Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Empowering Girls in Haiti
Empowering Girls in Haiti
BOOKSTORE CLOSES
WOMENS
IN HAITI
GIRLS
EMPOWERING
$6.75 Canada/ U.S.
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Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866;
LEAH LAKSHMI
INTERVIEW
PIEPZNA
-
SAMARASINHA
THE
CAREGIVING
CRUNCH
THE
CAREGIVING
CRUNCH
WHEN
WOMEN
BLOW THE
WHISTLE
WHEN
WOMEN
BLOW THE
WHISTLE
WHY
COUGARS
DESERVE
RESPECT
WHY
COUGARS
DESERVE
RESPECT
Vol. 26 No. 3
Winter 2013
HERIZONS WINTER 2013 1
UNITE
AGAINST
AUSTERITY
R E T H I N K T H E E C O N O M Y
Tell governments and corporate CEOs that more
cuts are only making matters worse for most
Canadians. Spending cuts are hurting services;
and corporate tax cuts are fuelling inequality.
We need good jobs.
Infrastructure projects building much needed
roads, green energy, schools, water and transit
systems is the right approach. This cant happen
without adequate public funding.
news
STORY ENDS FOR FEMINIST BOOKSTORES . . . . . . . . . 6
by Andi Schwartz
LESBIANS WANT FERTILITY SERVICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
by Kaj Hasselriis
DOMESTICS FAMILY DNA SOUGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
by Sandhya Singh
APPS BRING ON PERIODIC DISCOMFORT . . . . . . . . . 10
by Sarah-Jean Krahn
WHY COUGARS DESERVE RESPECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
If you thought actors Susan Sarandon and Demi Moore
rendered those nasty cougar stereotypes extinct when
they paired up with younger men, youd better think
again. Why are women who partner with younger men
still targets of sexism?
by Jeanie Keogh
WHEN WOMEN BLOW THE WHISTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
When companies or public agencies breach ethical
boundaries, employees often put their careers on the
line to blow the whistle. Do women blow the whistle
for different reasons than men? We examine how fe-
male whistle-blowers perceive their experiences.
by Barbara D. Janusz
EMPOWERING GIRLS IN HAITI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Unique international aid projects for girls are aimed
at reducing sexual assault and empowering girls in the
aftermath of Haitis catastrophic 2010 hurricane.
by Nadia Todres and Mandy van Deven
THE CAREGIVING CRUNCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
As the boomer generation reaches retirement, there is
a growing anti-senior sentiment that wrongly charac-
terizes seniors as a drain on the economy. This article
explores the ramifications for women, who make up a
majority of caregivers for elderly family members.
by Lillian Zimmerman
WINTER 2013 / VOLUME 26 NO. 3
6
18
28
features
2 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 3
VOLUME 26 NO. 3
MANAGING EDITOR: Penni Mitchell
FULFILLMENT AND OFFICE MANAGER: Phil Koch
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The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire hope
and foster a state of wellness that enriches womens lives; to build
awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the
strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to broaden the bound-
aries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among
other marginalized people; to foster peace and ecological aware-
ness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in the
world. HERIZONS aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is
diverse, understandable and relevant to womens daily lives.
Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and do not
necessarily reflect HERIZONS editorial policy. No material may be
reprinted without permission. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS
does not accept poetry or fiction submissions.
HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of
the Government of Canada through the Canada
Periodical Fund (CPF) of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
With the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council.
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866. Return Undeliverable
Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3C 2G1,
Email: subscriptions@herizons.ca
Herizons is proudly printed with union labour at
The Winnipeg Sun Commercial Print Division on
Forest Stewardship Council
-certified paper.
columns
PENNI MITCHELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Blow the Whistle Louder
SUSAN G. COLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Can Feminism Thrive Without Feminist Bookstores?
EVELYN C. WHITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Japanese Internment Revisited
JOANNA CHIU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Gendered Face of Hurricane Sandy
LYN COCKBURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Boycott Catholic Church Housework
arts & ideas
MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Run Body Run by Holly McNarland; Tug of War by
Lesley Pike; The Living Record by Christina Couture.
Reviews by Cindy Filipenko
WINTER READING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The Juliet Stories by Carrie Snyder; (you) set me on fire
by Mariko Tamaki; Sleeping Funny by Miranda Hill;
Most of Me: Surviving My Medical Breakdown by
Robyn Michele Levy; Polar Wives by Kari Herbert;
Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber and Life with
the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill; Practicing
Feminist Mothering by Fiona Joy Green; Gentrification
of the Mind by Sarah Schulman; Western Taxidermy by
Barb Howard; Life Stages and Native Women by Kim
Anderson; True Confessions: Feminist Professors Tell
Stories Out of School edited by Susan Gubar; Joni: The
Creative Odyssey of Joni Mitchell by Katherine Monk.
POETRY SNAPSHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Monkey Ranch by Julie Bruck; Between Dusk and Night
by Emily McGiffin
Reviews by Mariianne Mays
AUTHOR PORTRAIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
by Anjana Balakrishnan
FILM REVIEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Twilight Portrait, directed by Angeline Nikonova; Hemel,
directed by Sacha Polak; Francine, directed by Brian M.
Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky.
Reviews by Maureen Medved
MAGAZINE INK
FRANKLY FRACKING
In your Fall 2012 issue, Joanna Chiu shared her interview
with Elle-Mij Tailfeathers, one of three Blood women who
were arrested in September 2011 for their blockade of frack-
ing vehicles on the Kainai/Blood reserve.
I was surprised that a true hero of this blockade story, Lois
Frank, was not even mentioned. Tailfeathers, Jill Crop Eared
Wolf and Lois Frank were the thee women arrested and
charged with intimidation for their courageous blockade, but
only Frank fought the charges in court. The other two women
agreed to complete an alternative measures programand the
charges against themwere dropped.
While Tailfeathers went on to publicize the issue with her
film, Frank refused to back down and made repeated court
appearances. Frank defended her right and that of other
members of the Blood Tribe to challenge the decision to
allow fracking on their territory. In June 2012, the criminal
charges against Lois Frank were finally stayed, and, at
the end of October, Frank received the Activist of the Year
Award from the Council of Canadians for her courageous
work in protesting fracking.
Murphy Oil and Bowood Energy continue their fracking
activities on the Kainai/Blood reserve. And many of the Blood
people continue to find ways to resist this threat to their land.
HELEN REZANOWICH
Victoria, B.C.
WALK A MILE
I was delighted to read the wonderful story of Viola
Desmond written by Evelyn White and applaud Herizons
for bringing Desmonds story to light. Readers will be
happy to know that Desmond is one of the human rights
champions who will be featured in the Canadian Museum
for Human Rights, opening in Winnipeg in 2014.
Although I lived in Halifax for several years, at no time
was Desmonds name ever mentioned, nor did we study
her in school. It was only when I became involved in
spearheading the creation of the Canadian Museum for
Human Rights that I learned of this extraordinary woman
who, many years before Rosa Parks, stood up against ra-
cial discrimination.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights will bring
our many human rights heroes and heroines to life and
underscore the point that ordinary people like Desmond
can achieve extraordinary things if they choose to speak
out and stand up for human rights. Its a lesson we need to
learn more than ever, and the goal of the museum will be
to provide a transformational experience that will inspire
all visitors to take personal responsibility for the preserva-
tion and advancement of human rights, here in Canada and
around the world.
GAIL ASPER
Winnipeg, Manitoba
letters
KAREN JUSTL
Karen Justl is an
illustrator fascinated
by the neuroscience
of facial expression
& emotion. Her illus-
trations have been
published across
Canada in magazines,
on-line and in indie
feature films. See
more of her work at
karenjustl.com.
SANDHYA SINGH
Sandhya Singh is a
freelance writer and
communications con-
sultant whose interest
areas are gender,
disability, race and
workers rights. She
lives and homes-
chools in Ottawa.
BARBARA D.
JANUSZ
Barbara D. Janusz
holds degress in arts
and laws. She has
published essays,
poetry and short stor-
ies in various literary
journals, magazines,
newspapers and an-
thologies. Her recent
novel, Mirrored in the
Caves, is published by
Inanna Publications
and Education.
LILLIAN
ZIMMERMAN
Lillian Zimmerman is
a research associate
with the Gerontology
Research Centre at
Simon Fraser University.
She is a gerontolo-
gist and author with
a primary focus on
womens issues.
Her book Baglady
or Powerhouse: A
Roadmap for Midlife
(Boomer) Women was
published in 2009.
NIRANJANA IYER
Niranjana Iyer is
a freelance writer
whose work appears
at rabble.ca, and
in This Magazine,
Bookslut and
Eclectica, and she
blogs at niranjana.
wordpress.com. She
also curates Women
Doing Literary Things,
a website featuring
essays on the topic of
gender and literature.
contributors
4 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 5
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When a woman steps forward to publicly disclose that corpor-
ate interests are being placed before health and environmental
protection, we call it whistle-blowing. When a woman steps
forward to publicly disclose that male privilege is being placed
before the protection of girls and women, we call it feminism.
The two are very much the same. In both cases, the personal
risks for speaking out can be greatcareers, personal safety
and even lives are put on the line. And, in both cases, the fair
enforcement of rules is all that is being asked.
A notable difference is that whistle-blowers tend to act solo,
while feminist action usually involves a wider community. To
the surprise of many, girls are increasingly taking personal risks
that bring about political change. In a Kenyan village, a girl who
had been raped, and bore a child as a result, stepped forward
to ask villagers attending a community meeting if someone
could explain to her why the man who raped her was free to
go about his business as he pleased, while she was burdened
with a child and no legal recourse. As Fiona Sampson of the
Equality Effect tells it, police officials in Kenya refused to
investigate the victims complaint, even though laws against
rape are on the books. In addition to girls and women being at
greater risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies,
their right to the protection of the law is often ignored if they
are raped. In fact, it is a common occurrence for rape victims
to be raped by police officers when they go to file a complaint.
The Kenyan girl, it turned out, was not alone, and soon 160
young rape victims were brought together with the help of the
Equality Effect, a group of human rights experts from Kenya,
Malawi, Ghana and Canada, to press for greater protection of
the rights of girls and women in Kenya. The 160 Girls Project
is working with a shelter where rape victims receive treatment
and counselling and, as a result, now share a determination
to fight for change. Today, the 160 Girls Project has initiated
a legal challenge to force Kenya to enforce criminal laws to
protect girls and women from sexual violence.
With no international bevy of feminist legal experts behind
her, whistle-blower Malala Yousafzai took on the Taliban in
her fight for Pakistani girls right to attend secular school. Shot
in the head by Taliban members just 48 hours before the first
International Day of the Girl was to be proclaimed by the
United Nations on October 11, Yousafzai not only survived,
but tens of thousands of outraged people around the world
signed a petition calling for her nomination for the Nobel Peace
Prize. The Nobel campaign started in Canada, where leaders
of the Green, Liberal and Conservative parties, as well as the
NDP and Bloc Qubcois, supported Yousafzais nomination.
In her home country as well, Yousafzais cause has been taken
up by thousands. Pakistans National Students Federation
held vigils in support of her vision, a school has been named
in Yousafzais honour and a million people in Pakistan have
petitioned their government for free education. On November
10, the United Nations declared International Malala Day,
which was celebrated in Pakistan and around the world.
It all starts with a single voice that wont back down. Just like
American university student Sandra Fluke, who stood up to
misogynistic talk radio host Rush Limbaugh after standing her
ground to argue that birth control should be part of her health
plan. In response, Limbaugh attacked Fluke, calling her a slut
and a prostitute who wanted the state to pay her to have sex.
Fluke should have to tape herself having sex, Limbaugh said
on air, so he could watch. In the end, a widespread campaign
by feminists convinced advertisers to pull millions of dollars
from Limbaughs program. Thanks to others who moved
Flukes message forward, the American rights war against
womens reproductive rights lost some ground.
Yousafzais dream is not only to gain ground by defending
girls education rights but to undermine the Talibanno small
feat for a 15-year-old. On Malala Day, Pakistani President
Asif Ali Zardari announced a government initiative to provide
free education to children, particularly girls, of poor families.
Malala is a symbol of all that is good about us, Zardari said,
adding that Yousafzai has transcended from an individual
into an idea. Perhaps thats why, in November, American
magazine Foreign Policy placed Yousafzai at the sixth spot in
its Top 100 Global Thinkers list.
The sound of one whistle blowingby a victim of rape, a
proponent of better health protection or a survivor of a Taliban-
directed assassination attemptis where the call for change
starts. When a single voice becomes an unstoppable chorus
of change, we call it justice.
BLOW THE WHISTLE
First Word
BY PENNI MITCHELL
6 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 7
facility to perform abortions in
Northern Ireland. Though the
Belfast clinic is only allowed to
induce abortions under limited
circumstances with a pill until
nine weeks, choice activists
expect the clinic to offer medical
abortions in the future.
The clinic, operated by the
British family planning charity,
follows a 2010 European Court
of Human Rights ruling that
Northern Ireland was in violation
of womens rights for not provid-
ing abortions when a womans life
is in danger. An estimated 4,000
women from the Irish Republic
and 1,000 from Northern Ireland
travel to Britain to obtain abortions
each year.
Our clinic will provide a safe,
caring, sensitive environment
for integrated family planning
in Northern Ireland for the first
time, said Dawn Purvis, director
of the clinic.
Northern Ireland law permits
abortions only when a womans
life or long-term health is jeop-
ardized. Only one of Northern
Irelands 108 legislators, Anna Lo,
expressed support for the clinic,
although opinion polls indicate
citizens are split roughly 50-50 on
the issue.
NEW YORK STRIKES DOWN
BAN ON GAY MARRIAGE
A New York federal appeals court
ruled that the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional,
upholding a lower courts decision.
It is the second federal appeals
court to rule the law unconsti-
tutional on the grounds that it
violates the U.S. fifth amendment,
which supports equal protection
under the law.
DOMA maintains that marriage
should be restricted to hetero-
sexual couples and it denies
federal recognition of same-sex
marriages. It also denies same
sex-couples any benefits attached
to marriage, including Social
Security survivors benefits, family
and medical leave, and immigra-
tion rights.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf
of 83-year-old Edith Windsor by
nelliegrams
PETITION
ENCOURAGES
PEACE PRIZE
FOR MALALA
YOUSAFZAI
An online peti-
tion in Canada calling for Malala
Yousafzai, the Pakistani girls
rights activist shot by members
of the Taliban in October, to be
nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize has drawn thousands of
supporters. Interim federal Liberal
Leader Bob Rae, who is eligible as
a parliamentarian to make a nom-
ination, has nominated Yousafzai
for the prize.
Yousafzai, known for her
outspoken criticism of Taliban
atrocities and her defence of
girls education, was shot in the
head after two men approached
her on her way home from school.
Rallies have been held in sup-
port of Yousafzai by the National
Students Federation in Pakistan. In
response to the attempted assas-
sination, candlelight vigils were
held in Pakistan and a school in
Peshawar was renamed Malala
Yousafzai Government Girls
Secondary School.
Yousafzai remains in a U.K. hos-
pital and is expected to recover.
In early 2009, under a pen name,
Yousafzai published a diary for the
BBC that highlighted the Talibans
ban on girls education in the
northwest Swat district of Pakistan.
Yousafzai was awarded a prize for
her peace work by the Pakistani
government in 2011. In that same
year, she was nominated for an
International Childrens Peace Price.
The petition in support of
Yousafzais Nobel Peace Prize
nomination is at change.org.
IRELANDS FIRST
ABORTION CLINIC OPENS
In October, the Marie Stopes
Clinic became the first medical
nelliegrams
After 39 years, the Toronto Womens
Bookstore closed its doors in November, just
a few short months after Ottawas Mother
Tongue shut down after 18 years in business.
The stores could no longer make a living.
Mother Tongue Books former co-owner
Evelyn Huer said the challenges of being an
independent bookseller in a climate that fa-
vours big-box stores and electronic forms of
reading, coupled with the desire to pursue
other goals, led to the decision to close.
Its been increasingly difcult to be
sustainable and also to keep the spark
there for us, Huer said. Almost every
bookseller I know is now or has faced the
pressures of trying to sell books in this
climate. When we opened this bookstore in
1994, there was no Chapters. There was no
Internet presence.
The popularity of online giant Amazon
and chains like Chapters has consumers
expecting to buy books at prices that cant
affordably be matched by independents,
which dont receive the same deep dis-
counts from book publishers.
You can get almost anything on Amazon
if you want, but its up to the person where
they want to spend their money, said
Toronto Womens Bookstore former owner
Victoria Moreno.
The bookstore no longer received the
level of community support it needed to sur-
vive. The loss came as a blow to many who
remembered the store as a vibrant site of
feminist community and organizinga role
it had played ever since it opened in 1973.
The Toronto Womens Bookstore began
as a few titles housed in the womens com-
munity centre of Toronto. Back then, most
of the collection was thin pamphlets held
together by staples, but they nonetheless
ew off the shelves.
Patti Kirk, one of the rst women to run
Toronto Womens Bookstore, remembers
having a stapled-together copy of the wom-
ens health classic Our Bodies, Ourselves
that sold for 50 cents.
Politically, everything was changing.
There was an explosion of information, Ms.
Magazine started publishing, and people
were just ... electried, she recalls.
In 1973, TWB and the Vancouver Womens
Bookstore were the rst to open during the
second wave womens movements burst of
energy. The demand for feminist information
grew as universities started offering wom-
ens studies courses, libraries beefed up
their womens literature sections, womens
newspapers and magazines began and 1975
was declared International Womens Year.
It was just a really exciting time, recalled
Kirk.
Womens bookstores were not only
places to share the literature of the feminist
movement but also physical spaces where
women could feel safe, meet, learn and
organize. They were often the hub of the
feminist community.
Today, Thunder Bay, Ontarios Northern
Womens Bookstore is the sole surviving
feminist bookstore in Canada. Margaret
Phillips, who co-founded Northern Womens
Bookstore in 1984, recalls the excitement of
local women, following a conference in 1973,
as feminists formed organizations and set
out to provide services women needed.
What we were lacking was the literature,
recalled Phillips. One of us would go to
Ottawa or Toronto and come back with an
armful of books, and theyd get spread around.
We kept saying we needed a bookstore.
The Toronto Womens Bookstore closed in November.
STORY ENDS FOR
FEMINIST BOOKSTORES
BY ANDI SCHWARTZ
With the support of the feminist commu-
nity, Phillips and Anna McColl opened the
Northern Womens Bookstore. The most
important thing for this bookstore is to pro-
vide a safe space for women, said Phillips.
Feminist presses then lled the shelves of
womens bookstores. The Womens Press in
Toronto and Press Gang in Vancouver were
among the rst feminist presses in Canada
in the early 70s. Publishers and bookstores
were joined by feminist publications like
Branching Out, Broadside, Herizons and
Kinesis that were dedicated to telling the
stories about women that werent getting
space and airtime from mainstream media.
Margie Wolfe worked at The Womens
Press when it started and went on to form
her own feminist press, Second Story Press,
in 1988. The feminist press pioneers saw no
books that spoke to the issues, history or
experiences of women and they sought to
create companies that would prioritize those
concerns, according to Wolfe. Most of us
had no experience whatsoever. We just had
a commitment to a certain kind of content
and had to gure out how to do it, she said.
Enthusiasm for womens literature
grew, and in its second year the Toronto
Womens Bookstore moved to a building
where Kirk and co-manager Marie Prins
rubbed elbows with a womens printing
press and a womens self-defence collec-
tive. The store continued to expand and
later moved to Harbord Street, where it
stood until an arsonist attempted to burn
down the Morgentaler Clinic located above
the store. The re destroyed nearly all the
bookstores inventory.
The store stayed open due to fundraising
efforts and restructured management. Kirk
ended her tenure as manager two years
after the blaze, saying goodbye to the book-
store after 11 years. It was hard to leave,
but it was time.
About a dozen womens bookstores
opened in Canada during the 80s, includ-
ing the Northern Womens Bookstore, the
Ottawa Womens Bookstore, A Womans
Place in Calgary and Bold Print in Winnipeg.
In the 1990s, Women in Print in Vancouver
and Mother Tongue in Ottawa opened.
When Carole Dale and Louise Hager
opened Women in Print in Vancouver in
1993, bookstores were still lively centres of
womens socializing, education and organiz-
ing. Their store hosted book clubs, launches
and readings, and Dale says she still hears
from people who miss the store.
The loss of [womens bookstores] is very
much a loss of a good community space for
women. I dont know what could replace it,
said Dale.
Anjula Gogia was co-manager of the
Toronto Womens Bookstore from 1998 until
2006. It was a time when the store was
extremely active in the academic, feminist
and lesbian communities and held book
launches featuring big names like bell hooks
and Alice Walker.
[It was a] place where you could have
your politics right there, front and centre,
and didnt have to hide who you were, ac-
cording to Gogia.
Moreno, who worked part-time at the
store in the 1990s, loved the feminist envi-
ronment from the moment she walked in.
Just coming into the womens bookstore
was really empowering and gave me a
sense of freedom.
The Toronto Womens Bookstore faced
nancial trouble again in 2009, and the
then-owners were looking for someone to
take over. Moreno decided to try her hand at
keeping the institution alive. Her goal was to
stay true to what the bookstore had always
represented, but to make it more of a thriv-
ing community space again by adding free
Wi-Fi, a caf and a garden patio, and host-
ing frequent events.
Victoria [Moreno] worked her head off
to breathe life into that store, according to
Kirk. But it wasnt enough.
While the decision to close was difcult
for Moreno, she insists her experience was
a positive one. Its a sad thing to have the
bookstore go, absolutely. I think everybody
regrets that. But in terms of having taken
this challenge on, I dont regret it.
While feminist bookstores may not sur-
vive, many feminist publishers have a good
chance, as long as they can adapt.
The market was quite specic before.
Its not so much changing, just enlarging
and diversifying, says Wolfe, whose com-
pany has published books in 40 languages
and 51 countries.
Wolfe insists feminist publishers are still
necessary because their mandate is to pub-
lish womens words, whereas mainstream
publishers will only do so if its protable.
Womens Press marketing manager
Jessica Hale agrees feminist presses are
still necessary because publishing contin-
ues to be a male-dominated industry.
If were not creating these spaces for
womens writing, they inevitably get over-
shadowed, she said.
One thing even the most versatile pub-
lisher cant make up for, however, is the
community space bookstores provided to
women through the decades. But even
those seem to be retreating online.
(Continued on page 8)
8 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 9
the American Civil Liberties Union.
Windsor and Thea Clara Spyer
were married in 2007 in Toronto.
Spyer died in 2009 after a long
battle with multiple sclerosis,
leaving her property to Windsor.
Because of DOMA, their marriage
was not recognized under federal
law, and Windsor was asked to
pay over $363,000 in federal es-
tate taxes.
SLUTS FLUSH
RUSH
Following talk
show host Rush
Limbaughs
attack on law
student Sandra Fluke, whom he
called a slut for wanting medical
coverage for birth control, a na-
tional feminist campaign driven by
social media has urged the shows
sponsors to Flush Rush.
And they did. AOL, Walgreens
and the Wal-Mart-owned Sams
Club were among companies
that stopped advertising on af-
filiates of the company that airs
The Rush Limbaugh Show. This
resulted in an estimated loss of
a few million dollars to one affili-
ate, Cumulus Media. Dial Global
Radio Networks, meanwhile, said
revenue fell 11 percent in the
second quarter as a result of the
anti-Limbaugh campaign.
Ms. magazine
EGYPTIAN WOMEN
DEMAND PROTECTION
FROM HARASSMENT
Hundreds of women representing
a coalition of 33 womens rights
organizations marched in Cairo,
Egypt, in October to present
President Mohamed Morsi with
a list of rightsincluding a law
criminalizing sexual harassment
that they want enshrined in the
countrys constitution.
Proposed articles for the new
nelliegrams
constitution are being prepared
by a 100-member assembly. There
are reportedly disagreements
between Islamists, who dominate
the constitutional panel, and secu-
larists over the role of religion in
the charter. Article 36, according
to leaks, would lower the age of
marriage from 18, legalize female
genital mutilation and use Islamic
jurisprudence in a way that could
limit womens rights to work and
access education.
This constitution, especially
article 36, ... is dangerous for
womens rights, said political
activist Inas Mekkawi, one of the
organizers of the demonstration.
Women are seeking guarantees of
equality and quotas in the elected
government.
WOMEN WORTHY
AS DISCIPLES
A Harvard University professor
of early divinity claims a fourth-
century fragment of papyrus
written in Coptic quotes Jesus as
referring both to having a wife and
to women disciples.
Karen King said the text con-
tains a dialogue in which Jesus
refers to his wife, identified as
Mary. King believes the fragment,
which came from Egypt, is a copy
of a gospel written in the second
century.
King unveiled the fragment at
a conference of Coptic experts in
Rome in September. Four words
in the 3.8-by-7.6-centimetre frag-
ment provide the first evidence,
she stated, that early Christians
believed Jesus had been mar-
ried. Those words, written in a
language of ancient Egyptian
Christians, translate as, Jesus
said to them, my wife, King said
in a statement.
Even more interesting is Kings
claim that in the dialogue the
disciples discuss whether Mary is
nelliegrams
(Continued from page 7)
(FRANCE) When French couple Tatiana Marot
and Claire Simon decided they wanted to
have a child, they didnt go to the nearest
fertility clinic, even though France has more
such clinics than any other country. Instead,
they packed up their car and headed over the
border to Belgium14 separate times. There,
at an expense of approximately $12,000 Cdn,
the couple got nine rounds of artificial in-
semination and two rounds of in vitro
fertilization before Simon finally got pregnant.
Their baby is due in the spring.
Why didnt Marot and Simon simply stay
in France, where more than 20,000 babies
have been conceived thanks to a network of
publicly funded fertility clinics?
The answer is simple: Lesbian couples
and single women are banned from access-
ing them.
Were obviously not satisfied with this,
says Marot, co-chair of the Parisian wing
of the Association des Parents Gays et
Lesbiens. We wont be satisfied until we
have the same rights as other French
women. Currently, the only people in
France who can access assisted repro-
ductive technologies are married couples
and heterosexual common-law couples
who have been together for at least
two years. Currently, gays and lesbians
arent allowed to marry in France, but a
bill on same-sex marriage will be debated
in January.
In the last French presidential election,
Socialist candidate Franois Hollande prom-
ised to expand LGBT rights in his country,
including the right to marry, adopt and ac-
cess fertility clinics. But, after he was
elected, he only announced plans to legalize
same-sex marriage and adoption. A parlia-
mentary vote is expected this spring.
Frances new justice minister, Christiane
Taubira, told the countrys main LGBT maga-
zine, Ttu, her rights bill represents a huge
advance in equality. She said, the ques-
tion of parental ties is more complicated.
Taubira said the government needs more
time to study the issue of who should ac-
cess fertility treatments.
For lesbian mother Claire Blandin, who cur-
rently has no legal right to her son Eloi, born a
year and half ago to her partner Blandine
STERILE CLIMATE FACES
FRENCH LESBIANS
BY KAJ HASSELRIIS
The only spaces we have left are virtual
ones, according to Gogia, and thats not
my vision of a community.
American author and Feministing blog-
ger Courtney Martin sees things a bit
differently. A waning interest on the part
of smart, book-loving women in issues that
affect their lives is not a factor in shutting
down womens bookstores, she believes.
Rather, she says, the current generation
of feminists is and will continue to be ac-
tive in feminist dialogue and organizing in
myriad forms and spacesboth virtual
and physical.
DOMESTICS ASKED FOR
DNA TESTS FOR CHILDREN
BY SANDHYA SINGH
Filipino-Canadian activists are alarmed over
recent reports that Citizenship and
Immigration Canada (CIC) officials have
asked foreign domestic workers to provide
DNA evidence to verify that the children
they wish to sponsor once they get their
permanent residence status are biologically
related to them.
Under Canadas Live-in Caregiver
Program (LCP), domestic workers are re-
quired to complete 24 months of full-time
caregiving work, after which are eligible to
apply for permanent resident status. They
may then become eligible to sponsor their
spouse and dependent children. The entire
immigration process for domestic workers
can take up to seven years.
We are concerned that DNA testing is
being used as another administrative barrier,
which not only prolongs the reunification of
families but may result in failed sponsorship
applications, said Danielle Bisnar, a com-
munity organizer with the Magkaisa Centre
in Toronto and a human rights lawyer.
CICs policy states that DNA testing is
intended as a last resort, an option when
birth or family documents are insufficient or
when there is suspicion of fraud.
Bisnar says there may be legitimate rea-
sons for discrepancies in documentation
provided by Filipinos applying under the LCP.
There may be a lack of understanding on an
applicants part about what documentation
is required, or the applicant may have re-
ceived inaccurate information by recruiters.
Or, the child in question may be the product
of adoption, and the applicant may not de-
clare the child as adopted on her original
application. This may lead to discrepancies
in documentation later on, she said, which
CIC may interpret as fraudbut that is sim-
ply not the case.
In Bisnars view, the CIC definition of a
family member is narrow and Eurocentric.
She sees DNA tests as heavy-handed. To
limit the concept of family to only biological
relationships denies the many ways in
which people form family bonds, she said.
CIC has allowed for the use of DNA evi-
dence since 1991. However, Bisnar notes
that the request for DNA testing is a re-
cent development for live-in caregivers
and is a requirement that is increasing in
frequency. Tests must be conducted by
labs approved by CIC, and the applicants
must cover the cost, between $400 and
$800. In order to collect a DNA sample, a
child must also travel to an immigration
office in their home country.
Bisnar wants to know whether live-in
caregivers are being singled out more often
than other immigrant classes for DNA test-
ing. A CIC representative said the
(Continued on page 10)
department does not keep statistics on DNA
testing because such tests are not part of
required medical examinations. According
to CIC, it is the prerogative of a visa officer
to suggest DNA testing in some circum-
stances, but the decision to have DNA
testing is made by the applicant.
The Canadian Council for Refugees ex-
pressed concern about the impact of DNA
testing for immigration purposes in a 2011
report. According to CIC data from 2009
obtained through the Access to Information
Act by a Vancouver-based immigration law
firm (as well as information from source
countries and companies that provide DNA
tests) over 2,000 positive tests were con-
ducted, representing about 1,200 families.
The firm estimated that about 3,500 indi-
viduals were tested to prove their family
relationship. The report also noted that
DNA tests for the purpose of family reunifi-
cation were predominantly requested for
children in Asia, African and the Caribbean.
Refugee families were disproportionately
affected.
Bisnars key concern about DNA testing
for children of live-in caregiver applicants is
that it may result in the reduction of suc-
cessful sponsorship applications. This would
mean they would have to return to their
home country after they have completed the
mandatory years of work in Canada.
The use of DNA testing is in line with the
massive shift in Canadian immigration policy
towards employer-driven temporary work.
If this continues, the LCP will effectively be
turned into another temporary foreign work-
er program, Bisnar says, and will lead to
the continued erosion of workers security.
Under temporary worker programs, tens
of thousands of foreign workers are brought
to Canada for a specific employer for a lim-
ited time. Most have no opportunity to
become permanent residents. The LCP does
permit live-in caregivers eventually to apply
for permanent residency.
Danielle Bisnar, a Toronto human rights lawyer, says
asking domestic workers to provide DNA tests of their
children can be a barrier to successful immigration.
10 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 11
(Continued from page 9)
With the advent of the smartphone, apps to
help women track their menstrual and fertil-
ity cycles have become widely available.
They range from the simplest in function and
designwidgets like Bunnys Period Tracker
that count down the days to your next pe-
riodto more complicated programs, like
FertilityFriend, that track cyclical signs such
as body temperature in order to determine
when ovulation will occur.
However, one spinoff of the period-
tracking app trend is definitely not
woman-friendly. Its period-tracking
appsfor men. While one now-defunct
application had the purpose of helping the
user participate more fully in his partners
fertility cycle, the majority of the apps exist
for the purpose of letting a user know when
his girlfriend might have PMS or is men-
struating so he can steer clear. Some apps
even offer tracking for multiple women so
that dates can be arranged (or, more to the
point, avoided) accordingly.
The apps creators defend them as
fun, light-hearted humour. Code Reds Lisi
Harrison playfully calls Code Red a giant
step towards world peace. Yet, with names
like FloJuggler and IAmAMan, its fairly safe
to say that, whatever the stated purpose, the
period-tracker for men perpetuates a view of
the female cycle as a curse.
While users of the period-tracker apps for
men enjoy the conspicuousness of lightning
bolts and horned Venus symbols, Period
Tracker Deluxes website describes its icons
of pink flowers and butterflies as simple and
cute. Whatever the design of their interfaces,
however, the apps aimed at women do have
useful applications. Theyre descendants of
websites that allowusers to input and make
predictions based on cycle-related informa-
tion and, even further back, of stand-alone
thermo-sensitive devices like Pearly or
LadyComp that measure and record a wom-
ans basal body temperature on a daily basis to
determine her fertile and infertile days.
Since around 2008, fertility awareness has
become a lot more convenient and acces-
sible, with some of the more popular apps
reaching between one and five million users
who pay between nothing and $2.99 for the
privilege of having data on their cycles avail-
able wherever they go.
Though packaged as fertility-awareness
tools, one secondary purpose of cycle-
tracking applications is to scrutinize a users
PMS symptoms. Some ask users to identify
daily physical or psychological symptoms
fromanger to weight gainthat may not
even be abnormal or bothersome. Some
applications include positive symptoms,
like calmor confidence. This seems in the
spirit of the Menstrual Joy Questionnaire
presented by writers Janice Delaney, Mary
Jane Lupton and Emily Toth, in their book The
Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, to
counter the presumptions in Rudolf H. Moos
Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, a tool used
for research purposes since the late 60s.
Then again, the inclusion of more positive
states of being by some apps could simply be
intended to establish a baseline fromthe pre-
ovulatory phase against which to measure the
presumably negative symptoms of the pre-
menstrual and menstrual phases.
To be certain, increased fertility aware-
ness can provide new insights for women.
However, when it comes to tracking PMS
and menstruation, many apps carry underly-
ing messages that women need to police
their bodies and their emotions and that men
should be encouraged to monitor them.
worthy, and Jesus said, she can
be my disciple.
The new gospel reflects ancient
debates about sexuality and mar-
riage, but they are relevant today
as the Vatican continues to keep
women from being priests or min-
istering independently as nuns.
SOUTH AFRICA MAKES
HIV PROGRESS
Kenyan Minister of Gender,
Children and Social Development
Naomi Shaban, praised South
Africa for its success in bringing
down its mother-to-child infection
rate for HIV.
A report by the U.K. Medical
Research Council recently re-
ported that South Africas HIV
programs helped to raise the
countrys life expectancy from 56.5
years in 2009 to 60 years in 2011.
Shaban, who led a teamof
African delegates visiting South
Africa to assess its gender-equality
interventions, praised South Africa
for raising the CD4 count that
women must reach before they can
access anti-retroviral drugs.
Said Shaban, I must say, the
South African government has
done a lot, yet the challenges
are huge and need to still be
addressed.
Lois Chingandu, executive
director of the South African
aid group Safaid and the teams
civil society representative, said
South Africa still needs to address
gender-based violence such as
hate crimes against lesbians,
the harassment of sex workers
by police and community members,
and the high number of unplanned
pregnancies.
NNN-SANEWS
FRANCE EQUALIZES
WOMENS TITLES
The French government of Prime
Minister Franois Fillion says ma-
demoiselle will no longer be used
on government and civic forms
and administrative communica-
tions. The title mademoiselle, used
to denote an unmarried woman,
will be replaced with madame,
considered the equivalent of mon-
sieur. According to a memo issued
nelliegrams
APPS BRING
ON PERIODIC
DISCOMFORT
BY SARAH-JEAN KRAHN
by the prime ministers office, all
official terms used to identify
women in relation to their marital
status will be abolished.
The move comes after two
feminist organizations took on the
issue, Ozez le feminiisme, or Dare
to be feminist and Les Chiennes
de Garde, or watchdogs.
Bitch magazine
WOMEN PREFER
NORMAL SIZES
According to Canadian researcher
and modelling agency owner Ben
Barry, women are twice as likely
to buy a product when models
appear to have realistic weights,
compared to models who appear
underweight. Barry sponsored a
survey of 2,500 women who were
shown mock ads and asked to de-
termine the likelihood they would
buy products. Writing for Elle
Canada online, Barry predicted
the survey results could lead to
an increase in the use of models
more aligned with potential buyers
body sizes.
DAYCARE PAYS
A Sherbrooke University study has
determined that Quebecs daycare
programis beneficial to the prov-
inces economy. Under the Quebec
scheme, parents pay $7 per day,
while the other $40 cost is subsid-
ized. The 2012 study concluded,
The state obtained a fiscal return of
147 percent, which means that the
programhas contributed to both the
social development and the eco-
nomic prosperity of the province.
The study concluded that
Quebec womens increased
participation in the labour force
increased the provinces gross
domestic product by $5.1 billion,
which, it says, brought in $1.7 bil-
lion in taxes to Quebec and $700
million to Ottawa. In 2011, half of
Quebec preschoolers were en-
rolled in the professional daycare
system. This represents a 43 per-
cent increase over the previous
decade. It compares to 20 percent
across Canada. In Quebec, the
incomes of families headed by
women rose 81 percent.
The Globe and Mail
nelliegrams
Peeters, the time for the government to tighten
parental ties is now. She notes that equal ac-
cess to fertility clinics is just one of the rights
missing fromTaubiras plan.
Even if gay marriage becomes law in
France, the government has given no indi-
cation that it will give lesbian mothers the
same parental presumption heterosexual
parents enjoy. If Blandin and her partner
have another baby, they want the right to
list both parents names on the childs birth
certificate, not just the birth mothers.
Currently, the second parent must petition
for adoption rights.
Its not exactly cool, says Blandin. In our
everyday lives, were recognized by every-
one else we know as two mothers: our
family, our friends, our doctor, our nanny.
Unlike Canada and the United States,
France has sweeping laws that heavily
regulate assisted reproductive technolo-
gies. As well as lesbian couples, women
over 42 are barred from using the services
of the public fertility clinics. The main pro-
ponent of these restrictions is the Catholic
Church, which still influences French pol-
itics. The church opposes in vitro
fertilization because it can involve the de-
struction of embryos, and its against
artificial insemination because it believes
procreation should take place only when a
married man and woman have sex.
But its not only the Catholic Church that
dominates bioethical discussions. French
political power remains disproportionately in
the hands of white men from rural France,
and, generally speaking, they are socially
conservative. Among many French
politicians, the idea of equal adoption rights
for same-sex couples is actually more con-
troversial than same-sex marriage rights.
Still, the Socialist government seems confi-
dent it has enough support to get its equal
rights bill through the National Assembly.
The countrys LGBT community finds itself
in a quandary over the newgovernments
actionspraising it for making some progress
while at the same time demanding it go further.
Imsurprised that Hollande isnt doing more
now, says Blandin. He promised to eliminate
the double standard in assisted reproductive
technologies as soon as possible.
In Ttu, one of Frances leading gay rights
activists, Nicolas Gougain of the group Inter-
LGBT, went further. We hope the president
corrects this omission immediately because,
at least for the moment, we have the impres-
sion that Christiane Taubira is happy to do
the bare minimum.
Gilles Wullus, editor of Ttu, said Taubira
was chilly when he asked her about fertil-
ity rights. Were forced to conclude that the
minister has deliberately decided to remain
evasive with gays and lesbians, he wrote.
Leaders of the Association des Parents
Gays et Lesbiens are optimistic that Frances
independent bioethics review board, set up
when conservative reproduction laws were
put into place in 1994, will recommend more
liberal policies when it meets again in 2013,
especially if marriage and adoption laws are
passed before then.
In the meantime, Blandin anxiously awaits
the passage of those laws so she can have
equal rights as a parent. If my partner and I
separated, I would have no legal right to
Eloi, she says. I cant even imagine what
that would be like.
Marot and her partner Simon hope they
will have equal rights by the time their child is
born. But, even if that happens, Marot says
she wont be satisfied. Whats being
proposed isnt enough. Our children wont be
fully protected until the presumption of
parenthood is included in our marriages.
Marot also hopes that if she and her partner
decide to have another baby they wont have
to make a costly run for the border to do it.
Claire Blandin, shown with her partner Blandine Peters and their son Eloi, believes Frances fertility clinics should be
accessible to lesbian couples.
12 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 13
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Herstory 2013:
The Canadian Womens Calendar
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From the past and the present
From coast to coast
From culture to culture
Herstory celebrates the stories of inspiring Canadian
women combined with the essential elements of a day
planner. Use it through the year to chart and organize the
daily herstory of another inspiring woman: you!
Brand-new full-colour design for 2013
Many of us here in Toronto are in shock over the closing
of the Toronto Womens Bookstore in November. After
39 years and many different operating paradigmscollec-
tives, partnerships, single owners, non-profit and for-profit
arrangementsthe store, one of the most influential of its
kind in North America, could not compete with big box
operations like Indigo and e-tailers such as Amazon.
The stores bread and butteruniversity course books
began drying up as the industry landscape changed.
Students can now buy used books online, the University
of Toronto Bookstore now offers textbook rentals and
some U.S. websites post complete books free of charge.
The theory was, however, that regardless of online and
big box competitors, a womans bookstore would survive,
if only because it was a community hub. The TWB was
always expert at programming events that attracted large
audiences, but although book sales were good, especially
at launches, they werent enough to keep the store afloat.
At their peak, there were over 150 womens bookstores
in North America. There are now fewer than a dozen,
and exactly one is still functioning in Canada, the
Northern Womens Bookstore in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
On one hand, this news is profoundly distressing.
Womens bookstores were once beacons that shone a
light on feminist ideas. Alongside rape crisis centres and
womens shelters, they were emblematic of feminist in-
genuity, strength and creativity, and of the movements
ability to organize. Unfortunately, violence and sexual
assault are still very much alive, meaning that womens
services are not yet obsolete.
But feminist ideas are alive and well, tooits just the
bookstore thats lost its place. By that I mean that while
Im nostalgic for the days when feminists would coalesce
around their book emporiums, I dont believe their de-
mise signifies the end of feminism.
Its the venues that have changed, not the power of
feminism. Witness last year, when right-wing U.S.
commentator Rush Limbaugh called college student
Sandra Fluke a slut for wanting her insurance company
to cover her birth control. For it, he was made to look
like a fool. I was gobsmacked when the rights goon had
to backtrack because of the overwhelmingly negative
response to his comments. Yet Limbaughs been saying
outrageous things for decades. What about this particular
comment was different from any of his other inflamma-
tory anti-feminist rhetoric?
The answer lies in exactly what sunk the womens
bookstores across the content: online action. In the
Limbaugh case, it generated a quick and passionate
response. Id argue that Internet dialogue is doing for
feminism today what bookstores did for women in the
80s. It provides a forum and a sense of intellectual
community.
Its worth noting that three days after the behemoth
American breast cancer foundation Komen for the Cure
announced that it would de-fund Planned Parenthood
in Americaan amount representing about $600,000
in grants for cancer screening for low-income women
the organization was forced to reverse its decision when
the online backlash became too big to handle.
Meanwhile, here in Toronto, a series of sexual assaults
prompted a rally that attracted over 300 men and
women and re-energized the movement to end violence
against women.
We may have lost our bookstores, but the countrys
prime minister wont dare to introduce legislation in
Parliament that would deny womens right to control
their reproduction.
As we acknowledge the bookstores that played such
an important role in advancing feminism, I say this:
Honour those stores and the women who ran them.
Consider them a part of our valued history. Mourn them,
if youd like.
But do not bury feminism. Its not dead yet.
Coles Notes
BY SUSAN G. COLE
CAN FEMINISM THRIVE WITHOUT BOOKSTORES?
14 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 15
E
ver since The Graduate (1963) and Harold and Maude
(1971), the older woman-younger man paradigm
has been a topic of cinematic curiosity. However, it
wasnt until the term cougar emerged 25 years ago that
the relationship gained a more public profile.
The term was reportedly first coined in the 1980s by
members of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team to refer
to older female fans who sought to date hockey players.
Despite the negative connotations of the word, the cougar-
cub pairing has come a long way from the notion of a cougar
as a heavily made up woman decked out in leopard print
clothing (some Canucks must have been confused about
the markings of wildcat species) poised at the end of a bar,
sucking lustily on martini olives and ready to prey on the
detritus of younger women. It didnt hurt that strong, in-
dependent women like Susan Sarandon and Demi Moore
were in long-term relationships with younger men.
If the media craze is any indication, it seems that were
beginning to embrace the idea that older woman-younger
man unions can be commonplace. After all, Time magazine
published a photo essay celebrating 17 famous historical
cougars, and the New York Times ran a story in 2009 that
claimed younger men are more active pursuers of older
women, rather than the other way around. In 2008,
playwright Donna Moore produced the Broadway hit
Cougar: The Musical, a light-hearted look at the phenomenon
from a womans point of view. Then, Viacom International,
the company that created The Bachelor, launched the reality
show The Cougar in 2009. It features young men who vie
for an older womans affection. Are these signs that the
cougar stereotype is beginning to shatter?
Today, the Canadian cougar website cougarlife.com boasts
1,500 new members per month. Its CEO, Claudia
Opdenkelder, is a self-identified cougar who has publicly
accused Google of sexism for deeming her companys ads
not family friendly. Regardless of Googles view, the first
International Cougar Week was held in 2011, a year after
the Miss Cougar Canada competition sent its 48-year-old
winner on a cruise for the presumed purpose of meeting a
desirable cub.
There are some signs that the term cougar is losing some
of its stigma. However, a closer examination reveals that
the taboo of older woman-younger man relationships is
still widely present. Despite the increasing visibility of such
relationships, older woman-younger man relationships
havent made a dent in Canadian relationship statistics. In
fact, they are so unrepresentative of the relationship prefer-
ences of Canadians that very little census data has been
COUGARS
RESPECT
DESERVE
WHY
I
llu
s
t
r
a
t
io
n
K
a
r
e
n
J
u
s
t
l
HOW OLDER WOMEN PAIRED WITH YOUNGER
MEN ARE TRAPPED BY SEXIST BELIEFS
BY JEANIE KEOGH
16 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 17
collected on the issue. More data has been collected on
same-sex and interracial relationships.
Rhiannon Bury, an associate professor of womens and
gender studies at Athabasca University, confirms there is
little empirical research on the subject. Grasping the extent
of older woman-younger man relationships is made difficult
because most articles on the topic are conducted by journal-
ists who find a few couples to interview. At most, the stories
are anecdotal.
As for measuring effects and changing social attitudes,
you would need government agency statistics or published
findings from a large university study, and those wont be
easy to come by, says Bury.
According to Statistics Canada, the last study on age-
discrepant relationships where women were the older party
was conducted in 2003 by Monica Boyd and Anne Li. They
found that women who were older than their male partners
by four or more years made up six per cent of relationships.
Women who were older than
male partners by 10 years made
up just one per cent of relation-
ships. In contrast, relationships
where men were older than their
female partners by four or more
years made up 36 percent of
relationships. Men who were
older than female partners by
10 years or more made up seven
per cent of relationships.
Zoe Lawton, a New Zealand-based researcher who au-
thored a 2010 study, Older Women-Younger Men Relationships:
the Social Phenomenon of Cougars, believes the prevalence of
older woman-younger man relationships has been exagger-
ated by recent media attention. However, she believes this
exaggeration has led to more widespread acceptance of the
cougar phenomenon. Lawton predicts that, with time, the
derogatory nature of the term cougar could disappear alto-
gether. She attributes this change to women having more
relationships over their life cycles and to a historical shift in
the types of people available as partners. At the same time,
less traditional societal norms with regard to mate selection
and the acceptance of womens sexual interest beyond their
child-bearing years play important roles in dating patterns.
British love and sex relationship counsellor Susan
Quilliam believes this type of relationship has become more
prevalent since she first began speaking about the subject
30 years ago. She believes a major shift happened when
women gained greater control over their reproductive abili-
ties. The minute women have the control over thisand
you can see this in all culturesthey then have control over
being able to carry on an education, and therefore they have
the control over being able to have a career, and therefore
they have more control over their own earning power, she
said. They dont need to go out with a man who is going
to support them, and therefore they can go out with a
younger man who is not as financially stable.
Trends aside, there are also cougars who are not making
themselves known, preferring to avoid the negative implica-
tions the word cougar invokes. This was my experience when
I became involved with a man 10 years my junior at the age
of 30. More than a few people of my generation made jokes
about my love of young fresh meat and they frequently
asked questions such as, How is the teenager? Or, if I
complained about an aspect of my relationship, I would hear
comments like, Ah! The joys of puberty! Some people have
suggested my ability to rob the cradle is a product of my
still-young looks and physique, which they subsequently
warned I would one day lose. Hes just a baby or What
could he possibly offer you? were other comments I heard
regularly. I tried to extol the virtues of his personality. I told
people that he makes incredible
tiramisu, reads non-fiction
books on relationships, calls his
grandmother twice a week,
drinks responsibly, doesnt do
drugs and listens to the same
music I enjoy.
Harder still to listen to were
sexist comments about needing
to find a man who would take
care of me. Telling these people
that my current boyfriend was taking better emotional care
of me than any same-age boyfriend with a bulging wallet
became a moot point. Well-argued reasons for my decision
to partner with someone younger, rather than someone my
own age, became exhausting and demoralizing because I
was being asked to commodify my relationship. So I simply
stopped telling people my boyfriends age.
What I came to realize was that older women with
younger partners are not taken seriously because they do
not share the same playing field as men in relationships
with significantly younger women.
Nobody calls an older man going out with a younger
woman a tiger, or a lion, or a panther, Quilliam observes.
Unless its a big age difference, nobody suggests that hes
being perverted or predatory. But the age differences some-
times criticized as cougar are sometimes just a couple of
years, so there is a tendency to criticize older women in age-
gap relationships where they wouldnt criticize older men.
While cougars and their male counterparts may be on a
level economic playing field, they are not necessarily re-
garded as equal players. An older man with a younger female
partner tends to be viewed as someone who could have
someone his age, but chooses not to so because he is able
attract a younger, more desirable woman with his money.
Conversely, an older woman with a younger male partner
tends to be viewed as someone who has chosen a younger
man because the men her age are either married or spoken
for. Her money is seen as proof that she doesnt need to be
taken care of, giving her younger boyfriend the financial
freedom to date her without having to be a provider.
Indeed, a woman with a significantly younger boyfriend
poses a threat to the old adage that a woman is supposed
to want a man with money. As such, it is a relationship that
can also be seen as a desire for a more equal relationship.
Quilliam believes that one reason the cougar relationship
is seen as deviant or transitory is because of the idea that
normal women are supposed to bear children from hetero-
sexual partnerships. Such heteronormative expectations do
a disservice to many couples.
We still think that a valid relationship leads to children
and if its not going to lead to children, its not quite real,
Quilliam says.
Media representations tend
to encourage this view by de-
picting older woman-younger
man pairings as either a sexual
fetish or, at best, a relationship
not expected not to last. Part
of this has to do with slut-
shaming. Sex and The Citys
character Samantha was an
essential precursor to the
widespread awareness of sexually liberated older women
who dated younger men. Where the show and many of its
successors fell short was in their depiction of only short-
lived cougar-style relationships in which the possibility of
something long-lasting was not addressed.
Interestingly, the term cougar is more common among
heterosexuals than in the gay, lesbian or trans populations,
suggesting that the phenomenon can be boiled down to a
power dynamic that is more prevalent in heterosexual re-
lationships. One lesbian from B.C.s Lower Mainland, who
preferred to remain anonymous, told me the label cougar
isnt applied to her relationship with a woman 15 years her
junior, perhaps because age-discrepant relationships are
common in her community. Because the gay community
is a smaller group of people, dating someone younger may
be less about being a cougar and more about who is avail-
ablea crime of opportunity, she jokes.
People in their 20s are more accessible because they have
less responsibility, she adds. Its hard to find someone
youre own age because they are busy doing their 40-some-
thing thing and living up to their 40-something
responsibilities. Also, as stigmas go, being a lesbian still
trumps being a cougar.
In this light, its difficult to determine if the lingering
criticism of the cougar relationship is more ageist or sexist.
Shearman thinks another thing working against cougar
relationships is the ageist concept that men mature more
slowly than women and remain boys longer. This, she says,
forces women to consider only men who, by virtue of their
age, are seen to be ready for a relationship.
Curriculum and education teaches this idea that men
and boys stay immature for longer and women mature
faster, according to Shearman. The reverse of this
goes against all the things that women are supposed to
want. Women are supposed to be looking for a secure,
mature man, something a 20- or 25-year-old is not sup-
posed to be.
Were selling men the idea that they are not ready for
serious relationships at an age when, two generations
previous, their grandfathers had already been working
for years and were married by their mid-20s. Of course,
times have changed and
modern-day relationships
require different things from
men and women. As more
women continue working
after having children, men
are required to take a more
active part in raising children,
to be emotionally mature, to
be better organized, to accept
their partners career de-
mands and do their share of the household chores. Could
it be that younger men are turning to older women for
this education?
If my experience is anything to go by, the answer is yes.
My boyfriends mother left her partner because he wasnt
doing his fair share around the house, leaving her with 100
per cent of the work and a full-time job. As a result, she
raised her son to do his part. Lucky for me, he cooks dinner
and drops it off for me at work on his days off, cleans the
oven and comes home with wonderfully scented soaps and
massage oils. He is a good communicator and a person who
accepts responsibility if he makes a mistake. People can call
him what they likewhipped, well-trained, my bitch, a
sucker, a mamas boy, or in the closet. They can think what
they want about me and my motivations, and they can cast
their votes as to how it will end.
In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy all the benefits
and struggle through the pitfalls of my relationship with
the hope that, in time, people will come to accept my
partnership the way they would any other loving partnership
between two consenting equals.
Until this happens, sexist and ageist biases will be a deter-
minant in the way we view heterosexual relationships.
Telling these people that my
current boyfriend was taking
better emotional care of me
than any same-age boyfriend
with a bulging wallet
became a moot point.
We still think that a valid
relationship leads to children
and if its not going to lead to
children, its not quite real.
relationship counsellor
Susan Quilliam
18 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 19
BY BARBARA D. JANUSZ
When Women
Blow the
Whistle
A
s the societal costs of corporate wrongdoing become
known, employees are speaking out against employers
with increasing frequencyeven when doing so may
jeopardize their careers. In many cases, these whistle-blowers
are women who, some studies report, are more inclined to value
egalitarian, ethical workplaces over constructs like solidarity
and toeing the line.
Researchers and regulators have taken an interest in whistle-
blowers, too, and have asked: What is it that makes a person
more likely to blow the whistleis it a sense of injustice, or
is it the possibility of being rewarded for doing the right thing?
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is betting on
the latter. It recently implemented provisions of the Dodd-Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and author-
ized large bounty payments to whistle-blowers for securities
laws violations. However, a collaborative 2009 study conducted
by law professors Yuval Feldman, of Bar-Ilan Universitys faculty
of law, and Orly Lobel, of the University of San Diego school
of law, suggests they neednt have bothered.
According to an article on the study published in the May
2010 edition of the Texas Law Review, The Incentives Matrix:
The Comparative Effectiveness of Rewards, Liabilities, Duties
and Protections for Reporting Illegality, men and women are
likely to blow the whistle for different reasons. The study was
based on a series of experimental surveys of a representative
panel of over 2,000 employees. Researchers compared the
effects of different regulatory mechanisms such as monetary
rewards, protective rights, positive obligations and liabilities
on individual motivation and behaviour. Interestingly, Feldman
and Lobel concluded, often, offering monetary rewards to
whistle-blowers will lead to less, rather than more, reporting
of illegality.
The reasons? First, the researchers found that, while men
in the survey said they would be more motivated to report
wrongdoing by receiving a monetary reward, women were
more inclined to be motivated by intrinsic factors such as duty,
and by anti-retaliation protection. Perhaps the most interesting
finding was that women were far more likely than men to
blow the whistle.
Corporate culture may provide some clues about these dif-
ferences. For women, its often a steep and perilous climb to
the top of the corporate (or public sector) ladder. It is also,
typically, a lonesome ascent. Unlike their male counterparts,
many of whom receive the endorsement and support of higher-
ups in the old boys network, women who aspire to be promoted
rely almost exclusively upon hard work and perseverance.
Accordingly, when a woman risks it all to blow the whistle on
wrongdoing in the workplace, we are often surprised that she
appears to have been willing to give up her access to power.
Under Canadian law there are some regulatory schemes
provincial occupational health and safety legislation and
environmental protection laws, for exampleto protect whistle-
blowers. Federally, the Criminal Code affords whistle-blowers
Jessica Ernst has been in a battle with Albertas Energy
Resources Conservation Board over issues of polluted
water and the drilling of coal bed methane by Encana
for nearly a decade. (Photo: Canadian Press)
20 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 21
the broadest safeguards from reprisals. Section 425.1 of the
Criminal Code prohibits employers from retaliating or threat-
ening to take action against employees who report illegalities
to a federal or provincial law enforcement official. The max-
imum sentence that can be imposed on employers is five years
imprisonment. The effect of the offence is to override the duty
of loyalty owed by the employee to the employer under the
common law known as master and servant. When discharging
duties associated with their employment, an employee has a
duty to act solely for the employers benefit. However, when
the employer is engaged in illegal activity, the employee would
not be considered to be acting disloyally and in breach of the
employment contract by reporting such misconduct to the
relevant authority.
In information bulletins, national law firms have expressed
the view that section 425.1 and other Criminal Code amend-
ments enacted in 2004 to address securities violations were
simply a knee-jerk reaction on the part of the federal govern-
ment to restore confidence in the equities markets. Despite
the fact that prosecutions of employers for retaliating against
whistle-blowers are a rarity, law-
yers nonetheless recommend that
their corporate clients frame their
own whistle-blowing policies as a
safeguard against such prosecu-
tions. Recommended provisions
under such policies include ensur-
ing whistle-blower anonymity,
encouraging the reporting of un-
lawful and inappropriate conduct,
while providing for effective and independent investigation
of complaints, and affording protection against retaliation
and ill treatment of the whistle-blower. Corporate clients are
also advised to laboriously document complaints to protect
themselves against false accusations by employees dismissed
for cause who claim to be whistle-blowers and seek damages
for wrongful dismissal.
When Dr. Michele Brill-Edwards blew the whistle over
pressure placed on her for expeditious approval of pharma-
ceutical drugs by Health Canada in 1991, she was sidelined,
and later driven to resign in 1996. At the time, Brill-Edwards
was a senior physician responsible for drug approvals at the
Health Canada agency that approves pharmaceutical drugs.
She eventually won a federal court case against Health Canada
and continued to speak out about the close ties between the
pharmaceutical industry and Canadian drug advisers that could
jeopardize drug safety.
Brill-Edwards was not the last Health Canada scientist to
be fired for speaking out. In 2004, in response to the firing of
three Health Canada scientistsMargaret Hayden, Shiv
Chopra and Gerard LambertDr. Nancy Olivieri and profes-
sor Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and
Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, wrote an op-ed
piece, The Perils of Whistle-blowing, in the Toronto Star. In
it, they describe Hayden, Chopra and Lamberts firing after
the trio went public with allegations that pressure tactics had
been used against them by the Bureau of Veterinary Drugs in
an attempt to compel them to approve the use of certain
antibiotics and hormones.
Olivieri, a physician and former haematologist at the Toronto
Hospital for Sick Children, is a whistle-blower in her own
right. In 1998, Olivieri, whose research was funded by the
Apotex pharmaceutical company, wrote an article published
in the New England Journal of Medicine that was critical of a
drug administered in the treatment of thalassemia, a blood
disorder. Apotex threatened legal action against Olivieri and
abruptly terminated the drug trials. In 2004, Olivieri settled
with the drug company, but Apotex didnt fulfill the agreement.
When Apotex was ordered by the Ontario Supreme Court in
2008 to do so, the firm accused Olivieri of disparaging the
drug company in contravention of the settlement. The
Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), which
supported Olivieri and championed her fight for academic
freedom, reported that in response
to the court order Apotex launched
a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against
public protection) action against
Olivieri. SLAPP lawsuits are at-
tempts by corporations to duck
accountability by countersuing
their critics, claiming the critics
are harming their reputation.
According to the CAUT, the
companys allegations of disparagement appear to be based
solely on Olivieris participation and attendance at conferences
on the relationship between universities and the pharmaceutical
industry at large, academic freedom, scientific research and
conflict of interest.
As Brill-Edwards said in an interview broadcast as part of
a video produced by HealthMindBodyPlanet.org, There is a
cozy relationship between industry and government regulators
that operates in secrecy.
Similar criticism has been levelled against the oil and gas
industry and its Alberta regulatorsthe Energy Resources
Conservation Board (ERCB) and Alberta Environment
against whom scientist Jessica Ernst has been waging a battle
for nearly a decade. Ironically, Ernst, who had been contracted
by Encana as a biologist to conduct environmental impact
assessments, has now experienced first-hand the devastating
ecological impacts of oil and gas development.
In 2004, Encana began intensifying its drilling for coal bed
methane (CBM) locked up in coal seams in the Horseshoe
Canyon formation that encompasses the county of Wheatland,
Alberta, where Ernst had relocated from Calgary to an acreage
near the hamlet of Rosebud. CBM operations require signifi-
cant compression equipment, the laying of hundreds of
There is a cozy relationship
between industry and
government regulators that
operates in secrecy.
Dr. Michelle Bill-Edwards
Incidental Music
a novel by Lyola Perovl
978-1-926708-81-2 / NOV 2012 / 268 pgs. / $22.95
Incidental Music is a novel about three very different women: Petra, Martha and Romola
are like the three operatic voicessoprano, mezzo and altothat sometimes pair up
their melodic lines but never sing in complete accord. Incidental Music visits the troubled
period of the Hungarian Revolution, explores Torontos heritage and urban development,
takes a sober outsider view of Canadian society and politics, and revels in the beauty of
the operaall through the tumultuous love affairs of its main characters.
Engaging on both intellectual and emotional levels, Incidental Music is a heady mix of
polltlcs, opera ano tempestuous love. Perovl lnterweaves tbe llves ot ber tbree maln
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that it almost becomes a character in itself. This is a powerful debut novelurban, smart
and sexy. EVA TIHANYI, author of Flying Under Water: Poems New and Selected
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Smart books for people who want to read and
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The Feminist History Society is pleased to
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Hurray for Feminism la qubcoise! We follow the adventures of Marie
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we ponder the implications of both the Montreal massacre and the huge success
of the Womens March Against Poverty The book is really captivating and so
much fun to read: I want ve...
Nathalie Des Rosiers, General Counsel/Avocate gnrale, Canadian Civil
Liberties Association/Association canadienne des liberts civiles
Order your copy online at www.feministhistories.ca or by completing this form.
Please mail this form
to the Feminist
History Society,
44 Woodside Ave.,
Toronto, ON, M6P 1L8
www.FeministHistories.ca
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22 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 23
kilometres of pipe and the hydraulic fracturing of bedrock
layers to force open channels of methane gas. Ernsts property
soon became surrounded by a half dozen compressor stations
that shattered the peaceful serenity of her rural community.
But that was just the beginning. Ernst subsequently claimed
that not only her water well, but also the communitys aquifer
had been contaminated with chemicals injected during the
pressurized hydraulic fracturing process, which forces the gas
to the surface.
Ernsts complaints to the ERCB and Alberta Environment
were sidelined by both regulators. They said they passed on
her concerns to Encana, with whom she no longer had ties as
a consultant. Encana denied that its oper-
ations had compromised the communitys
water supply, and further complaints to the
ERCB culminated in Ernst being pro-
hibited from communicating with the
regulators staff. On February 7, 2009,
CTVs W5 aired an episode on CBM oper-
ations, replete with home videos showing
Ernst and other landowners in Alberta set-
ting their tap water aflame. Since 2004,
CTV reported, 90,000 new wells had been
approved for drilling.
Ernst is suing the government of Alberta,
its regulators and Encana for negligence,
nuisance and violation of her freedom of
expression under the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. Vowing to make Encana, the
Alberta government and its regulator ac-
countable, she refuses to being silenced
through a settlements concomitant gag
order. Rather, she encourages citizens to
become informed and engaged, to counter the spin that in-
dustry disseminates about its operations.
Information has power, Ernst says. The more it is shared
the less ugly it will be.
Ernst observes that it is often the women in rural commun-
ities who more readily speak out against hydraulic fracturing.
She believes it may be in part because men need the status in
their community while women are more protective of others.
Drawing upon her own experience as a medical professional
at Health Canada, Brill-Edwards says she never felt like she
was part of the old boys network.
It was understood that a woman would be excluded, she
says. My sense is that if youve been socialized in the profes-
sions as a male, you realize that you have to fit in. You appreciate
more that the higher-ups in the system are looking out for
themselves. [Whereas] in general, women are more inclined
to have faith in the system and that superiors have the best
interests of society in mind.
Brill-Edwards believes that made it easier for her to speak
out against the pharmaceutical industrys influence upon Health
Canadas drug approval process. You cant be a whistle-blower
if you are integrated into that collegial, male-dominated pro-
fessional network, she says. When informed of the research
that found more women than men likely to report wrongdoing,
Brill-Edwards says as women become more accepted in the
professions, the proportion of women and men [likely to blow
the whistle] will approach 50/50.
Whistleblowing does appear to be a growing phenomenon.
A 2010 docudrama, The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Wiesz,
tells the story of UN peacekeeper Kathryn Bolkovac, who risked
not only her career but also her life to uncover a human traf-
ficking operation in post-conflict Bosnia. An advance screening
in Ottawa of The Whistleblower, directed and
co-written by Larysa Kondracki, was organ-
ized for whistle-blowers by Federal
Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR).
Founded in 1998 by lawyer and former for-
eign affairs public servant Joanna Gualtieri,
FAIRs mission is to support legislation and
management practices that will provide ef-
fective protection for whistle-blowers.
Gualtieri says she endured years of harass-
ment after speaking out against lavish
expenditures for foreign affairs staff accom-
modations. Her 18-year ordeal, along with
those of dozens of other Canadian horn-
blowers, is profiled on FAIRs website,
fairwhistleblower.ca.
One person can make a difference,
Gualtieri believes. But until we collectively
decide not to tolerate these types of things,
nothing will change. Her motivation in
founding FAIR was to educate people
about the price whistle-blowers pay for reporting wrongdoing.
If people are told more clearly what whistle-blowers go through,
the public would say no, this has to end.
Like Ernst, Brill-Edwards, Olivieri and others, Gualtieri
has spoken critically and openly about government corruption
in the hope that the public will demand and come to expect
greater accountability from government and corporate officials.
She believes the ordeals of the whistle-blower magnify the
most pressing questions of the 21st century: What is it that
we value? Why is power being abused? Why are so many people
so compliant?
Women, in ever greater numbers, are becoming integrated
in all professions and are assuming greater positions of power
as premiers, CEOs, judges and senior public administrators.
Perhaps the greatest challenge still lies ahead of us, as the new
generation of female leaders is confronted with a quandary:
Should women exercise power for the greater good or simply
for their own self-interest and the narrow interests of the in-
stitutions that employ them? If they opt for the greater good,
will they survive in their privileged positions?
Nancy Olivieri was a researcher at Torontos
Hospital for Sick Children who blew the whis-
tle on the effects of a drug she was studying.
(Photo: Canadian Press)
Herizons is a great educational tool and womens studies
resource for your classroom.
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Womens studies professors tell us that Herizons is an
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24 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 25
I
n times of violence and tragedy, the most extraordinary
gains can be achieved. In the three years since an earthquake
devastated the Caribbean nation of Haiti, a coalition of
international and Haitian organizations has come together to en-
sure the needs of girls in Haiti would not be overlooked. Chaired
by the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western
Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR), the Haiti Adolescent Girls
Network (HAGN) protects and empowers vulnerable young
women so they may safely navigate the volatile post-earthquake
environment and break the cycle of poverty.
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in January
2010 killed 300,000 people and left millions more displaced.
Today, around 600,000 Haitians remain homeless or live in
tent cities where insufficient or nonexistent lighting, bathrooms
without locks and inadequate police protection contribute to
increasing rates of sexual violence and exploitation of women
and girls. The destruction also left 750,000 women of repro-
ductive age in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and 15,000
in the city of Jacmel with limited access to birth control or to
sexual and reproductive health services.
The Association por la Promotion de la Famille Haitienne
(PROFAMIL) has become not only a source of support for
health care but also a source of assistance for women and girls
who have been victims of gender-based violence. Through the
use of mobile health units and field clinics, PROFAMIL cre-
ated safe spaces for young women who live in tent cities to
find social and emotional support. These facilities also provide
access to critical sexual and reproductive health services, in-
cluding emergency contraception, rape kits and medications
for sexually transmitted infections.
However, the girls of Haiti needed more; they needed a
youth empowerment program that put their safety and self-
determination at its centre. As a result, local and international
organizations came together to establish HAGN, and
PROFAMIL was among its founding members.
While the stories we hear most about Haiti are over-
whelmingly of complaint and lack of progress, there are
amazing stories of unity, both from the immediate aftermath
of the earthquake and that continue today, says Lucella
Campbell, senior program advisor for the Caribbean at IPPF/
WHR. Many Haitians opened their doors to perfect strang-
ers, and the global community has dug down deep inside
themselves to redefine what sharing, caring and humanity
truly means.
BY MANDY VAN DEVEN
PHOTOS BY NADIA TODRES
Empowering
Girls in Haiti
CLOCKWISE (FROM TOP): HAGN uses theatre to help girls verbalize their experiences
in the aftermath of Haitis devastating earthquake.
Girls in the program ask if they can bring more girls with them. Parents call every day
and ask if their daughters can come to the program, according to Anne Marie
Dieudonne of PROFAMIL.
Approximately 600,000 Haitians remain homeless or live in tent cities where insufficient
lighting, bathrooms without locks and inadequate police protection contribute to the vul-
nerability of women and girls.
26 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 27
CLOCKWISE (FROM TOP): I have learned that girls have the right to go to school, to
sleep comfortably, and eat well, says Yveline, 15-year-old Haiti Adolescent Girls Net-
work (HAGN) participant.
Some girls join HAGN feeling very depressed and withdrawn. Even in a short time,
we are able to see positive changes, explains Julie Allcock of the Internal Rescue
Committee.
I would like to invite other girls into the program so they can learn what I am learning,
said Ester, a 15-year-old participant.
HAGN provides girls with a safe space in which they can
spend time with their peers, learn about their rights and obtain
the support of trusted adults. A 10-year-old girl named Ruth
describes the difference HAGN has made in her life. This is
the only place I ever feel safe. I can relax and make friends
here, and not feel alone. I learn things here that I could never
learn anywhere else.
Fifteen-year-old Ester found out about HAGN at
PROFAMIL. She likes to sing and dance, but her dream is
to become a doctor. Unlike many girls her age, Ester is fortu-
nate to still be attending school. A self-described intelligent
girl, Ester joined HAGN to learn how to protect herself.
During the program, I developed a strong commitment to
youth rights and womens rights, she explains. Because we
are young, people think we are little kids. We are human beings,
just like everyone else. We have a right to go to school. We
are entitled to health care. We have the right to speak and
express our feelings.
HAGN is appreciated not just by the young girls participat-
ing but also by their parents and the larger community. The
poorest country in the western hemisphere, 80 percent of
Haitis population lives below the poverty line. Fewer than half
of all births are attended by a skilled health professional, and
infant and maternal mortality rates are the highest in the region.
To make matters worse, the rate of HIV infections in Haiti is
the second-highest in the world. In addressing these immense
challenges, HAGNs work to ensure the healthy development
of young women is critical to the countrys future.
The girls who come here were not taken care of, according
to Melissa Coupaud, the executive director of YWCA Haiti.
To feel like you belong somewhere is a big value in this
country. The program is doing a great job, but if we dont
support the girls with concrete materials, the work will only
go halfway.
HAGN is currently working to strengthen its internal struc-
ture and increase sources of revenue to fund the networks
activities. It recently hired a coordinator to facilitate this growth.
The network has created the opportunity to learn what each
of our organizations provides, and to better collaborate to offer
girls comprehensive services, explains Marissa Billowitz, IPPF/
WHRs senior program officer for youth initiatives.
Parents are always asking me if I can accept their daughter
into the program, and it is really difficult to say no, accord-
ing to Save the Childrens Chantale Auguste. We could
take more girls if we had more physical space, but as it is
now we barely have the room for the girls were already
working with.
Girls in the program are encouraged to share what they learn
at HAGN with the other girls in their communities. When
asked what she brings to other young women in Haiti, Ester
replies, I tell them that we should not be mistreated and that
we deserve equal rights. Girls are human beings, too. We
represent the future of Haiti.
That impassioned sentiment is precisely what HAGN aims
to achieve.
Mandy Van Deven (www.mandyvandeven.com) is a writer,
speaker and change-maker. Her work exploring contemporary
feminisms, global activism and sexuality has been published in
Salon, AlterNet and Marie Claire. She is the online administrator
for International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western
Hemisphere Region.
Nadia Todres (www.nadiatodres.com) is a photojournalist who
specializes in documenting humanitarian issues, relief efforts and
development work. She is working to empower Haitis most
vulnerable girls.
This is the only place I ever feel safe. I can relax and make
friends here, and not feel alone. 10-year-old Ruth
28 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 29
BY LILLIAN ZIMMERMAN
CAREGIVING
CRUNCH
the
There are an estimated two million informal caregivers in Canada, and the magority are women. (Photo: istockphoto)
I
n Canada, more than two million informal caregivers,
the majority of whom are women, provide care to elders.
Most of these caregivers are mid-life baby boomers
who are still in the paid workforce and inching toward
their pre-retirement years. Many of them find themselves
curtailing their paid work in various ways, such as working
fewer hours or leaving paid work earlier than planned in
order to attend to unpaid caregiving responsibilities. As
a result, however, such caregivers will have less financial
security in their retirement than they may have expected.
The financial vulnerability of these caregivers will be
exacerbated by the recent increase in the age of the Old
Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income
Supplement (GIS) benefits from age 65 to 67. Womens
pensionable earnings are already stretched due to their
caregiving roles in their younger years, and now they will
have to work two years longer before qualifying for OAS
and GIS. The trends do not look good for women, accord-
ing to Dr. Janet Fast, a professor in the department of
human ecology at the University of Alberta. The demand
for care is likely going to rise, she says. Its the oldest-old
segment thats growing fastest and they are people who
are likely to require care.
She further predicts that since families are smaller, they
face more multiple demands and may be geographically
distant, [which] means the probability of any one family
member or close friend becoming a caregiver is going to
be higher.
Canadian women live to 83 years on average, while men
live to 78 years. Women in Japan already reach 86 years
on average, and Canadian women are expected to do so
by 2031. Longevity can cut both ways, allowing women
to live longer while raising the necessity of caring for aging
parents who are also living longer. These factors increase
the threat to womens late-life financial security.
Retirement and other feminist issues tend to coincide with
life stages. Younger women tend to be concerned with wage
equity, affordable daycare and reproductive rights. Mid-life
women face ageism, getting suitable jobs and breaking glass
ceilings. With boomers reaching retirement, it is now time
for the issues facing older women to get greater attention
from feminists. The first boomers reached 65 in 2011, and,
since women live longer and provide most unpaid care, unpaid
caregiving is certainly a womens issue. Canada has one of
the highest numbers of baby boomers in the world, after the
U.S.some nine million people born between 1946 and
1964, who are almost equally divided by gender.
The four million female baby boomers represent a genera-
tion that faces a growing need for caregiving. Dr. Janice
Keefe of Mount St. Vincent University reported in a 2011
study, Supporting Caregivers and Caregiving in an Aging
Canada, that the number of elderly Canadians needing
assistance will double in the next 30 years. Informal caregiv-
ers, Keefe explains, are family members, friends or
neighbours, most frequently women, who provide unpaid
care to a person who needs support sometimes for an
extended period. Of the more than 2.3 million employed
family or friend caregivers in Canada, three quarters under-
take caregiving simultaneously with being in the paid
workforce. Over one third of employed women and one
quarter of employed men aged 45 and older provide care to
a family member or friend.
Gerontologist Dr. Neena Chappell, of the University of
Victoria, observed in a 2011 article, Population Aging
and the Evolving Care Needs of Older Canadians, the
baby boomer generation is at present providing most of
the necessary care. What is insufficiently emphasized in
caregiving studies is the socio-economic connection be-
tween their caring and late-life poverty. Employed women
caregivers were much more likely to incur employment
penalties because of their responsibilities than their male
counterparts. Thirty percent missed full days of work, 6.4
percent retired early, quit or lost their paid job, and 4.7
percent say they turned down a job offer or promotion as
a result of their caregiving responsibilities. In the same
article, Chappell notes that the value to the Canadian
economy of this unpaid work is estimated to be in the
range of $25 billion to $31 billion annually. In the U.S., a
MetLife study in 2011, Caregiving Costs to Working
Caregivers, found that women caregivers over 50 who
were also in the workforce had forgone an average of
$324,044 in lost salary and social security income over
their lifetimes (which included previous child-rearing
caregiving duties). Male caregivers over 50 and still in the
workforce were calculated to have lost $238,716 in salary
and social security income over their lifetimes.
Myrna is typical. At 62, she has looked after both parents.
When her mother was widowed, Myrna, who had a nursing
degree, continued caregiving. She describes herself as a
serial caregiver. When asked her how she managed both
to work and to provide care, Myrna replies, My corporate
career came to a smashing end. She switched to lower-
paid jobs because she couldnt meet the shift work demands
of nursing. I can now never retire, because all my resources
30 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 31
For girls growing up in Canada,
its tougher than youd think.
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have dwindled, adds Myrna, who was recently laid off
from her clerical position.
Canadian women have long been familiar with the in-
equities in the paid workforce. While the wage gap is
closing, women now receive approximately 73 cents on
the dollar of what working men receive. About a third of
women still work part-time, and many women continue
to work in the low-paying service sector. In addition to
low pay, these jobs afford few benefits, such as pensions.
In other words, most women can ill afford to give up their
economic security to look after aging parents or other
needy family members. The trend towards smaller families
is also a factor. It means a shrinking pool of caregivers.
The fact is that caregiving comes at a high cost to many
women, who feel they must curtail their paid work. Karen,
who is 59, looked after her 87-year-old mother, who fell
and broke her hip years ago. After the incident, Karens
mother moved in with Karen and her husband. Karen, an
actor, says her caregiving re-
sponsibilities require her to
confine herself to occasional TV
roles, as she is unable to take on
stage roles that would require
scheduled attendance. I cant
chase after roles, and it is hard
to go to auditions.
At the same time, her social
life is constrained, as she and her husband rarely enjoy a
dinner or a movie out of the house. I have learned to live
frugally, Karen explains. We had to use our RRSPs, so wont
have enough pension later on.
Women are, by and large, not financially equipped to look
after their elders, especially given the inequities faced by
senior women. The cold hard fact is that 17 percent of single
Canadian women 65 years and older and living alone are at
or below the poverty line. In Canada, approximately 1.8
million low-income seniors get the GIS, and just over half
(54 percent) of GIS recipients are women. And the older
they get, the more they will rely on the means-tested GIS.
For example, 62 percent of women aged 70 to74 are recipi-
ents. A look at the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) reveals the
gender difference in the receipt of plan benefits. In 2011,
Canadian mens average monthly retirement benefit from
the CPP was $603.51. For women it was a paltry $420.06.
The gap has remained constant for many years. These ben-
efits clearly represent a culmination of the inequities women
suffer, both in the paid and unpaid work they do.
What is to be done? Often mentioned is more respite care,
drop-out arrangements, tax credits or extended leaves. Its
been a decade since Roy Romanows 2002 Royal Commission
on the Future of Health Care in Canada recommended a
national home care policy to replace the patchwork quilt of
caregiving services, federally and provincially. Numerous
experts concur with the need for such a policy, appropriate
to current requirements. In 2009, the Senate called for a
national caregiving strategy.
One solution is to make pensionable benefits available to
caregivers for their unpaid work. A study paper in April 2010
on family caregiving, published by the Canadian Centre for
Elder Law, found that the pension regime currently provides
little or no recognition to the unpaid family caregiving of
adults. It suggested the creation of a caregiver-specific pen-
sion. There are already programs addressing such pensionable
benefits in Australia and Norway. For Canadian women, this
is now even more urgent, given that future unpaid caregivers
will be without the OAS and
GIS for two years longer.
It is not only the invisibility
of unpaid work that demands
recognition. On a larger eco-
nomic scale, the many
productive contributions of
older Canadians are ignored due
to the ageist belief that older
people take from the economy, rather than give to it.
And yet, the reality is that seniors are among the largest
groups of Canadian volunteers. They give generously to
charities. They pay taxes on their income, including most
of their pension income. Seniors also help to provide for
their financially strapped adult children, especially in times
of unemployment and recessions. Many grandparents also
provide child care for their grandchildren, and many fi-
nancially support their grandchildrens educational and
sports fees.
Demographic changes affecting aging women make it
imperative that social policy-makers recognize that ageism
and sexism are a destructive combination. The four million
Canadian female baby boomers have enough collective
political clout to make policy-makers listen. A vibrant
womens revolution, led by boomer activism, is what it will
take to force policy developers to address the current and
future needs of women as they age. As Dr. Carroll Estes, a
professor at the University of California, says, it is time for
the missing feminist revolutionthat of older women.
The fact is that caregiving
comes at a high cost to many
women, who feel they must
curtail their paid work.
32 WINTER 2013 HERIZONS HERIZONS WINTER 2013 33
The mother in Staten Island, New York, whose sons were swept
from her arms when a surge of floodwater hit. The elderly
woman who died in her daughters embrace while trapped in
their flooding home. The wake of hurricane Sandy was filled
with heartbreaking stories, and the death toll is estimated at
100 in the U.S., 67 in the Caribbean and two in Canada.
Thousands more suffered for the weeks and months fol-
lowing the disaster, in ways that were less gut-wrenching but
that nonetheless exposed how social inequality causes women,
and particularly women of colour, to suffer disproportionately
from natural disasters.
This was true even in the highly developed city of New York.
My friend, a Canadian writer, was staying with her 90-year-old
grandmother in public housing in Manhattans Chinatown
when hurricane Sandy hit. Without heat or electricity for a
week, she became dehydrated, sick and exhausted trying to
keep her grandmother healthy in their frigid apartment.
Female acquaintances of all ages in New York told me they
were completely unprepared for a natural disaster. Working
in underpaid jobs or self-employed, none of them had basic
health coverage, let alone disaster or unemployment insurance.
The gendered division of labour, in which women are over-
represented in jobs with little security and no benefits such
as health care or union representation, tends to make women
more vulnerable than men in a natural disaster.
In developing countries, women are even more vulnerable
to natural disasters because they tend to have fewer resources,
lack skills such as literacy and often lack decision-making
power in their households and societies. And while women are
expected to be primary caretakers of children, the elderly and
the disabled, they usually have little say in their communities
disaster relief protocols. As a result, women and girls are mar-
ginalized when emergency resources are distributed according
to patriarchal structures. These are realities that social scientists
have proven, but which governments and mainstream media
have largely ignored.
In 2006, the London School of Economics and the University
of Essex released the first study that compared the effects on
women and men in the aftermath of 4,605 natural disasters
in 141 countries.
The feminists got it right, concluded researcher Eric
Neumayer. Natural disasters are a tragedy in their own right,
but in countries with existing gender discrimination women
are the worst hit. With existing patterns of gender dis-
crimination, boys are likely to receive preferential treatment
in rescue efforts and both women and girls suffer more from
the shortages of food and economic resources in the aftermath
of disasters.
In response to the prevalence of sexual assault in Nicaragua
following hurricane Mitch in 1998, an NGO organized a
campaign spreading the message, Violence against women is
one disaster that men can prevent. According to the World
Health Organization, an increase in domestic and sexual vio-
lence against women follows natural disasters, and women make
up the majority of shelter residents after disasters.
After hurricane Sandy, more mainstream media started to
awaken to the devastating effects of climate change. Bloomberg
Business Week ran a cover stating, Its Global Warming, Stupid,
and scores of climate experts were interviewed. Climate change
also became an important last-minute campaign issue of the
United States presidential election, with President Barack
Obama talking about the dangers of a warming planet in his
acceptance speech. Yet, the ways gender influences womens and
girls experiences of natural disasters continued to be ignored
by media and politicians.
In addition to fighting global warming and human-induced
climate change, the best way to mitigate the effects of natural
disasters is to be prepared for them. The creation of bet-
ter disaster prevention and response plans must involve the
contributions of women, as well as people from all ethnic and
socio-economic backgrounds.
Women have already shown an abundance of leadership in
the aftermath of natural disasters, organizing community relief
efforts, including food drives, digging wells and building houses,
even in places where they have to act against mens wishes.
But governments, think-tanks and policy-makers need to
get behind these womens efforts and support research and
emergency programs that take gender into account. Otherwise,
women and girls will continue to suffer disproportionately
from natural disasters.
Body Politic
BY JOANNA CHIU
THE GENDERED FACE OF HURRICANE SANDY
Part testimonial and part resource, Tamara takes us on
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Dugald Seely, MSc.,Naturopathic Doctor (ND), Executive
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