November 25th: International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women

On a crisp winter afternoon in December 1989 I was walking across the University of Waterloo campus to one of my final classes in honours mathematics and computer science. I was stopped by one of my female mates from the (now closed) Womyn’s Centre. She asked me “Have you heard the terrible news”? I had not. It was December 6th.

Over the past 26 years I have attended December 6th memorials, I have fundraised for the December 6th Toronto fund to help women escape violent husbands and I wrote and performed a spoken word piece in 2012 at the annual Toronto memorial event. It is perhaps the most significant day of remembrance of any kind to me. It struck a deeply personal chord as a woman studying in a traditionally male dominated field. And over the years I have heard from many other women that it struck a deeply personal chord with them too. When women hear of that type of massacre they tend to recoil. Being killed for being a woman is something that strikes too close to home for most, if not all, of us.

In 2012 I found out about the Counting Dead Women campaign that Karen Ingala Smith started in the UK. She started recording the names of all women suspected to have been killed by male violence. She tweeted regularly the names of these victims and documented them on her personal blog. As her work progressed she started tweeting and writing about the patterns she was seeing. In following her work I often thought “Canada should have something like this”. I googled and asked my fellow feminists and found out that there were some provincial iniatives but nothing nationally. Over this same time period I saw and supported the growing awareness of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigineous Women.

At the beginning of this year, after seeing some summary info about the UK 2014 list and learning of a similar new iniative in Australia I decided that instead of asking why Canada doesn’t have anything like this I would just start doing it. And so I did.

As of this writing, there are 125 women and girls on the list for 2015. That’s 125 women and girls suspected to have been killed by male violence or 1 every 2.6 days. And the summary information I have collated looks very grim. Of the 76 solved cases (where a suspect has been charged), 54% (41) of them were killed by a current or former partner and 13% (10) were killed by their sons. I have been able to identify 22 of the 125  as aboriginal. The aboriginal population in Canada represents 3.9% of the total population. On the Counting Dead Women Canada list they represent 17.6% of the total victims. There are also inexplicable geographical differences. The population of Alberta represents 11.6% of the Canadian population yet on the CDWC list they represent 26.4% of the victims. A similar disparity occurs in Saskatchewan - they represent 8% of the victims yet their provincial population is only 3.2% of the total national population. At the beginning of the new year I intend to post more detailed summary information for all of 2015 on the NL Feminists and Allies facebook page.

I see now how the work I am doing in compiling this list is the best way I can honour not only the 14 women killed on December 6, 1989 but the unrecorded numbers of women killed globally by male violence. I do this work in the hopes that such lists will be become unnecessary. And, on the 34th anniversary of the call by Latin American and Caribbean Women to declare November 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I invite you to not only contemplate the 125 Canadian women and girls on this list for 2015 but also the 1000s of women and girls facing fatal and non fatal violence both nationally and globally. And, in order to raise national awareness of femicide on #IDEVAW, on my personal twitter account I will be tweeting the names and pictures of each victim on this year’s list. I will start at 9:00 a.m. and tweet one name every 5 minutes. As of this writing the last tweet is scheduled for 7:25 p.m.

An open letter to a Northeast Avalon Times columnist

Dear Ms. McGrath,

I believe what you were trying to write about in your January 2015 Column in The Northeast Avalon Times is gender and the harms that gender causes in our society. It's a pity that you obfuscated this very relevant topic with your thinly veiled hatred against girls/women with a particular hair colour and eye colour.

As someone who is blonde (and blue eyed) and has raised a blonde (and blue eyed) daughter I would like to point out a few inaccuracies in your article.

First of all, I am still blonde and I'm 47. Yes it did get darker and now it has grey throughout but I did not 'resort' to artificial products to 'restore' my natural hair colour. And neither has my now 20 yo daughter.

Secondly, and I know I can't speak for all blonde blue eyed women BUT my own personal glory was found by completing not one but two degrees, the first one majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Computer Science and the second a graduate degree in Engineering. I've got other glories lying around too and none of them have to do with the colour of my hair and/or eyes. My 20 yo daughter is currently accumulating her own set of glories that (shock!) also have nothing to do with her hair or eye colour. She is in her third year double majoring in International Development and Economics and is on the Dean's honour list. She is going to India on a placement in May. She backpacked Europe last summer. She volunteers. She is in the Student Leadership program. And (another shock) she wore pink as a child, as I did. I myself was not into the whole princess/doll scene but, alas, she was. But she also liked books. And interactive games. And swimming.

Thirdly, your attempt to determine whether me, my daughter, and others of our ilk are repulsive is, in a word, repulsive. It is also repulsive that you question how you would have treated your own daughter if she herself was blonde and blue eyed. It is also repulsive that you compared blonde and blue eyed people to albino bugs. It is also repulsive that you are given a public forum to voice these repugnant views.

Fourthly, apparently you know my Mother. How do you feel about her now, knowing that she raised not one but two blonde and blue eyed girls? Is your opinion of her diminished or does it remain the same since she herself is not blonde? Does she get demerit points for occasional buying (or making) pink items of clothing for us? Or letting us see a princess movie? These items need to be clarified.

And lastly, and most importantly, you realize that hating people on sight might be indicative of needing to see a psychiatrist? It's called being a sociopath. Unfortunately the prognosis is not good for this type of ailment. Maybe, with encouragement, you'll get the help you need.

Sincerely,

Orla Hegarty BMath MASc

P.S. If you wanna read up on the whole gender issue thing I'd recommend Gender Hurts by Dr. Sheila Jeffreys. It's available, for free, in our provincial library system.

Tools and fools

The narrative around consent, rape culture, violence against women and narcissism exploded into the Canadian stratosphere this week. Ricochets of #BeenRapedNeverReported are still being heard around the world.

The absence of one aspect in this dialogue is sitting very uneasily within me. Actually, there are a few aspects but I'll focus on just the one, for now: Sexual objectification.

It's a term that has been suspiciously avoided during this week's dialogue but it's a term that is central to the events that occurred. And it underpins much of the dialogue that is happening...both by the talking heads and the victims.

Sexual objectification: "the act of treating a person as an instrument of sexual pleasure....without regard to their personality or dignity."

This definition helps explain a lot things going on, doesn't it?

Women are merely instruments, tools, of sexual 'pleasure', see?

That is why an executive can ask a young intern if they've been used as a tool.

That is why executives can believe that texts and photo evidence of a man using a tool was 'consensual violence'.

That is why a violent man can be an unchallenged taxpayer funded spokesperson for Canadian culture despite knowing about Jian - for years.

This weeks events have not occurred in a vacuum. Anybody looking clearly around at the world today can see that our society continues to devour women. We are merely tools.

But let's not just examine the term and it's implication in this scenario. Let's also think about the term and what it means for what our notions of sexuality and sexual pleasure are in our culture.

Some feminists claim empowerment via sexual objectification. Slutwalk, anyone? These women proudly proclaim themselves as tools and put themselves in the tool box - happily and willingly. Ergo, status quo achievement: unlocked.

But other feminists are trying to get out of the tool box. They recognize that sexuality is so much more than being a tool. Sexuality is the fluid beautiful essence of what it means to be human (pun intended). It is an act that fully engages your body, heart and mind. It is not a mechanical tool. And it does not involve violence. Ever. There should be nothing 'pleasurable' about using a tool to orgasm. If it is reduced to that then the full experience of sexuality and what it means to be a human being is erased. And if you don't believe me and my sisters on this then maybe this man will help you understand the concept of physically and emotionally safe sex better.

If our society continues to be directed by those that orgasm using tools then we are all fools for continuing to allow it. After all, tools can't report themselves as broken.

The gender badge vs. the gender vadge

Dear Females,

I apologize for travelling along the third wave feminism road.  It was the road called equality and it seemed to logically follow the road my mother and grandmothers fought for. I apologize for calling it equality and erasing liberation from the nomenclature of feminism.

I apologize for believing that in the 21st century women had a right to choose to sell her body. I apologize for thinking porn helped further sexual liberation. I apologize for thinking pro-choice = reproductive justice.

I apologize for thinking that women and men were wired differently and I somehow won the genetic lottery by earning the right to call myself a mathematician and an engineer despite being born female.

The road to my enlightenment was long and twisted and admittedly, privileged.

My privilege came from a mother determined to not award gender badges to her daughters. A mother who allowed me firetrucks and my sister cowboy regalia. A mother who encouraged a love of learning and a love of math. And a father who 'allowed' this freedom and even (gasp) changed our diapers in the late 1960s. A father who 'allowed' my mother to be the primary wage earner and he even cooked our family meals during the week and took us to lessons and medical appointments. There were no gender badges awarded in my family growing up. And when my sister came out as a lesbian in her early twenties in the early 90s, my parents embraced her despite their catholic upbringing and a church determined to erase her reality.And we did not seek to give her the gender badge of butch dyke or femme lesbian. She simply loved women and we accepted that without needing to label her beyond lesbian.

And now my privilege is being slammed because I also have the audacity of having a gender vadge. I am a female that calls herself a woman and I happen to also have a vagina. The fact that my parents tried so hard to eliminate the gender badge from my life - as did other freethinking parents who saw the harms of boxing in their children into prescriptive gendered roles while children - is now considered irrelevant and even dangerous to third wave feminists. Flaunting the fact that I have a vagina and others born with one need liberation is deemed cissexist. Saying that someone born with a vagina is more likely to be penetrated in a violent act whether for money or torture is called sex-phobic. Telling people that I want access to female only space is pronounced transphobic.

The only thing that seems to be relevant today is what gender badge you feel like you have and the quicker you identify your gender then the quicker your "problem" can be solved if you don't have the right body parts to match. The solution ultimately  involves lots of drugs and genital mutilation surgery. But, if caught early enough, the gender badge will be awarded.

My vagina is not gendered, it is female. My brain is not gendered, it is human. My feminism is not gendered, it is about females. My privilege is not gendered it is about socio-economic class and education and race.

Ultimately I am sorry that it took me so long to wake up to our female born reality and what the true liberation of females entails. The road behind is only a couple of centuries old and I fear the road ahead is much steeper than it was before gender badges and gender vadges become priority #1 in First World Feminism.

The penance for my own third-wave feminism fiasco will be that for the remainder of my life I will cry every time I see another female shame another female for anything.

And I'm crying a lot these days.

Sincerely,

A 46 yo womens liberationist.

Howling

Today the wind is gathering momentum outside my saltbox by the sea. It is expected to crest to upwards of 100 km/hr. AGAIN.

It is a metaphor for the myriad of emotions I feel while reading and listening to tales of women's oppression. And as you likely know, it's everywhere.

I met with two women in town for lunch this week. We had all just attended a rally to protest the closure of the Family Violence Intervention Court here in my new home province of Newfoundland. This court, opened by the current government in 2009 was closed last year. The budgetary savings of a mere $500,000 (only 0.02% of the entire provincial budget) was deemed too much to improve and save the lives of women. A province with the highest rates of domestic violence in Canada closed the only program offering real solutions to families facing the horrors of domestic violence. It is beyond shameful and should be criminal.

At our lunch the three of us shared part of our own stories of domestic violence. We agreed it is the shame that weighed heaviest upon us and nearly crushed all of us. And the fact is that domestic violence does crush some of us. Five women in Newfoundland were murdered by their partners in 2012. Five women literally crushed out of existence by five violent men. 

So yes, I'm howling today. And the backdrop of the raging wind is providing a poignant metaphor for the way so many of us women feel whilst desperately battling the shackles of oppression in our town, our province, our nation, and our world.

Womyn Warriors: Seeking to actually liberate women

Exactly one week ago I approached a small group of womyn standing outside Beaver Hall Gallery.  I expected to see hate accusing protesters and was relieved by their absence. I was committed to attending the first ever Toronto Radical Feminist conference and the weekend was going to be my first experience in nearly three decades of face to face discussions and speakers about women's issues such as violence, reproductive justice and human trafficking in a womyn's only setting.  As I sit here writing this I can not comprehend how little I knew last Friday morning about the state of oppression towards women on this planet. It was like I was in a bubble and now it has been burst.

It was a smaller gathering than expected because of the threats of violence faced by the organizer's and the venue. Women get scared. Systemic oppression does that. Rape victims don't want to be triggered. Exited sex workers don't want to be outed. For conference attendees who brought children there was a feeling of enormous guilt about exposing their offspring to possible violence. All of us are still processing this ugly side of our event. Here is a short description by one fellow attendee. Here is another attendee's writeup.

Last fall I met a young man who lived in Yugoslavia during the country's breakup. His family eventually refugeed to Canada. He discussed his childhood back in a land under war. His recollection, as a child, was that of many family members being around and supporting one another. He had siblings and cousins about all the time. They played while the parents pulled together to survive. These are his happy childhood memories and he spoke of this fondly. In his new country families are disjoint: including his own. His story comes back to me as I try and capture the experience I had last weekend. Because that's ultimately how I will remember this gathering. An infant played while the womyn pulled together to work towards liberation.

But make no mistakes about it: we were terrrorized. Anyone dismissive of that reality for a group of a couple of dozen women is oppressing my reality. You were not there.  You did not live through what we experienced.  And while we were terrorized we managed to listen to many speakers from all across Turtle Island tell us about the state of oppression towards women:  in this country and around the world.  The facts are frightening. From toxic/rape/porn culture that leads to youth suicide to human sex trafficking that the pornstitution is behind. Aboriginal women and the Pickton house of horrors. The centuries long ongoing process of eroding womyn's reproductive justice. History lessons that revealed the true sources of any societal change that has occurred in the last few hundred years. And finally, actionable items that will help mobilize a few more womyn that are actually interested in liberating women rather than mere empowerment.

In the course of our baptism into radical feminism we forged bonds through personal stories and sharing of insights. And I had many tears. Tears of rage when hearing of a mother dropping off her own daughter and grandchild to a homeless shelter because the mother's boyfriend was inconvenienced by the baby. Tears of horror when hearing of torture survivors struggling to communicate their story with drawings: they can not talk of it. Tears that were triggered when I saw, for the first time,  how thoroughly patriarchy had brainwashed me into the liberal feminist narrative and how damaging that might have been for newly adult Daughter. Tears for the direct violence I experienced in my own life yet did not clearly recognize until last weekend. Tears of gratitude that a group of womyn continually risk their safety so that womyn like myself can learn more.

Yes I cried a lot. And if you are not crying about the continuing state of oppression of women in our world then I really think we can no longer be friends.  There is a war on women. I've chosen to work towards liberation.

Nigerian dwarf goats: also discussed at RadFemRiseUp
(to be explained later)

Letter to the Editor of The Toronto Star re: RadFemRiseUp

I am posting this on my blog. I will be writing more about this conference in the next wee while. Watch this space. It is officially out of dormancy :)

------ Dear Toronto Star,

Re: Toronto activists protest "transphobic" conference (Saturday July 6, 2013)

The organizers of the Radical Feminists gathering, RadFemRiseUp, held last weekend in Toronto, received threats of violence on the Friday night from transactivists who had managed to find out our secret location. These threats led to police presence at our newly disclosed location as well as at the park where transactivists held their own protest. This park was merely 200 meters from the new location. When police questioned the transactivists on their choice of location, they stated they lived near there. More details about this are available here:  http://bit.ly/RadFemInfiltrated. RadFemRiseUp attendees would like to thank the Metro Toronto Police for their support during what was a very disturbing time.

However, despite the severe disruption and fear experienced by all conference attendees, the event proceeded with only minor changes to the scheduling.

Labelling anybody with the term "transphobic" without providing concrete evidence clearly reveals your papers bias and sympathies. To the best of my knowledge there has been no violence or hatred directed, ever, towards trans by Radical Feminists. Maya Shlayen has never said that Rachel Ivey has damaged our reputation, and by misrepresenting Shlayen's words, you are unfairly diminishing the public perception of Radical Feminism.

In addition: by reporting, falsely, that Radical Feminism is under the auspices of Deep Green Resistance, you again reveal your papers bias and your reporters utter lack of knowledge about Feminism. If anything, the fledgling Deep Green Resistance organization arose out of Radical Feminist principles: not the other way around.

Radical Feminists are 'stuck' in second wave Feminism because we recognize that the work there is not finished. In 2013, women are quite far from being liberated. The fact that Senator Nancy Ruth spoke this week about how Toby’s law forbids females from gathering in female only spaces  is indicative of exactly how far we are from being liberated.

Gender stereotypes have worsened in my lifetime (I'm 46) and that is quite damaging to both males and females. The 'furor' surrounding baby Storm a couple of years ago is just one example of this sad reality. Claiming 'scientific validity' for genderism has been debunked by the work of scientists like Dr. Cordelia Fine.

Post-modern feminists continue to push terms like 'empowerment' when women still have precious little power despite 100+ years of Feminism. Radical Feminists continue the important and liberating work started by previous generations of feminists. We are actively seeking methods to liberate women, girls and boys from male violence, torture, and oppressive reproductive regimes around the world. True liberation for women occurs only when there is legislative and reproductive justice for women everywhere on this planet.

Sincerely,

Orla Hegarty B. Math.,  M.A.Sc.

RadFemRiseUp Attendee

Nishiyuu and the Colonialization of Feminism

As I write this, over 200 indigineous youth are arriving in our nation's capital after walking 1600 km since January 16th. The emotions I am feeling remind me strongly of those that were stirred in my adolescence when Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope went through my hometown of Brampton in 1980.

There is something distinctly Canadian, to me, about these epic treks. I engaged in my own personal version last September on my HarvestTrek2012 tour from Vancouver to St. John's on the Trans Canada Highway.  I felt so fortunate to join history as someone who was able to take in this country, from coast to coast, in a way that few have done.  In a short space of time I was able to move from the fresh raw mountains of Canada's Rockies over to the gentle older slopes of Newfoundland. I was able to do this fairly cheaply by using a drive away service that pays you nominal costs and you get the privilege of having someone else's car. I feel quite fortunate that the conditions in my life were ripe to avail of a cross country trek in a little sports car (with an epic stereo).

This summer my plans include seeing more of this fine country by getting to Labrador. I want my Canadian explorations to be expanded vertically now that I have seen the country along the East-West highway that mimics the historical Trans Canada Railway.  I quite enjoyed seeing the rail cars beside me as I drove along this summer.  I didn't like them so much when I woke up in the middle of the night to their horn blasts (one of the perils of guerilla camping along the TCH, fyi).

The reflections I have been making since my own personal cross Canada trek are still quite muddled and today I feel a responsibility to share some of them. Specifically the ones centred around my personal passion regarding wanting to leave the world a better place rather than just the bare minimum of leaving no trace (or leaving the world a worse place). This is what the Nishiyuu walkers are doing. They are leading by example so in my small tiny way I am hoping to pay it forward with these reflections.

This focus of my 'leave the world a better place' passion allows me flexibility of interests yet also has driven me to reexamine some things that I thought were personally sorted, long ago. One of the items under cross examination at the moment is feminism. Not if I am one (I am). But what that means, for me personally, and with respect to how I wish to leave the world a better place.

I am a woman. I am well educated in a field where few women are (math, engineering) and yet I feel like a novice to the subject of feminism. To be fair, a lot of that was by choice. After Daughter was born and I realized that the wholesale outsourcing of child rearing didn't match my value system, I no longer found any support in the feminist circles I was familiar with. This timed perfectly with the rise of the internet. Fortunately? Not for me.

In the early 2000s the loudest voices online were feminists telling me that I should be climbing that career ladder. They had fought for my right to do that. They had fought for the right for me to go to university and study math and engineering.  In fact, when one very well known Canadian feminist voiced her disregard for my thoughts on  her blog (when I was at my neediest) I turned all of the online feminists off and in real life conversations started to use the 'f word' as a phrase when discussions of feminism came up to soften my commitment on the issue. I was wounded. As a single mother I was exhausted. In isolation and in desperation I had reached out online to engage in discourse about what a young feminist single mother might want instead of climbing the career ladder (and how society could help support choices for all mothers and all families) and I was completely shut down. Part of me is still wounded by that action over a decade later.

But last summer's trek galvanized me into an awareness that makes me see that I have to go back and reexamine feminism. As the mother of a new adult daughter. As a human being. I am compelled and yet I enter cautiously. I recently waded into an online discussion of sex work/prostitution and was rebuffed, again. I was told that I wasn't a real feminist if I didn't have an opinion. This reminded me of that blog interaction. But I'm stronger now and wiser. I see the power of these misunderstandings and flare ups to educate and illuminate. And, tellingly, I was supported by others in the thread.  Differences allow variety. Variety is not the spice of life but biodiversity and evolutionary theory show us it is unequivocally the essence of it. All voices need to be heard. Not just the ones at the 'top'.

Feminism isn't owned by white woman who've climbed corporate ladders. Just like Canada isn't owned by white men answering to corporate mining interests.

As a feminist and as a Canadian, I am Idle No More.

Impossibly Single

I write this blog from the second floor of a bus looking out onto the bleak salt stained tarmac and the barren trees that typify a typical mid-winter day here in Southern Ontario. I just spied an old stone mill beside a river. I think we just passed Port Hope.

Being single is something I've written about before on this blog. Happily. People generally don't know what to make of the person who is single despite the fact that science is disproving the notion of everlasting love and there are record numbers of single person headed households in Canada (lone dweller households now surpass married couples!) there remains a stigma associated with the act of being single. And there are financial discriminations too.

Not too long ago I met up with someone who condescendingly said to me at her engagement outing 10 years ago: "Don't worry Orla, you'll find someone." I remember this vividly. I can almost feel the touch of her hand on my arm as she said it. That was possibly the first time I connected how patronizing society was to someone who is single. At that point in time I had over 7 years experience as a single mom, Daughter would've been 8. So many thoughts came crashing through my head at that time and now, a decade later, I am sifting through them.

Culturally, the expectation is if you have a child then it is best if there are two parents. Somewhere along the road of moral progress the notion of "it takes a community to raise a child" was lost. So this young newly engaged woman probably had her biological clock ticking and was proud to share her hope that I too would find a replacement father figure for my child and perhaps let some of his sperm get into my womb to gift him with one of his own procreation. Biological clocks are funny like that. In our modern age they seem to presume that once you're educated and employed the next task is to breed.

Also, to be fair, a decade ago her patronizing sentiments mirrored exactly what my own expectation was for my life at that point in time. I was then 35 and was dating extensively hoping to still find The One so that I could breed again. The funny thing was that every single guy who dared mention the "M" word (as in marriage) got quickly removed from the dating card line up.

And now, with my newly minted middle aged wisdom, I see myself as a person that might have a philanderer gene and I have no desire for long term monogamy. I hate cleaning my own knickers let alone a partners. And I'm wise enough to realize that the gift of choice vis-a-vis being single is afforded only to those of us able to be financially independent. We have come a long way baby. Or some of us have. I consider myself quite fortunate.

In Newfoundland they have a curious expression that captures what I and possibly many other singles strive for: a comfort. Essentially it is a fuck buddy with very few strings attached. As someone who has had fuck buddies I like the term much better but there was precious little comfort in the ones I had while my clock loudly clanged.

And one final thing. When I saw that now 30 something woman with her two small children recently I asked after her husband. Divorced. I admit to a sweet moment of revenge "karma" followed by the sincere hope that she finds the support and comfort she, like us all, need.

Moving out of your comfort zone.

After years of being the exception I thought I knew how to survive in the dark dangerous zone of unfamiliarity.  I was part of the brave new world where women were equal to men. I had obtained an honours mathematics and computer science degree from the prestigious University of Waterloo.  I had obtained a master's degree in engineering and was pursuing a doctorate degree in the same subject area.

The first inkling of a flaw in my internal logic with respect to gender came while I was pregnant for the second time (I miscarried my first).  I vividly remember being in the women's bathroom of my engineering graduate school department and looking myself in the mirror and saying to myself:  "Wow, being a woman sucks."

The precipitous 'event' which was less an event but more of an all encompassing new way of life for me at that time was being nauseous 24/7. It was horrible. Horrible enough to wish I wasn't a woman. It seemed grossly unfair to me that biology had dictated not only labour (of which I was mortally afraid and as it turned out, with good reason) but also this feeling of wanting to throw up, constantly.  Morning sickness became a cruel euphemism ridiculing my constant state of gagging. I wonder if Princess Kate had this same realization.

Upon reflection I see that this nausea was perhaps a biological reminder that by becoming a parent, you move so far out of your comfort zone that a warm up sure doesn't hurt. Science doesn't seem to support this idea but how could it?  How could this idea even be tested?

Yet, if you ask any parent if they believe having children moved them out of their comfort zone I believe you would get 100% concurrence on this sentiment as well as an addendum:  "Most rewarding thing I've ever done."

So, forgetting the science, ask yourself what is making you uncomfortable, right now?  Could it be something that if you persevere it will end up rewarding you?

I'm grappling with these questions even as I type these words.  Some of the reading I've been doing about the art and practice of writing suggests that if you are painfully extracting words from deep within, you have found your voice. I am all too familiar with this notion yet constantly reject practicing (i.e. like maintaining this blog). 

Certainty: A Fish Called Orla

It's been awhile.

I sit down to write this in desperation. I have arrived at a critical turning point. This is a middle aged crisis like no other. It is epic. It is a swirling dirvish of emotions that have seemingly arrived to a fine tuned epiphany. It is grandios.  It is socially media infused. It is happening on a grand scale and a microscopic scale.  It is neverending.

What?  What's that you write?  Tell me!  Are you okay?  Am I okay?  Am I too old for this?  Am I too young?  What are the warning signs?  What are the symptoms?  What are the cures?

Whooooaaaa. Don't worry yourself and thanks for your concern. This one is mine. All mine. I am in the middle, at the edges and in the nucleus of it. It is MINE. If I attempt to share it, it might explode, yes. And the detritus from the fallout might catch a wisp of your eyelash, yes. But it is not contagious. Unless, of course, you are a carrier. Then, and only then, might we reach a threshold of energy that could reach detonation proportions equivalent to the nucleur bomb or a universe exploding into existence.

But, my experience has shown me that is quite unlikely. After a near half century of waltzing around the planet nurturing the inner flame of this beast I have met few carriers. And us carriers are scattered enough to not be a threat to any large scale change. Scattered by culture. Religion. Media. Gender.

Alright. Phew. So then. I don't understand. What the heck are you talking about? I'm confused.  

Confusion is normal. Confusion is intended. We arose out of the primordial soup in the state of chaos. This is our default setting. Anyone or anything pretending otherwise is lying. History attests proof of this. Certainty is a simplistic mathematical exercise best left to the immature minds of children. Santa helps with that.

Santa?  Is this about Christmas? Everyone knows that you are not a big fan of that and another rant is kind of boring. I, for one, expect better when reading your shyte.

In a way, yes, it is unfortunately about Santa.  He is part of the maelstrom for sure but I used Him to exemplify how those of of us with sentient ability use a culture/religious/media icon like Santa to cement certainty into the brains of children.  Instead of opening children to the (nearly) limitless possibilities and chaos inherent in life we spend inordinate amounts of time/money/thinking towards reinforcing certainty and stability to the future generation.  This has led to generations of people (including myself) being perpetually disappointed with life because as we came of age, every single person has looked around and found endless chaos.  It's everywhere.  Even if you have a certainty about monotheism (culturally the most popular religion at the moment) each religious tradition has tales upon tales of times of chaos and upheaval.

And yet, we continue to preach stability. Certainty. Change is abhorred and when it rears it's inevitable ugly head we pronounce miracles (look at what this or that celebrity has overcome - or more often, not) or grant some deity ownership of the outcome (i.e. please pray for xyz outcome).

Wow Modern Times, you've really jumped down the rabbit hole during your 5 weeks absence from this blog.

Ha. Yes. I can see how you'd think that.  But let me spell it out.

In the last year I've travelled extensively (Peru, New York, driving nearly the entire width of Canada and spending time in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kenora, Montreal, Gros Morne and St. John's). It has brought me so much joy and I hope to get to that on these pages, eventually. In my five week hiatus from this blog I've pondered on this and that. I've written some fiction for the first time in my life (this is perhaps the greatest revelation of them all but I'll get to that here too, I'm sure).

Underneath all of this for me is the bigger question and then there is also the shroud surrounding that question. The shroud is anger and the bigger question is still not known but I do know the answer: 42.

Picture taken from the edge of the Barrens towards Trepassey.
On the Irish Loop, Newfoundland, NL, Canada.
January 2012.

Darwin's Penetrative Force

"OMG, I allowed that man to orgasm in me. Without protection!  I wantonly willed it!"  My (68 yo) mother and I (45 yo) shared these thoughts together, yesterday on the phone.  We have both marvelled at the wonders of the biological clock over the years and at the choices we made when our own clocks were a buzzing.

"that man" is my XHusband (and "that man" for my mum is my Dad, her XHusband).

My mother, the slut (sarcasm alert), conceived me before an actual wedding date was set.  So my very being necessitated a hasty marriage to my Dad.  A marriage that was prompted by a cleverly planned emigration from Ireland (so no one was told of my conception).

This forced-marriage-emigration ploy by my parents was followed by a turbulent 15 year marriage.  An emigration to Canada (wtf? why not somewhere warm and kewl, like Australia or exotic like South Africa?).  All of which was finally sorted, for me, in my thirties (yup, it took me twenty years...longer than their feckin' marriage).

XHusband and I were married nearly 3 years when our first child was conceived (I was 26, he was 27 and this was the early 90s, so quaint).  The child that miscarried.  He impregnated me with Daughter a few months after that miscarriage but also started his dating life with his current wife.  I was very needy after that miscarriage.  I know he tried.  But he wasn't in it for the long haul and today, after 17+ yrs, I have to admit that I wasn't in it for the long haul for the right reasons either. BTW, it is only hindsight that allows me to admit this.

XHusband texted Daughter this week asking if she needed the money he had for her upcoming university gig.  He, a 46 yo grown man, texted his 17 yo daughter and asked her if he was allowed to use her university money for house renovations.  The house renovations that involve eliminating a bed in his house for her. A renovation that leaves her homeless if her other parent, moi, chose to do the same.

And today, all I can think of is:  A mother's instinct never fails.

Daughter needs protection from this imbecile I allowed to impregnate me.  And so, I will.  Continue to.


In whatever way I am able.  Just like my Mum has done for me.  


And I'm the first one to admit that I'm not perfect and I'm not enough.  But it's all we got.

All the Rage

The other night Mama D asked me if I was a Raging Granny after I inquired as to whether she was one (she was with a woman who I know is a Raging Granny).  She said:  "Yes, Are you?"

As a 45 year old woman with a child just graduated high school my cultural conditioning told me to be offended.  Inside, my thought immediately was:  "Do I look that old?"  But I merely mumbled, um, no, and our conversation took off from there.

She is a fascinating individual:  edgy and intensely humourous. After talking with her awhile, I felt like I was allowed entrance to her widely extended clan.  This woman emanates a sense of clan felt only rarely in my life.  My high school drama teacher also had this type of aura about her and I believe today that this is why all of us former drama geeks still feel a connection beyond the facebook poking and posting.  I envision Mama D going around and gathering fellow clan members into her fold...a long trail of other gathered clan members behind her and myself being the latest in her trailblazing harvest.  Me:  the newbie with cotton wool in my ears that is ready to be yanked out and replaced with vaults of unknown wisdom that will enrich and disrupt my current life paradigms. That is what meeting Mama D felt like to me and I look forward to her teachings.

Of course, the first lesson she has taught me is that despite my knee jerk response to her question, there is no doubt in my mind that I'm a Raging Granny.  So I guess I'm Toronto's newest and possibly youngest Raging Granny.  Biologically I am definitely of an age where I could be one.  And these women are seriously cool so you're darn right that I want to be one.

As a group, the Raging Grannies are known to be a tricky bunch.  You never know what these women will be up to next.  Ever since their debut as an activist movement in the wild west of British Columbia in the late 1980s they make news using delightful songs and public performances that tend to really shake up things. Check out the Florida Raging Grannies parody on the republican uterus controversary (done in 2011 but we could update it and use the word vagina after the recent Lisa Brown abortion debate in Michigan fiasco). But they are not only about song. For example, check out the Montreal Raging Grannies calendar to raise funds to make a film of the groups 25 year long 'herstory'.  Their formula for success seems to be take an issue, create something to mock it, dress appropriately, gather together and perform.


I leave you with a performance by Mama D that removed whatever doubt I had about my declaration of being Toronto's newsest Raging Granny.  If Raging Grannies get to do cool stuff like this, you're darn right I wanna be in on it.  You can buy her CD here.

Words are not Wordz

Lately I find I often grapple with the words to describe things.

For example, I worked long and hard on this sentence:  "The idyllic days of youth are more closely strung together whilst in our elder years the moments are."


I intended the quoted sentence to be a central theme to a blog post and I guess it is but not in the way I had originally jotted down my thoughts.


And that's the gist of this post.  Words are often not used as they were originally intended.  This post is going to be about two particular words that are pervasive in our culture and have acquired meaning beyond their original one.  I am not going to name them as yet because I'd like my thoughts to be digested before evoking a reaction from you, dear reader.


When Daughter was around six years of age we had our first meaningful sex education moment.  I think she already knew the birds and the bees (or birds and birds or bees and bees, I've been quite liberal in my approach to these issues, much to her chagrin as she got older).  I think she had probably just discovered, on her own, the pleasures of touching yourself 'down there' and she was doing this around me, at home.  I think she was doing it over her clothes...and perhaps even subconsciously, I don't really recollect the specifics.  At any rate, once I was certain of my observations I said to her that she needed to stop doing that in public because yes, it feels good, but there are things that we do in private and this was one of them.  I told her that what she was doing was called masturbation and it was a very pleasurable activity, yes, but it was something that each of us did in private.


The clearest part of my memory of this rather ordinary yet quite significant parenting moment is that her eyes widened at some point during my mini-lecture and she said, with incredulity in her voice:  "There's a word for that?  Wow!".


Hopefully you'll think that story was as cute as a button because that's what she was, in that moment, to me.  Absolute innocence.  It is also a stark reminder of the power we parents have, eh?

When people talk of their maiden names I always wonder (and sometimes voice) whether they were a virgin before they got married.  Not so long ago, women were property and men married virgins as unspoiled property and calling yourself a maiden harkens back to that time.  So why do most women still do this whole name changing thing again?  It truly baffles me the number of people that do and refer to themselves as maidens.

Anyways.  Back to words.  They have power.  Using the words masturbation or maiden in 2012 is, for the most part, uncontroversial despite my hatred of the word maiden due to the patriarchal culture it reinforces.

But these other words, the words I have in mind, used to be ones that caused no controversy and yet in the last week one of them has been tossed out into our cultural landscape without regard to the legions of mostly silent people that are most offended by it's use.


Have you guessed them yet?  Before I let them out of the hat let me talk about a speaker I heard at TEDxStJohns, Philip Riteman (pictured below).  In the photo I've posted from the event he is holding up his arm to show the audience something.  His Auschwitz tattoo.  His permanent reminder of the horror of losing each member of his immediate and most of his extended family.  His tale was powerful.  It took him forty years to tell his story, the pain was that great.  He choked up numerous times during his talk and it humbled each of us in attendance, I'm sure.  He put it best:  "Each of you live in heaven."


Now imagine Mr. Riteman attending a stand up comedy show and the comedien saying "some very generalizing and declarative statements about nazis always being funny."  Imagine Mr. Riteman then shouting out from the audience: "Actually, nazi jokes are never funny."  Would the comedian responding with "Wouldn't it be funny if that guy got taken by nazis.  Like right now.  And his whole family too." get a laugh out of the crowd?


Is that funny?  To anyone?  Would it be funny if he was not a holocaust survivor?  Why?  


A comedian in the States thought that using the word rape in almost the exact same context this week was appropriate and his attack was met with laughter. Note that I have no idea if the person who shouted out from the crowd has been a rape victim.  And I don't care.  I applaud her actions and hope that I would be as brave in a similar situation.  The ensuing 'controversy' over this guy's remarks (and the number of supporters he has) has made my head hurt.  Note that he has apologized.


So suffice it to say that these two words:  rape and nazi, are words whose uses are almost sacred to me and to many people that it has affected either directly or indirectly.  I dream of an age where these words will just be ancient relics of a barbaric society that also used terms like maiden to describe a human being with a high market value.

Today's culture is full of mostly wordz it seems and it saddens me to think that after the events that went down this week, rape is one of the new wordz on our radar joining other ones like nazi and feminist and maiden.  Do you have any others to add?

Holocaust survivor Philip Riteman showing his Auschwitz tattoo.
Click on the photo to go to the TEDxStJohns fb page where this was originally posted.

Womb Warrior

/StartRant

(S) He who controls the wombs, controls the warriors.

An operations management strategy for the human race includes a special manual on how to control a population while letting them believe that they actually live in a democracy.

Section A of this manual would include an A-Z guide on current and historical world religions and how to use any/some/all of them to hijack community based cultures in order to control people.  Storytelling methods using advanced media platforms with special shock and awe focus would be especially detailed (think early miracles and modern day prophecies).  Modern footnotes to this section would include guidelines on giving lip service to woman's rights while commanding obedience to a monotheistic god or rigid doctrines.

Section B of this manual would include an A-Z guide on current and historical world military successes and failures.  The Roman empire, Napoleon, etc.  Methods to ensure the competitive spirit was enshrined at a very young age would be outlined.  Media platforms to induce this would again be outlined and detailed.  By military I mean anybody who owns the guns so that includes most current police forces and the political fortresses that run them.

Section C would follow the rule of Fight Club.  It would not actually exist.  But if it did it would command state control over reproductive and journalistic freedom, in any way shape or form.

#EndRant

We rise again.

Incredulous.  That is the look people would give me after I responded to their asking me if I was wearing my boyfriend's university jacket.  The jacket is black leather and has the University of Waterloo crest on the front and big white letters spelling out University of Waterloo on the back.  On one arm is 90 which signified the year I finished (and planned to...the choosing of this year for the sleeve was a bit dicey since that meant a commitment to finishing the program on time or looking foolish for the year/years that you hung around afterwards).  The other sleeve says HONS MATH.  The Honours Math thing makes me chuckle even now.  I picked this generic sleeve label since I switched programs within the Math Faculty about a dozen times before settling on the program that I actually completed which was an Honours Mathematic degree Operations Research major with a Computer Science minor.

I proudly wore that jacket and enjoyed the incredulity on people's faces when I would say, um, no it is not my boyfriend's jacket it is my own and why would you think otherwise?  These questions always came from people not on the University of Waterloo campus since I am happy to say that there were quite a few of us women sporting these jackets on campus in the late 80s.

Other than these first glimmerings of cultural bias against women (a woman studying math in university?  whoa) I lived in a cocoon throughout my youth.  My mother raised me on Michele Landsberg, Marlo Thomas and Our Bodies Ourselves and I believed that the hard work of early 20th century women had paved the way for equality for my mother and my own generation.   I neglected to listen to the stories my mother told of inequality because I felt she was just angry and perceiving sexism where basically it did not really exist.  I mean, even those questions about my jacket were kind of quaint in a redneck way, right?

It wasn't until I became a mother that I started to see how awry our world was.  Once I turned into a breeder the whole world got turned upside down for me.  I perceived everything differently.  And giving birth to a daughter made me recognize how connected all of us with wombs are.  The day I gave birth to my daughter I visualized the literal extending of the womb back behind me throughout my maternal ancestors.  Generations of women giving birth had led me to the birth of my own daughter.  I was connected to these women.  Permanently.

It was powerful imagery that remains with me almost over seventeen years later.  For the first time I had tapped into the strength of my feminine power and my blood memory was activated.  I could no longer think any sexist action was quaint or excusable.  Sexist against men or women but far too often it is directed against women.  Women with no voice.  Women with no choice.

As an exercise in hope during these darker regressive days for women I now invite you to play the below song while perusing the following hashtags on twitter (you don't need to belong to twitter to do this...that is the beauty of twitter).  While doing this I ask you to also think about the image of all of us descending from a womb and the chain of wombs behind you that allowed you to walk this planet right this very minute:  #IDidNotReport #MissRep #SlutWalk.  It is time to Rise Again.  Enough it enough.

Seize the Seed

I am not a biologist but I am an urban farmer.  So seeds are something I'm well familiar with. I've grown food inside my home in my windows and under grow lights and outside directly in the earth and in containers.  I've gleaned bounty from seeds that I've purchased, swapped, and found.

As an urban farmer I've witnessed, many times over, the joy of the first indication of life (to the visible eye).  This first glimmer of a sprout poking up through the earth is a moment of pure joy.  It is a moment of connection.  My life symbiotically sprouts with each sprout.

A seed needs fertile ground in order to 'spring' into action.  That is why the metaphor of sperm being a seed is used.  A woman's unfertilized egg provides this fertile ground for one sperm seed to spring forth a new human life.  The birds and the bees metaphor takes this imagery back into wild life where the birds and bees provide the mechanism by which plants can bear fruit with their blossoms.  The flower blossoms are the eggs and the seeds are the pollen that is transferred by the birds and the bees.

The whole cycle of seed to fruit is the cornerstone of the circle of life and my humble practice of urban farming allows me to witness and absorb this every single calendar year.  I hope I never grow too old or feeble for this. An ideal death for me would happen in the harvest season after my latest crop has been harvested - however small that might be at that stage.

Today there are disturbing trends around the world that centre directly and indirectly around seeds.  There are multinational corporations that have successfully patented seeds (and DNA).  There are governments and religions that wish to ensure that a planted seed, in a woman's womb, stays there without asking for her opinion.  Conversely, multinational seed corporations have successfully taken farmers that have had their own fields polluted by GMO seeds to court.  The power of the seed, that same power that I feel with each and every sprouted planting, has literally been seized by the state {ergo, the corporation}.

So this spring grab some seeds at a local Seed Swap (Toronto locations are listed here).  Or go to a local farmers market (Toronto list is here) and buy some squash and harvest the seeds to plant yourself.  Imagine if all public spaces contained edible plantings (like Incredible Edible Todmorden).

Seize the seed and feel it's power.

Hero Worship

Me with Michele Landsberg, a personal hero.

Last night I went to a showing of Miss Representation here in Toronto that was hosted by Crankytown.ca and Fresh Restaurants. In a curious twist of the universe and its gazillions of electrons, one of my own personal lifelong heroes attended as well. I am beaming with her in the above picture.

If any of you know her then you will not be surprised at her lofty status in my own story. She is a feminist. She was the only feminist in any mainstream Canadian media throughout my childhood. Her weekend columns were shared ritualistically and often aloud at the dining room table by my mother with a pot of coffee on lazy weekend mornings in our pyjamas. My mother often vocally cheered for her. She also often remarked on what a pioneer this woman was. My young fertile ears soaked this in.

I blame my mother, and Michele Landsberg, for my 16 yo daughter coming home one late night last summer and saying: "Thanks Mum, you've made me a feminist and boy am I angry." She was upset by the contradictory manner her male friends treated the females in her larger social group. I knew that my most compelling role as a parent had been fulfilled at that moment. Thanks Mum. Thanks Michele.

A couple of years ago I added Michele as a friend on facebook. My political connections on facebook had grown to the point that her name kept being suggested as a friend. I sent her a message informing her of her pivotal role in my formative years and how honoured I was to be connected virtually with her. She wrote back and thanked me, THANKED ME !?, for giving her the inspiration to keep plodding away finishing her latest book (Writing the Revolution, which is now on my to read shelf).

That message from her impressed me even further. Michele has a long road behind her of inspiring and serving the voices that are misrepresented in our culture. And last night, she shared with me her views on this awareness raising film in a manner that continues to reflect her absolute dedication to humanity: "Everyone needs to see this film."

Namaste Michele. I pledge to light my torch with your flames and soldier on towards the day when we can all stand up and say: WE Represent.

Stand By Me

In the summer of 1984 a friend of mine had an abortion.  In the Canadian mid-eighties this was considered a radical thing to do.  It involved the exchange of money and a trip to a clinic that may or may not have had pro-life protesters marching in front of it on the day of your appointment.

A further complication for my friend was that we were catholic so the whole mortal sin thing was hanging over our heads.  I say our heads because I lent her money for the procedure.  So, in fact, I aided and abetted the committing of the sin that was to prevent my friend from going to heaven directly upon death.

I now know that I was what we call book smart nowadays but man, I was a long way from being life smart that summer I was 17.  And as a mother of a now 17 year old girl I see the mirror reflection of this reality.

This abortion was quite necessary for my friend.  Her parents were staunch roman catholics and she would have been kicked out of the home and goodness knows where her life would be today. One thing is for certain though...it would have been a much rougher ride for her and that yet unformed child.

My musings of this time are brought on by my recent Linkedin re-connection with the religion teacher I had that year.  He is now a principal of a catholic high school.  I wonder, in his prior role of a religion teacher/counselor, how many young women he had to discuss abortion with.  Because he did with me.  My friend's abortion caused a major moral dilemma in my life.  The first voiced dilemma of what would turn out to be many fruitless hours spent worrying and wondering if 'god' would be happy with my earthly actions.  This young religion teacher, at the time of this moral quandary, was fairly new in his career and not too far removed from the hippie protests I know he participated in against things like nuclear arms.  At this point of his new career he was also leading bus loads of people to the very pro-life protests my friend could have faced on the day she went for her 'secret' abortion.  I don't remember much of what he said regarding my moral quandary but I do remember he pleaded with me to support my friend in her decision, in whatever form that took.  This advice had the effect of soothing my conscience - at the time.  Many years later I felt outraged that he had managed to bypass the whole pro-life debate with me and for that I am sure he was quite grateful.

Seeing his name pop up this morning as a new connection on Linkedin floods my mind with these thoughts.  Thoughts of incongruent teachings by the church of my birth.  A church that provided many opportunities for moral quandaries in my life.  Parents separating/divorcing/annulling?  Check. Not going to church regularly?  Check.  Not going to confession/communion regularly?  Check.  Eating meat on Friday?  Check. Not giving up something for lent?  Check. Masturbation?  Check.  Pre-marital sex? Check.  Shacking up before marriage?  Check.  Marrying in a different church?  Check.  Using birth control?  Check.  Raising my child in the church?  Check.  A homosexual sibling?  Check.  Husband abandoning marriage and infant child?  Check. Wipe slate clean with an anullment?  Check.

Looking back on all those life events that shackled my moral compass for years I feel exhausted.  I feel exhausted because the years I spent under the duress of the obligations of mother church were so futile.  I can not take on the church.  Any church.  But as a parent I am proud to report that these shackles have been removed from my child.  Her moral compass lies within and my hope for her is that this freedom will allow her to channel her youthful energy into making the world a better place.  Because, you see, for too many generations my family has been segued through life with the roman catholic church observing and directing from the moral rafters.  Enough is enough.  I severed the cord and claimed complete moral responsibility for my child early on in her life and am almost ready to release her into the world.  She will have complete freedom to choose whatever tools she needs to nurture her own moral compass and I will support her as best as I can with her choices.  For isn't that the best we can do?  My high school religion teacher thought so too and made sure I heard that above all else.  I think I might send him this blog post as a thank-you.  I hope he 'gets' it.