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Briarpatch does gender:
Our gender identities, in all their complicated incarnations, continue to limit the choices and opportunities of many of us. In the face of an ongoing ideological onslaught against equality for women and sexual minorities, Briarpatch throws gender in the blender—and whips up a challenging and thought-provoking blend of ideas and arguments for bending gender hierarchy till it breaks!
Click image to enlarge.
By Brett Bradshaw
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2007
CLUTCHING A MUG OF COFFEE, Gwenda Yuzicappi retreats from the cold outside. There’s a spark in her eyes. Her long brown hair is pulled back, and the pink sweater she wears complements the flush in her cheeks from the biting winter wind. Her younger sister sits beside her in the coffee shop and they speak animatedly. If you watched long enough you could find the grief that Yuzicappi carries, but in this moment she looks hopeful.
Yuzicappi spent the day with other families like hers, those with missing or murdered daughters and sisters. She told them about Amber Redman, her daughter, and then she listened as they spoke of their loved ones. The family members of Saskatchewan’s missing women had come together to share their stories and remind each other that they aren’t alone, and that together they aren’t powerless.
By Becky Ellis
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2007
FEMINISM IS FOR EVERYBODY, THE mantra goes. This slogan, inspired by bell hooks’ book of the same name, is widely used to envision a feminist movement that is open to all people and that, in theory, recognizes the real diversity among feminists and among women more generally.
What could be wrong with that?
Compiled by Dave Oswald Mitchell
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2007
HEY, YOU WITH THE Y CHROMOSOME: DO YOU BELIEVE that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities? If so, then you may have what it takes to become a pro-feminist man.
The fight against sexism needs men who are willing to educate and challenge themselves and others. But taking a stand against sexism can be easier said than done. From a very young age we have internalized our culture’s hatred and fear of the feminine. Men and women alike have been socialized in a sexist society, and many of us carry the scars to prove it. We all have sexism inside of us, and getting rid of that sexism can be a long and sometimes painful process.
Men enjoy countless benefits from living in a patriarchal society. But we also suffer from the social and emotional constraints that masculinity places on us. We have much to gain from ending sexism and breaking down strict gender roles.
This initial self-screening questionnaire may help you identify some ways that patriarchal and sexist norms influence your attitudes and behaviour. Identifying these blind spots is the first step to becoming a better ally. Be patient with yourself; answer each question honestly, and analyze your own responses. What do you feel, and why do you feel it? If there are things you would change about your own attitudes and behaviour, what are the barriers that might keep you from changing? How can you overcome these barriers?
You may want to discuss this questionnaire and any issues it brings up with women (or men) whom you trust. But beware: men have a tendency to either burden women with our emotional needs or withhold our feelings entirely. Please think carefully about your intentions before discussing this questionnaire with women in your life. Are you doing it because you feel guilty, or because you really want to change? Are you seeking validation, or real guidance?
By Bruce Wood
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2007
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
In spite of more than 30 years of intervention and education strategies designed to end violence against women by their male partners, such violence remains as prevalent as ever. It is high time we took stock of our strategies and our assumptions to determine what is and is not working—and what more can be done.
FOR GENERATIONS, WOMEN have been speaking out individually and collectively to end gender-based violence, though Canadian society as a whole only started to engage publicly with the problem in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Lenore Walker’s now classic The Battered Woman (1979), which followed Erin Pizzey’s groundbreaking Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear (1974),were among the first widely read books to expose the scope, dynamics, effects and origins of this worldwide problem. These works, among others, forced the long suppressed issue of gender-based violence into broad public exposure and discussion.
