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table of contents
Instilling Gender
by Jessica Hanna
Which Side Are They On?
by Amber Shuba
The Saskatchewan NDP have an opportunity to enhance young workers’ quality of life, but the bosses say “no.”
Age as a Barrier
by Chelsea Jones
Teenaged girls facing violence need access to more information and services
By Tracey Mitchell
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2005
Movements for social justice have a long history of connection with the arts. Over the past few years, these linkages have only grown and multiplied. We have seen giant puppets take to the streets all over the world. We’ve seen art auctions and photo calendars used as fundraisers. Fringe festivals and other places have become showcases for plays about issues ranging from water privatization to marijuana legalization. And musicians have brought social change and art together in all kinds of genres from folk to hip hop to punk.
Violence against women is one of the many issues that has benefitted from use of different kinds of artistic media to increase public awareness. For the past few years, thousands of women have participated in, and audiences all over the world have enjoyed, productions of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. In Saskatchewan this production has been done by students at both universities, and an Aboriginal women’s adaptation was produced by the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company.
Recently a new group has been experimenting with another kind of theatre to help address the issues and challenges of violence against women. The Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CASA) at the University of Saskatchewan formed in response to two recent assaults on campus. Having achieved considerable success in its first year working with other campus groups to improve the university’s response to sexual assaults and increase safety measures, CASA began to look for ways to address the systemic causes of sexual violence. We also wanted to try something creative and innovative to counter the thoroughly institutional and uninspired response of the university to the trauma of sexual violence.
We grappled with the problem of how to mobilize around emotionally-laden issues that are difficult to get our heads around. I had the sense of having been in a similar situation before, where words are not enough. I had a flashback.
Community Building Approach
In the fall of 2001, I was living in Vancouver and participated in a couple of different events to figure out our individual and community responses to the terrorist attacks that had taken place in the USA and the impending aggressive response. The first was a panel discussion followed by questions and answers. There was a widespread feeling of helplessness and people felt the need to come together to deal with their grief and fear. Yet, this did not happen. Instead, the discussion eventually became heated and community factions grew apparent.
The second post-9/11 public event that I attended was called Reaching Across and was organized by Headlines Theatre in conjunction with a local Muslim Youth Centre. During this session, facilitator David Diamond had participants offer stories from their day-to-day lives about responses to 9/ 11. The audience then selected the story that resonated most with them. In this case, it was the story of a woman who had aroused the anger of her neighbours by putting a peace sign on her apartment door after the terrorist attacks. Under David’s guidance, participants set to work building a scene out of this story, unpacking the fears and desires of the key characters and allowing for audience interventions. This process created a forum for discussing alternative ways that we could respond to like situations.
Reaching Across was a very powerful event for me. It was the first time that I had ever seen interactive or “forum” theatre used for social change. I had the opportunity to witness this process several more times during my year in Vancouver, especially in response to cutbacks by the BC Liberals.
CASA decided to invite Lori Whiteman and Marg Friesen of the Regina Public Schools’ ACT! program to host a forum theatre workshop at the U of S in October 2004. They, along with their teenage daughters (who also helped facilitate the workshop) have been using forum theatre to combat racism in their schools and communities. We were so inspired by what we learned in the workshop and by the potential of this work to build strong communities that we invited Lori and Marg back again to participate in a community event for December 6, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
On December 6, we gathered at the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre for an event called Images and Imaginings: A Ceremony for Our Stolen Sisters. Over 100 men and women came to the event. We shared food and then opened with greetings and prayers from Aboriginal elders.
Silent Theatre
The facilitators used several different techniques to help us tell stories using our bodies to create frozen shapes and silent images. The beauty of this work is that the images and stories can represent completely different things to different people. A woman lying on the ground might be doing yoga, she might be ill, or she might be experiencing domestic violence.
This is important, because when we rely solely on speakers and public discussion, we can never speak to everyone’s experience. This type of theatre allows everyone to have their own reaction or experience based on their own individual background. Audience members are invited to replace actors in order to share their experience with others if they choose, creating a powerful bond among participants. The skill of the facilitator carries us along in a fluid interplay between our own internal experience of a difficult issue and a public representation of our collective understanding and fears.
The facilitator then capitalizes on the different ways that people view the scene by inviting the audience to suggest ways to change the image. In this case, because we were working on the topic of sexual violence, that often meant changing the gender of various characters in the tableau. For example, particular scenes seemed more believable with women in the vulnerable roles rather than men.
In the final stage of our December 6 event, all participants and audience members were invited to create images of hope; these statue images were created with our eyes closed. Opening our eyes revealed to us the images that others had created and how our vision of hope fit with others, as well as how it differed. Through these images and the ability to intervene in scenes and make changes, the audience is engaged in a process of creating images of social change the way they would like to see it happen.
This interactive theatre process was recently used in workshops conducted by the cast and crew of The Vagina Monologues at the U of S to explore themes around oppression. It is also being used by Headlines Theatre in their anti-racism presentation called Gimme the Keys at several locations across Canada, including Scott Collegiate in Regina. Gimme the Keys involves bringing participants from within the community together for a week of workshops to explore personal experiences with racism. Short plays are then developed that reflect the harsh realities in the lives of the cast members. These plays are then performed with an invitation to the audience to intervene and replace actors, with the goal of creating the dialog needed to initiate change.
Why Theatre?
There is a reason, I think, why the performing arts are so important for creating social change. It is because they can engage your whole body, not just your mind. David Diamond expresses this well in an article called Creating Community Based Dialogue. “Art is transformative in a way that didactic lectures are not. I believe that change is motivated from the heart, not the head. Theatre is a powerful tool because it communicates with our hearts.”
In our brief experience with forum theatre, it is clear to our coalition that we have only just scratched the surface. We hope to continue experimenting with this process, perhaps applying it to other issues. We know we have not yet seen the full potential of forum theatre to help heal and strengthen our communities–to reach more peoples’ hearts. As David Diamond says, “The theatre really is a revolutionary rehearsal.”
Tracey Mitchell is studying history and sociology at the University of Saskatoon and is a member of the U of S Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
By Valerie Overend
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2005
“I’m rich!”
Recently I was delighted to hear a young woman gleefully make this proclamation at a Women Building Futures conference in Edmonton. As a second year bricklayer, she can not even imagine what her life will be like in two years when her pay cheque will increase by another 50 percent.
I remember having the same feeling when I got my first pay cheque from a commercial construction site. I hopped in my truck, drove my kids straight to the second hand store, handed them $10 each and told them they could buy whatever clothes they wanted, practical or not. I knew that I had made the best choice of my life. I was not going to suffer the common plight of many a single mother with no support from an absent father. Security and dignity were mine!
Back then, I sometimes wondered why I was the only woman on the job site. Sadly, 20 years later, the number of women entering the skilled trades is still shockingly low. Established tradeswomen, who love their jobs, express dismay that they don’t see young women lining up in droves to follow them into well-paying, creative, satisfying, innovative occupations.
In my role as the executive director of Saskatchewan Women in Trades and Technology (WITT), I often hear from women who wanted to try working in a trade but did not pursue their dreams. Their most common explanation for hesitation was concern about their own strength. They doubt themselves because they haven’t had opportunities to practice trades type work or see enough role models; examples of ordinary women who have built a successful career working in a trade.
While it’s very true that most trades are physical occupations, it’s a mistake to equate physical work with a need for great strength. Tradeswomen find many joys and rewards in physical labour. They speak with tremendous pride about their physical fitness and the fact that they get their workout without ever having to go to a gym. Others love working outdoors and appreciate the fact that they are not sitting at a desk all day. They all discover the rewards of seeing the results of their labour at the end of every day. In fact we like to show photos of our creations or drive by buildings we have constructed. Our confidence in our own abilities grows with the work that we do.
Physical occupations present many challenges where the good balance and smaller size that women usually have can be very advantageous. It doesn’t matter how strong someone is if they are afraid of heights and need to work from a ladder or a scaffolding platform. Tradeswomen quickly learn to use body mechanics for leverage to perform a difficult task or how to chose the proper equipment or tools to move a heavy object. I can only name a handful of times from my 25 years in the trade where I didn’t trust my own strength in a situation and asked for someone stronger to take my place on a task.
While women’s confidence in their own strength seems to be a major reason for avoiding trades, others express concern about getting dirty. This continues to amaze me when I compare my work (dusted in sawdust and my own sweat) to that of many health care workers who handle body fluids that are not their own, or to the work of custodial workers who clean toilets.
Women who chose not to enter trades occupations offer many reasons for their choice. What about those tradeswomen who do take the plunge? Most, like me, will admit to having many of the same inhibitions before entering. But we find that we are soon able to handle the physical demands and that we develop the necessary technical skills in a timely manner. Our job performance is usually rated high or very high by employers, and many tradeswomen rise to the top in their workplaces in short order.
Even those tradeswomen who leave their jobs and move on to other occupations seldom report inability to handle physical demands as the reason. The culture of the work environment is more likely to be the culprit that makes women uncomfortable. Tradeswomen who are the “lone woman” on a jobsite, as is too often the case, report strong feelings of isolation and “not belonging.” The negative social pressures of the workplace, not the physical demands of the job, are more important in most decisions to leave.
Tradeswomen recognize the problem. They have learned from their experience and have organized to pass on their knowledge. Through lobbying government, educational workshops, videos and programs, they are working together to remove barriers to women in trades. Nova Scotia WITT and Women in Resource Development in Newfoundland are two examples of provincial organizations working to prepare women as well as the workplaces that will hire them.
Overall wages for women in Canada are slightly over 70 percent of the wages that men are taking home. Even with some measurable progress in the struggle for pay equity, this discrepancy has barely been reduced over the past 10 years. A significant factor to explain this lies in the “choices” women make in their career selection. With 500 occupational classifications in the country, 75 percent of women are clustered in 20 of them. Many of these 20 occupations are low-paying, care-giving jobs.
Women who break free of the social constraints surrounding career selection are more likely to receive higher wages. Rejecting sexually stereotyped jobs and venturing into one of the other 480 occupations can open doors that few women, often very few, have ever entered. With only a couple of exceptions, trades are outside the cluster of 20 in the large portion of the pie. But breaking away from the social norm is the key to exploring these satisfying (and well-paying) occupations. Mothers and fathers need to open their minds and steer their daughters in new, rewarding directions.
An impending skills shortage in the trades means jobs are opening up to women. Opportunities to enter into construction, mechanical and manufacturing occupations are becoming available to women in the same way that opportunities opened in the medical and legal professions in the ’70s, and in the engineering technologies in the ’80s and ’90s. Pan-Canadian associations, National Sector Councils and major employers alike are beginning to identify women as one of the obvious labour pools on which to draw to solve the looming shortage.
Are women ready to take up the challenge? The answer seems clear. There is a new wave of young women beginning to enter the workforce. They know that they have a right to work in jobs that they choose. They want to assert ownership of their place in the world. They want to experience the joys and rewards of physical work
Keri Boyko, a woman in her mid-twenties, knows first-hand the benefits of working in a skilled trade. Keri completed four years of apprenticeship training and is one of less than a dozen women to achieve journeyperson status in her trade over the past 35 years in Saskatchewan. She co-owns and operates an electrical company in Moose Jaw and sits on the Saskatchewan Electrical Trade Advisory Board.
Keri started working as an electrician right after high school, where she got her first exposure to the trade. Her high school shop instructor encouraged her to use her mathematical abilities, her thirst for knowledge and her motivation to succeed by pursuing an apprenticeship as an electrician. When asked to provide some advice to other young women, Keri says, “Set goals for yourself and work hard towards them. A career as a tradesperson is very rewarding.”
Valerie Overend is an interprovincial journeyed carpenter and the executive director of Saskatchewan Women in Trades & Technology. She also works as a WITT facilitator at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology and represents women on the Board of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum.
For further information about skilled trades, visit the website at: www.careersintrades.ca.
