets. The two rooms for rent are $300/mo, not incl. utilities. Rooms are available Sept. 1. For more info please call 737-0910. 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 & drinks, relaxing massages & healing crystal readings. Room rates: $330 single; $440 double per week. For reservations call our Toronto friend, Suzi, at (416) 462-0046 between 9am- 10pm. KINESIS. LI61Z8SRL 4/91 LIBRARY PROCESSING CTR - SERIALS 2206 EAST HALL, U.B.C. VANCOUVER, BC V6T 1Z8
Preceding title: Vancouver Status of Women. Newsletter. Date of publication: 1974-2001. Frequency: Monthly.
Periodicals
Newspapers
HQ1101.V24 N49
English
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Vancouver : Vancouver Status of Women
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Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. HQ1101.V24 N49
Women--Social and moral questions
Feminism--Periodicals
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