Volume 7 | Spring 2015 by Intersections McGill

INTERSECTIONS The McGill Undergraduate Gender and Diversity Journal

VOLUME 7 | SPRING 2015

INTERSECTIONS The McGill Undergraduate Gender and Diversity Studies Journal Volume 7 | Spring 2015

McGill University, MontrĂŠal, QuĂŠbec on traditional Haudenosaunee territories

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Reader, Over the past year, Intersections has seen a number of changes. In addition to its name change in 2014 from the “Women’s Studies Interdisciplinary Journal” to the “Gender and Diversity Studies Journal,” Intersections gained an entirely new editorial board for the 2014-2015 academic year, and, after a short period of uncertainty, the journal was ultimately taken up as a project by the Women’s and Sexual Diversity Studies Student’s Association Collective. Despite these changes, the established goal of producing a publication that features innovative academic undergraduate work which contributes to ongoing discussions on difference, identity, and oppression, remains. In this volume, we hope to have preserved the journal’s rich legacy by continuing to highlight a diverse range of topics. We would like to thank all those who submitted, both published and unpublished. Thanks to the brilliancy of your thought-provoking work our goal was achieved and vital discussion within the McGill community continues to take place. We hope you enjoy Volume 7!

LETTRE DES ÉDITRICES

Sincerely, The Intersections Editors

Chères Lectrices, Chers Lecteurs, Au cours de l'année passée, Intersections a vu plusieurs changements. En plus d’avoir altéré son nom en 2014 pour passer du « Journal Interdisciplinaire des études de la femme » au présent titre de « Journal de Genre et Diversité, » Intersections a gagné une équipe d’édition entièrement nouvelle durant l’année universitaire 2014-2015 et, après une courte période d'incertitude, le journal a été pris comme projet par le collectif de l’Association des études des femmes et diversité sexuelle. Malgré ces changements, Intersections reste fidèle à sa mission : promouvoir le travail novateur de bacheliers et bachelières qui contribue aux discussions courantes sur la différence, l'identité, et l'oppression. Dans ce volume, nous espérons avoir préservé le riche héritage du journal en continuant à mettre en évidence une gamme diverse de propos. Nous voudrions remercier tous ceux qui ont soumis leurs travaux. Grâce à votre travail engageant, notre mandat a été accompli et une discussion essentielle à la communauté de McGill continue d’avoir lieu. En souhaitant que vous appréciiez le présent volume! Sincèrement, Les éditrices d’Intersections

SUBMISSIONS, QUESTIONS, OR CONCERNS intersections.mcgill@gmail.com TUMBLR http://intersectionsmcgill.tumblr.com FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/ intersections.mcgill TWITTER @inter_sections

EDITORS Alexandra KANTERS Taylor JARZABEK Clara LAGACÉ Julia ROBERTSON

cover by Ashley HOBSON-GARCIA design by Clara LAGACÉ The opinions of our contributors do not necessarily reflect those of our financial contributors, McGill University, or the editorial collective of Intersections. All papers were subject to blind review. © Intersections Journal 2015

CONTENTS academic Deconstructing Colonial Heteronormativity: An Analysis of Six Works by Terrance Houle

Anna Orton-Hatzis

From Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan: Makeover Reality Television in Postfeminist Media Culture

Erica Morassutti

Discarding the Feminine: Social Inscriptions of the Body of Perpetua, the Early Christian Martyr

Jennifer Mueller

Breast Cancer Inequities in Canada and the United States: An Examination of Race, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status as Intersecting Determinants of Health

Alexandra Kanters

Kareem Ibrahim

Ashley Hobson-Garcia

Clara Lagacé

Erica Pedersen

Sex Work in Canada & Bill C-36 Complicating Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Applying the frame of Human Rights to Muslim Women in India Colin’s Cure: The Secret Garden’s Fantasy of Control of the Body Conflict of Liberties: Does Pornography Deny Women Basic Freedoms?

artwork “Bridgetown”

Ashley Hobson-Garcia

“Within the House”

Ashley Hobson-Garcia

Julia Robertson

“Who Fits in Rigid Binaries?”

Deconstructing Colonial Heteronormativity: An Analysis of Six Works by Terrance Houle Anna Orton-Hatzis Introduction Numerous scholars, both indigenous and nonindigenous, have attested to the creation of heteronormative views on indigenous gender and sexuality as products of colonialism. This understanding is supported by both historic and contemporary accounts of indigenous gender and sexuality which differ from the Christian European colonial conception of the gender binary and corresponding heteronormative views on sex, sexuality and gender. This essay will demonstrate that contemporary indigenous artist, Terrance Houle, portrays these inaccurate constructions of heteronormative Indigenous identities in his work in order to subvert them and provide more accurate alternatives to constructions of indigenous masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the gender binary. In order to accomplish this, I will rely first on Indigenous methodology which prioritises indigenous scholars and voices, while writing in such a way as to respect the significance of the heritage and culture discussed to avoid perpetuating colonial tropes of white authors writing about indigenous subjects.2 Additionally, I will use discourse theory and feminist theory to analyse six works and their respective representations of indigenous peoples through history and how Houle challenges these stereotypical images and subverts the Western colonial gaze.

along with indigenous traditional knowledge from his parents and elders and also participated in powwows throughout his adolescence.5 In university, Houle studied Fine Arts at the Alberta College of Art and Design and has since received international recognition and acclaim as an artist.6

Biography: Terrance Houle

Terrance Houle challenges the construction of indigenous masculinity in many of his works, including Metrosexual Indian (2005), part of his Urban Indian Series.2 Metrosexual Indian presents a view of Indigenous masculinity that counters the stereotypical colonial image of the Indian male as Warrior, as portrayed, for instance, in the Cowboys and Indians of the spaghetti western genre. Instead,

Figure 1. Terrence Houle, Metrosexual Indian, 2005. Video Clip. Isuma.TV, http://www.isuma.tv/en/ imaginenative/metrosexual-indian.

Representations of Indigenous Men

Terrance Houle, a Blackfoot/Ojibway artist born December 9th, 1975 in the Canadian Prairies, is a selfdescribed fourth generation â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Native,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; emphasising the legacy of Status Indians before him.3 Houle was raised in an urban setting off-reserve by parents educated in residential schools.4 He learned Ojibway at home

Houle captures a young “Indian” man on film using visual effects to age the look of the film to directly reference the spaghetti western genre, and depicts his subject participating in an urban setting: wearing fashionable western metrosexual clothing, sporting a short haircut, talking on a cellphone, drinking from an iconic white Starbucks cup and even high-fiving passers-by as he walks through the city. This placement within a contemporary landscape challenges notions of the indigenous man as a onedimensional historic warrior figure living on the fringe of extinction.

camera and uses his body, comically slumped over a child’s playground rocking horse, semi-nude and emphasising his larger stomach (and lack of warrior abs) to demonstrate the disparity between the “Imaginary Indian,” a term also coined by Crosby. He describes the false conceptions of “Indian” identities by creating a photograph that counters the colonial view of indigenous male as warrior.7 Thus, his use of humour in his choice of pose subverts the Western eroticising gaze because it disallows associations of violence or virility often associated with the warrior trope. Instead, the dichotomy between the two skewed mirror images epitomises the difference in conceptions about the male body and masculinity.

In the same piece, Houle further unpacks the conception of the “Indian Warrior” as the clip comes to a climax, at which point the young man is beaten on screen by three men dressed in stereotypical “Indian” headdresses. It seems that these other “Indians” represent those who have internalized these misconceptions about masculinity only to then beat this construction into others around them, including the young man portrayed. Here, Houle represents the cycle of abuse within colonialism as described by historian Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, who describes an “internalization of oppression, and identification with the aggressor” as consequences of historical trauma such as colonial abuse, leading to the repetition of violence as the abused becomes the abuser.2 As such, Houle draws attention to the dangers of ignoring and/or perpetuating these stereotypical Western colonial ideals of indigenous masculinity reliant on machismo and violence.

Significantly, Houle often chooses to parody and critique conceptions of “Imagined Indian” masculinity. He does this quite directly in the fake wrestling association, The National Indian Leg Wrestling League of North America (2012),8 which he created with other indigenous artists, including Sonny Assu (Kwakwaka’wakw) as “Totem Tom Billy,” Peter Morin (Tahltan) as “The Bannock Bruiser,” and Jordan Bennett (Mi’kmaq) as “The Mighty Culloo.” Houle, clad in a wood and leather breastplate and very little else, is “The Blackfooter.”9 Together, they created fake warrior-esque wresting personas to participate in fake wrestling performance pieces, notably choosing a sport that has a reputation of itself also being faked. Altogether, the piece clearly makes reference to the ‘fake’ or “Imagined Indian Warrior” trope once again.

Furthermore, in addition to drawing attention to stereotypes and their consequences, Houle also consciously challenges their accuracy. In his work End Trails (2007),3 he parodies the image of the warrior male body. In End Trails, the artist mirrors James Earl Fraser’s early 18th century End of the Trail plaster sculpture that depicts an Indigenous warrior with spear mounted on horseback, hunched, and looking downwards.4 The warrior is defeated, “no longer looking forward to the future,” and thus the sculpture seems to commemorate the extinction of the “savages.”5 As such, the sculpture typifies scholar Marcia Crosby’s “Salvage Paradigm,” by which indigenous populations are seen as both near extinction and in need of being saved.6 However, Houle’s parody not only problematizes conceptions about the death of the “American Indian” it also discredits the image of the warrior and his sculpted body. Houle subjects himself to the lens of the

Another negative construction of male indigenous identity challenged by Houle is that of the Indigenous drunken and absentee father in Untitled Kookum/Dad (2009).2 In this installation piece, Houle recreates his Kookum’s (grandmother in Ojibway) sitting room, paying special attention to the place where she sat when she would read the letters that her son, Houle’s father, would write to her. Houle’s father then reads the letters out loud as part of the piece. The mother and son corresponded weekly when Houle’s father joined the military after attending residential school. In a description of the piece on Houle’s website, the artist writes, “In making it [the piece] I realized how distant my grandmother and father’s lives where [sic], that the policies that were put in place to create a rift with Aboriginal Families especially mother/ child had worked.”2 This claim is supported by scholar Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, who, after studying the impact of residential schools on

contemporary Wak’sa men and boys, concluded that such schools “undermined traditional parenting,” and often lead to generational gaps like the noted separation between Houle’s father and grandmother.2 This is even underscored through Discourse Theory in the installation’s title where “Kookum” is an Ojibway word and “Dad” is written in English, suggesting a sort of cultural distance between generations. Furthermore, the aforementioned ‘policies that were put in place to create the rift’ that Houle refers to are those constructed in the written word on paper, pointedly the same means available for correspondence between Houle’s father and grandmother. The influence of the white coloniser and his white paper becomes palpable in a piece which acutely demonstrates the devastation of the Western word’s pervasive influence in the regulation and control of Indigenous Peoples of North America.

conscribe to historicising stereotypical discussions of “authentic Indian [women]” living as part of the natural landscape.2 Houle claims that the reality he captures “is not two-dimensional like Reis’, but tells a story.”3 This story demonstrates that indigenous women can be both leaders in their traditional culture, as indigenous women have been for generations, while also participants in the present. Essentially, Houle demonstrates that they are no less First Nations because they dye their hair and wear glasses as the women in his life do. Representations of Indigenous Sexualities Terrance Houle and fellow indigenous artist Adrian Stimson, a Two Spirited member of the Blackfoot Tribe, together further deconstruct Western conceptions of both the gender binary and heteronormative sexuality in their performance piece Buckskin Re-Mounting (2012),4 a parody of the Hollywood film Brokeback Mountain. The two artists allude to the Hollywood script, which details the forbidden love between two cowboys, but instead portray two ‘Indians,’ which reflect Crosby’s noted typical ‘other’ to the white Western male.5,6 For the two artists however, the history behind the piece far out-dates “Cowboys and Indians”; in their opinion, the performance references larger colonial histories. In interviews, they describe the impact of colonialism and its Christian heteronormative views on indigenous peoples that demonised and made deviant sexualities that did not fit its male-female model.7 This is demonstrated by the artists’ use of play and humour in the performance, such as by their rubbing muscle relaxant on each other sensually.8 This humour is used as a powerful tool to negate the heterosexist forbidden love trope of the (Christian) Hollywood film. According to scholar Quo-Li Driskill, gender and sexuality is understood to be fluid in many indigenous nations. This is portrayed in the suggestive piece created by a straight man and a Two-Spirited person.9

Representations of Indigenous Women As a father himself, Terrance Houle has incorporated his daughter into a work which further challenges the concept of colonial gender representations by critiquing the image of the eroticised “Indian princess.” The “Indian princess” stereotype is described by Kim Anderson in Constructions of Negative Identity as a “mother goddess” of the land who is only to then be colonised and exploited as a resource like the land.3 In the piece in question, called Aaka,sttsiiksunaak,i; Many Snake Woman: The Daughters after Me (2008),4 Houle attempts to recreate a portrait painted of his grandmother by German-American painter Winold Reis, by filming himself taking a series of photographs of his daughter, sister, mother and grandmother. The use of film in this piece is necessary for demonstrating the unrealistic, eroticised “Imagined Indian” of the original portrait, as the documentary makes clear that the original portrait is constructed and posed. The process of constructing an “imagined identity” like that of the “Indian princess” remains invisible in Houle’s still photography, as the photographs capture only the end result, and hence conceal the transformation. Film, on the other hand, is able to capture this transformative process, and serves to demonstrate how representations of the “Indian Princess” are constructed rather than captured.

Moreover, the Two-Spirited “Indian,” played by Adrian Stimson, further develops its critique of heteronormative “Indian” identities by playing with ideas about sickness and medicine. Historically, deviance from heteronormativity would have been interpreted as sickness or perversion, both of which crave a ‘cure.’ In the performance, Stimson’s character repeats “Good Medicine” when referencing the muscle relaxant; however, the medicine is really the pretext used to exonerate the insinuated erotic

In addition, Aaka,sttsiiksunaak,i; Many Snake Woman: The Daughters after Me showcases a matrilineal lineage to demonstrate a “real,” accurate representation of indigenous women who need not

activity, rather than the ‘cure’ for their ‘deviant desires.’ Similarly, the ‘cure’ for ‘Indian savagery’ was the pretext for the violence abuse of colonialism. Hence, the artists confound ideas about cures and medicine, sexuality and deviance, medicine men, and men and Two Spirited people, and do so in a meaningful, playful, and humorous way, which negates the oppressive colonial constructions of heteronormative versus deviant.

Notably, when discussing his methods more broadly, as well as his place in art history more generally, Houle explained in an email correspondence for this paper, “I really feel I don't belong in either Cannon [that of art history as a whole or that of Indigenous art] and that the cannon I have chosen has been from my family and ways of knowing, nothing that has anything to do with both really. I guess I have always just thought about what my family knows and looking to that, one being my grandmother is 94 years old and my mom being 3rd gen First Nations. So it comes from this life lived i guess [sic].”2 As such, Houle challenges the very validity of a cannon and instead reacts to issues that are personal rather than attempting to interact more globally with topics of the art world. If his work is feminist and if it challenges gender norms, it is because they are topics he broaches in everyday life as a “real Indian” as opposed to a conscious attempt to participate in these larger canonical debates which are notably Western conceptions in themselves. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Houle utilises his own body in his works as a tool to subvert colonial tropes and the Western gaze because his approach to art is personal and, as he further explains, he does not “separate the mind and body.”3

Houle’s Methods and The Cannon Houle usurps questions of authenticity and imagined representations of indigenous identities by adopting humour as his method throughout. His use of the “trickster” motif as a means to parody and teach is derived from a prominent indigenous character and philosophy.2 It is also an effective political counter to the expectations of a western-centric cannon. Thus, one could suggest that effective challenges to colonialism and, in this case, institutionalised heteronormativity, may effectively be derived from methods within the minority and/or marginalised groups.

Conclusion According to scholar Bonita Laurence, “Indigenous sovereignty […] must involve the different nations recreating a truer past than the intervening colonial frameworks.”4 Thus, most importantly, this essay has demonstrated how contemporary Blackfoot/Ojibway artist Terrance Houle works towards decolonisation and sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples by negating the damaging colonial heteronormative constructions of sex, gender and sexuality. Instead, as demonstrated through the analysis of six of the artist’s works (2005present), Houle reconstructs positive indigenous possibilities in his own artistic creations and, as such, is a prime example of the activism possible through art.

Figure 2. Terrence Houle, End Trails, 2007. Digital Photography. Unknown location, http:// www.terrancehouleart.com/gay.html.

Figure 3. Terrance Houle, The National Indian Leg Wrestling League of North America, 2012-Ongoing. Filmed performance, Burnaby Art Gallery. Vimeo, http://vimeo.com/54952315.

Figure 4. Terrence Houle, Untitled Kookum/Dad, 2009. Installation, Plug In ICA, http:// www.terrancehouleart.com/untitled--kookum-.html.

Figure 5. Terrence Houle, Aaka,sttsiiksunaak,i; Many Snake Woman: The Daughters after Me, 2008. Video Clip. Terrancehouleart.com, http://www.terrancehouleart.com/ aakaisttsiiksiinaakii.html

Figure 6. Terrence Houle, Buckskin Re-Mounting, 2012. Filmed Performance. Culture Corridor, http:// www.terrancehouleart.com/gay.html.

NOTES

23.

Crosby, “The Construction of the Imaginary Indian,” 269. 24. Richard W. Hill, “A Belly of No Small Significance,” in Terrance Houle: Givn’r, by Anthony Kiendl, Emelie Chhangur, and Richard William Hill (Winnipeg: Plug in Editions, 2012), 25. 25. McKegney, Masculindians, 150-152. 26. Ibid., 150. 27. Owo-Li Driskill, “Stolen from Our Bodies: First Nations Two-Spirits/queers and the Journey to a Sovereign Erotic,” Studies in American Indian Literatures 16, no. 2 (2004): 50. 28. Hill, “A Belly of No Small Significance,” 23. 29. Houle, e-mail message to artist, November 5, 2014. 30. Galesh, “Terrence Houle: Blackfoot/Ojibway,” para. 16. 31. Lawrence, “Terrance Houle’s The National Indian Leg Wrestling League of North America Grapples with Identity,” 21.

Karen Martin, “Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing: A Theoretical Framework and Methods for Indigenous and Indigenist Re-Search,” Journal of Australian Studies 76 (2003): 205. 2. Terrence Houle, e-mail message to artist November 5, 2014. 3. Sam McKegney, Masculindians: Conversations About Indigenous Manhood (Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 2014), 155. 4. McKegney, Masculindians, 156. 5. Ibid., 148. 6. See Figure 1. 7. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart et al., “Wicasa Was’aha: Restoring the Traditional Strength of American Indian Boys and Men,” American Journal of Public Health 102, no. S2 (2012): S179. 8. See Figure 2. 9. Chris Smallbone, “Art: End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser,” Native American Art, March 2006, http:// www.nativeamerican.co.uk/art.html, para. 6. 10. Smallbone, “Art: End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser,” para. 6. 11. Marcia Crosby, “The Construction of the Imaginary Indian,” in Vancouver Anthology: A Project of the Or Gallery, ed. Stan Douglas (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1991), 274. 12. Elizabeth Cromley, “Masculine/Indian,” Winterhur Portfolio 31, no. 4 (1996): 255-256. 13. See Figure 3. 14. Robin Lawrence, “Terrance Houle’s The National Indian Leg Wrestling League of North America Grapples with Identity,” The Georgia Straight, December 27, 2012, http:// www.straight.com/arts/wrestling-identity, para. 5. 15. See Figure 4. 16. Terrence Houle, “Untitled kokum/dad (2009),” Terrence Houle Art, accessed November 1, 2014, http:// www.terrancehouleart.com/untitled--kookum-.html. 17. Brave Heart et al., “Wicasa Was’aha,” S179. 18. Kim Anderson, “The Construction of Negative Identity,” in Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain, ed. Margaret Hobbs and Carla Rice (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2013), 270-271. 19. See Figure 5. 20. Crosby, “The Construction of the Imaginary Indian,” 272. 21. Ida Galesh, “Terrence Houle: Blackfoot/Ojibway,” Contemporary North American Indigenous Artists, March 28, 2010, http://contemporarynativeartists.tumblr.com/ post/479540561/terrance-houle-blackfoot-ojibway, para. 8. 22. See Figure 6.

From Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan: Makeover Reality Television in Postfeminist Media Culture Erica Morassutti The Ugly Duckling is a childhood fable in which a baby bird suffers abuse from his peers for his unsightly appearance until, to the wonder and delight of all, he is magically transformed into a beautiful swan. Often fondly remembered as a tale about positive personal transformation, this story inspired the name of an American makeover reality television show called The Swan, broadcast on Fox in 2004. Using The Swan as an example, I will explore the makeover reality television show as a site where an ideal appearance of beauty is constructed and upheld as a standard to which ordinary women are expected to aspire. First, I describe and analyze a typical episode of The Swan, grounding my analysis in Rosalind Gill’s definition of postfeminism as a sensibility pervading contemporary western media culture. In doing so, I explore the theoretical issues posed by the postfeminist perspective of makeover reality television – namely, the dominance of the makeover paradigm, discourses of scrutiny and surveillance, and the neoliberal focus on individual choice and self-improvement.2 Ultimately, I argue that makeover reality television operates within a postfeminist ideology that frames physical transformation as a way to attain a desired state of corporeal perfection, in which the invisibility of aging is an essential element. The ‘reveal’ sequence of each episode offers the promise that “any body is possible, if one simply has the desire.”3 This postfeminist, neoliberal notion posits that continual selfimprovement through consumption is mandatory in a culture that rewards physical change.4 Finally, I will examine the broader implications of The Swan and makeover reality television for women. Its broadcasting of prescriptive cosmetic surgical practices has rendered synthetic beauty ideals (and the invasive surgical means required to attain them)

normative, and caused an increase in viewers’ interest in undergoing cosmetic surgical operations themselves. An episode of The Swan typically begins with an introductory sequence of a female contestant who makes “a confession of ugliness and suffering” in order to legitimize her surgical candidacy.5 For example, Lorrie, a contestant from the second season of the show, is introduced as a thirty-four year old widow who has always been teased for being overweight and “hates looking at [herself] and seeing an ugly person in the mirror.”6 This confession establishes Lorrie’s unhappiness as stemming from her physical appearance, rather than the cruelty inflicted by her peers.7 The hardships Lorrie has had to endure – namely, the struggle with her weight and having to raise her three children alone after the loss of her husband – are cited as having taken a toll on her appearance, making her look “twenty years older than she is.”8 Testimonies from loved ones are then given to Lorrie’s moral character, as she is praised for coping with her husband’s loss and being a caring mother to her children.9 The contestant’s body is then revealed for examination to a panel of so-called beauty experts – cosmetic surgeons, dental professionals, and fitness trainers – who prescribe surgical intervention as a necessity, as Lorrie’s body will “take more than just a diet and exercise to fix.”2 The experts collaborate to design a program of “total body transformation”3 for Lorrie; a complete facelift including a brow lift and upper lip lift, rhinoplasty, tummy tuck, breast augmentation, inner thigh lift, upper and lower gum re-contouring, and tooth bleaching are prescribed. Only a brief glimpse of the actual surgical process is shown. The

narrative of the episode focuses instead on the ‘reveal’ sequence at the end, where the surgically enhanced contestant is unveiled to an applauding audience while the narrator of the show gravely intones, “A year ago, Lorrie was self-conscious about everything, but she won’t have trouble finding confidence anymore. She loves herself completely.”2

requires women to believe their bodies – and by extension, their lives – are deficient, but “ultimately amenable to reinvention or transformation by following the administration of expert advice.”8 Makeover reality television explicitly suggests to viewers that physical transformation will facilitate positive change in all areas of their lives – romantic relationships, employment opportunities, and overall happiness.9 Ultimately, these shows purport to solve these perceived deficiencies by bestowing upon the contestants a route to “upgraded selfhood.”10 Next, the makeover reality television show has made the hyper-scrutiny of the female body its major focus. 11 In postfeminist media culture, the female body is subject to “a level of scrutiny and hostile surveillance which has no historical precedent.”12 Such scrutiny is performed on the show in sequences where the contestants bemoan their ostensible physical flaws, which are then identified and described by the socalled beauty experts before the camera, and by extension, the viewers themselves. This hyperscrutiny centres on the “unruly and deviant body that may be redeemed through medical technologies.”13 Subject to such examination and evaluation, the female body is posited as a grotesque spectacle, a site of surveillance, and ultimately a pliable form to be shaped and controlled to conform to a set of standards deemed “normal” and “beautiful.”14 As scrutiny and surveillance yield the assessment of the body as aberrant, they are constructed as essential tools used to identify flaws that can only be reversed with a surgical cure.

Popular discourses surrounding cosmetic surgery often emerge from a postfeminist perspective.3 Rosalind Gill defines postfeminism as a sensibility that pervades contemporary western media culture and consists of various interrelated themes, including “femininity as a bodily property; the shift from objectification to subjectification; an emphasis on self-surveillance, monitoring and self-discipline; a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a makeover paradigm; and a resurgence of ideas about natural sexual difference.”4 While The Swan presents the possession of a beautiful body as a source of identity and power for women, it also points to the tools required – subjecting the self to scrutiny, surgical remodeling, and consumer spending – to attain the standard set for female attractiveness.5 Makeover reality television effectively operates within a postfeminist, neoliberal ideology in which physical transformation and continual self-improvement through consumption are presented as resulting in personal success. In so doing, it enacts three particular themes of Gill’s definition of postfeminism: the dominance of a makeover paradigm; an emphasis on selfsurveillance, monitoring and self-discipline; and a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment.

Finally, makeover reality television obscures its role in creating ever-narrowing standards for an ‘acceptable’ female body by focusing on themes of individualism, choice and empowerment.2 In an increasingly individualistic culture, the physical appearance of a woman represents her entire selfhood.3 Prior to deciding to undergo surgery, women are vilified for having poor discipline and making the wrong choices.4 For example, those who gain weight and grow old are typically characterized as lacking discipline, getting lazy, and allowing skin to sag and wrinkle. This concept is central to the neoliberal construction of the individual as an “entrepreneurial actor who [is] rational, calculating and self-regulating” and “bears full responsibility for actions no matter how severe the constraints upon their [sic] action.”2 The neoliberal subject is reminiscent of the freely-choosing, self-improving

First, Gill’s concept of the dominance of a makeover paradigm pervades makeover reality television, critiquing the postfeminist idea that beauty can be achieved through the magic of surgical alteration.6 By presenting distinct “Before” and “After” bodies, aligning the former with failure and the latter with success, makeover reality television posits the female body as a source of power only if it is properly maintained and updated. In postfeminist media culture, where a slim, toned, and taut figure is critical for appearing successful, the body is “constructed as a window to the individual’s interior life.”7 Hinging upon the belief that character manifests in physical appearance, the implication is that the physical appearance of the contestant before the makeover may not reflect her true personality, but can be surgically altered to do so. The makeover paradigm

subject of postfeminism, as both derive from ideologies that deny notions of the social or political.2 Her apparent willingness to undergo painful, intrusive and expensive surgical procedures in the name of self-enhancement staves off the criticisms of those who identify the true cause of her suffering – oppressive societal beauty standards.3 Each contestant on makeover reality television is therefore constructed as an independent and empowered subject who actively chooses to furnish a desire to feel good about herself, rather than a woman who has internalized socially constructed beauty ideals and succumbed to the pressure to emulate them.4

makeover reality television show is rooted, there is no reason not to arm oneself with every tool available to stave off the aging process – the individual is therefore responsible for controlling her own life, and staving off aging becomes her responsibility. Thus, while beauty is proclaimed to be the fundamental asset of women, it seems to be the preserve solely of the young. Aging women are progressively robbed of recognition as beautiful.10 As cosmetic surgery becomes a more accessible tool for women to hide evidence of age, it is possible that looking old may become even less culturally forgivable.11 Further, the postfeminist underpinnings of makeover reality television have re-conceptualized the body as an impersonal and alterable object. Studies have shown a positive correlation between reality television featuring cosmetic surgery and the audience’s interest in pursuing surgery to alter their own physical appearance.12 Cosmetic surgery has become increasingly popular as a means of ostensible self-enhancement for women in the United States. In 2008, 12.1 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed, a 63% increase since 2000.13 Makeover reality television shows such as The Swan equip viewers with a familiarity of surgical terminology, procedures, and a veritable lexicon of ‘problem spots’ to identify on their own bodies. These facts suggest that the broadcasting of prescriptive cosmetic surgical practices has rendered normative both the synthetic beauty ideals praised on the show and the invasive surgical means required to attain those ideals. Ultimately, the postfeminist ideology of makeover reality television shows such as The Swan translates into the behaviour of ordinary women in a harmful way.

These notions of choice and pleasing oneself are linked to the themes of “empowerment and taking control” in makeover reality television.5 As Gill notes, “in popular cultural discourses, women are called on to self-manage and self-discipline, to transform and work on the self, to regulate every aspect of their conduct, and present their actions as freely chosen.”6 The submission of one’s body to invasive surgical procedure is framed as an instance of a woman freely choosing to use a beauty practice in order to please herself, with a marked lack of emphasis on the commercial interests or societal pressures driving the popularity of this practice.7 Seeming to emanate from a place of choice, the rhetoric of individualism and empowerment is thus inscribed in cosmetic surgery. In addition to the theoretical issues above, the postfeminist ideology of makeover television has broader implications for women in society today. Makeover reality television frames cosmetic surgery as a means to attain a desired state of corporeal perfection, in which the appearance of perpetual youth is a key element. Two factors ensure that women will increasingly rely on cosmetic surgery to meet these demands for bodily perfection and youthfulness – first, the dismissal of age as a natural, temporal process, and second, the reconceptualization of the body as an impersonal and highly alterable object.8 The goal of perpetual youthfulness in appearance has created a culture in which cosmetic surgery is not simply accepted, but embraced as a fundamental weapon in the fight against aging. Makeover reality television endorses a value system that denies women the right to age.9 Instead, age is articulated as a battle against nature in which women are automatically enlisted. According to the neoliberal, postfeminist perspective in which the

The cultural preoccupation with the ever-narrowing standard of what constitutes a beautiful female body pervades makeover reality television. Inviting the audience to scrutinize the bodies of women deemed ugly, makeover reality television shows arm their viewers with a lexicon of flaws and surgical cures. Rooted within a postfeminist, neoliberal framework, makeover reality television affirms that relentless self-improvement through consumption is mandatory in a culture that rewards physical change. Shows like The Swan send the message that character and success cannot be divorced from female appearance, proclaiming that youthful beauty is the ultimate virtue to which women of all ages should aspire. By framing the submission of one’s body to surgical

29.

Ibid., 154. Ibid., 153 31. Ibid., 164. 32. Ibid., 153-154. 33. Marcene Goodman, “Social, psychological, and developmental factors in women’s receptivity to cosmetic surgery,” The Philadelphia Geriatric Center Journal of Aging Studies, vol. 8, no. 4 (1994), 377. 34. Goodman, “Social, psychological, and developmental factors,” 376. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Charlotte N. Markey and Patrick M. Markey, “A correlational examination of reality television viewing and interest in cosmetic surgery,” Body Image 7 (2010), 165. 38. Ibid.

reinvention as a choice made by the woman herself, for herself, The Swan obscures the commercial interests and societal pressures underpinning the practice of cosmetic surgery, not to mention its own role in raising the stakes for what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ female body – a fate that will keep The Ugly Duckling forever waddling dejectedly back to the mirror.

30.

NOTES 1.

Rosalind Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10:2 (2007), 149. 2. Sarah Banet-Weiser and Laura Portwood-Lacer, “I just want to be me again!: Beauty pageants, reality television, and post-feminism,” Feminist Theory, vol. 7 no. 2 (2006), 269. 3. Kirsty Fairclough, “Nothing Less Than Perfect: Female Celebrity, Ageing and Hyper-Scrutiny in the Gossip Industry,” Celebrity Studies, 3:1 (2012), 90. 4. Gail Dines and Jean M. M. Humez, Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader (Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 2011), 510. 5. “Gina and Lorrie.” The Swan. Galan Entertainment. 2004. 6. Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 510. 7. “Gina and Lorrie.” The Swan. Galan Entertainment. 2004. 8. Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 510. 9. “Gina and Lorrie.” The Swan. Galan Entertainment. 2004. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Fairclough, “Nothing Less Than Perfect,” 91. 13. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 148. 14. Ibid., 149. 15. Elwood Watson and Darcy Martin, eds, There She Is, Miss America: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America's Most Famous Pageant (New York: Macmillan, 2004), 131. 16. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 150. 17. Ibid., 156. 18. Charlotte N. Markey and Patrick M. Markey, “A correlational examination of reality television viewing and interest in cosmetic surgery,” Body Image 7 (2010), 170. 19. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 150. 20. Fairclough, “Nothing Less Than Perfect,” 90. 21. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 150. 22. Dines, Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 516. 23. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating disability, transforming feminist theory,” NWSA journal 14, no. 3 (2003), 11. 24. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 149. 25. Fairclough, “Nothing Less Than Perfect,” 91. 26. Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture,” 163. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid.

Discarding the Feminine: Social Inscriptions of the Body of Perpetua, the Early Christian Martyr Jennifer Mueller Modern visual culture frequently glorifies bodily pain and tolerance so that the bloodied man is a figure of truth in a moral tale. The goriness of the hero bears witness to the immediacy of the antagonist’s malefaction. However, there are prodigious differences between the perceptions of the suffering hero as opposed to the bloodied heroine. Where the wounded male bodies possess morally lofty connotations, female bodily mutilation has sexual undertones connected with torn clothes, silent endurance, or unduly vocal indignation in distress.2 Despite the apparent differences between modern cinematography and early Christian martyrologies, is it possible to think of Christian male and female martyrs similarly?

mythological dress was intended as both an entertainment and instrument of public terror, to force the public into subservience and docility and demonstrate the consequences of transgressions of Roman social and religious norms.4 Perpetua defies the male authorities in their attempts to shame her body, and enters the arena in ordinary dress. Her refusal to adhere to feminine norms of decorum necessarily led her to adapt masculine attributes of assertiveness and self-assurance. Perpetua refused to avert her gaze from male audience members, and rejected “the elusive demeanour of a proper matrona, [breaking] with the normative body language” of conventional, subjugated femininity.5 Perpetua, though physically female, embraces masculinized body language. This transformation signifies the transition from the feminine to the masculine at the point of spiritual enlightenment.

For those unfamiliar with early Christian martyrdom narratives and more particularly the role of women in the ancient Church, the tale of Perpetua and Felicitas is a simultaneously enlightening and complex work that demonstrates the importance of physicality in the pursuit of heightened spirituality. The climax of Perpetua’s and Felicitas’ story was on the 7th of March, 203 CE, when a group of imprisoned Christians were led to the amphitheatre at Carthage to be publically executed in front of the gathered crowds, although the dates and even location of Carthage itself are conjectural.3 Perpetua and other faithful Christians including a young slave girl named Felicitas, were imprisoned after refusing to renounce the Christian God. Perpetua is tested several times, including by her father who pleads with her to return to his house, but after defying her father and the local authorities who attempted to humiliate the prisoners by dressing them in traditional robes of priests and priestesses, Perpetua walks unflinchingly to an extraordinarily bloody death. The spectacle and the significance of

As Candida Moss illustrates in her book on ancient Christian martyrdom, “The gendering of biologically female martyrs in the trials, contests, and visions has been variously interpreted as instances of masculinization, glorification of the feminine, and a movement from one pole to another.”2 Several scholars have explored the role of the female body in Christian martyrdom circa the third century, a period where female Christian martyrs were rare, and for which Perpetua of North Africa serves as one of the most complete martyr-narratives. Using Moss's work as the basis for a theoretical framework, the following essay will discuss modern scholarship on the body and identity of Perpetua. Three generalized typologies that have been used to discuss Perpetua are first, Perpetua’s identity as it becomes male upon martyrdom; second, as her body participates in the act of martyrdom it retains its feminine identity; and third, Perpetua

manipulated her body so that it was in fact genderless. Inasmuch as these approaches are valid in their own ways, I propose a fourth approach, which is a modification of the third category in that the early Christian woman martyr can be thought of as possessing a dual-gendered identity. The feminine is defined against masculine according to the ancient world’s “hierarchical ranking of male over female” according to the relationship between biological sex and socially constructed gender.2 As with other early Christian woman martyrs, Perpetua’s possession of characteristics of both genders leads to the formation of a new identity.

One possible solution is that the concepts of femininity and masculinity are not mutually exclusive. Notwithstanding the arguments made above regarding Perpetua’s abandonment of the social concept of her femininity, the biological aspect of her sex plays a key role in role in the narrative of her martyrdom. The concept of gender is actually represented in a continuum, and whether it leans more towards femininity or masculinity is contextdependent. Stephanie Cobb makes the statement that Perpetua has two identities, social and personal, that “are fluid and form in response to specific occurrences or interactions.”10 Cobb uses Laqueur’s “one sex model” to explain that that “differences between males and females are not of kind but of degree…. Sex, like identity, is established by comparison: an individual is more or less masculine than another.”11 In Castelli’s discussion on gender and body transformation in antiquity she likewise explains that while gender categories were fixed according to a “hierarchical dualism” where masculine was always seen as preferable to the feminine, being male was a performative act.12 Therefore, qualities of masculinity may inhere in the identity of biological females. This concept is exemplified in Perpetua’s demonstration of masculine virtue such as justice, truth, and self-control. Such virtues were highly valued in the ancient world as historically significant figures, such as Marcus Aurelius, and Christians alike identified themselves as inherently masculine.13

The first category of the scholarship I wish to address concerns Perpetua’s adoption of masculine characteristics and her transformation into a male in her prophetic vision. The Passio Perpetuæ consists of “three distinct authorial hands; the diary [of Perpetua] … the vision of Saturus, which he himself wrote down… and the editorial portion.”3 During her incarceration Perpetua has prophetic visions of the afterlife and her impending death, after which she and her companion are publicly executed.4 One of Perpetua’s prophetic visions during her imprisonment involves her entering the amphitheatre to fight the expectant beasts, whereupon “[her] clothes were stripped off, and suddenly [she] was a man.”5 Castelli argues that Perpetua “casts off her female body” and that her “spiritual progress is marked by the social movement away from conventional female roles and by the physical movement from a female to a male body; these processes of transformation signify her increasingly holy status.”6 In effect she first figuratively leaves behind her femininity by adopting masculine characteristics and attributes, and then literally transforms into male at the moment of her martyrdom.7

Clark argues that the holy woman leaves textual traces of her existence “in a larger social-linguistic framework”, which, though reflected through male eyes, preserves that of her identity as woman.14 In Visions, Prophecy, and Authority, Waldner states that Perpetua is a woman who employs rhetoric “which is swiftly becoming the privilege of the most powerful” against her persecutors, and that “prophetic dreams legitimate authorship and political power.”15 In each case Perpetua does not shy away from the femaleness of her body rather, she uses alternative forms of rhetoric and prophecy to legitimize her spiritual progress and ensure the dignity of her martyrdom. Elena Martin also argues that through the act of martyrdom, women, despite their corporal identity as female, were able to become “icons of Christ.”16

The identity of the man as martyr is not threatened upon the moment of death and suffering. Though the martyr may be said to become nearly ungendered, he or she is always more closely identified with the masculine due to the martyr’s possession of Christian, and inherently masculine, virtues.8 Boyarin also claims that the “virilized” Perpetua breaks from conventional femininity in her masculinized body language through a returned gaze, an assertive act which reflects the theme of “being a man” in early martyrologies.9 However, the question remains as to how these divergent conceptions of the gendered self can be reconciled in the case of the female martyr.

In her study on using modern analytic devices to examine the Passio Perpetuæ, Mieke Bal agrees with other authors in arguing that the series of visions in

the text, as well as the giving up of her child, “bring[s] out a masculine aspect in Perpetua.”2 Once she is assured that her nursing baby “had no further desire for the breast” and will be well taken care of by her family, Perpetua is able to focus solely on her imminent death. She thereby relinquishes a quintessential aspect of femaleness, which is role of motherhood. Moreover, Streete argues “the woman with a man’s courage, a male in her dreams, was used as a tool to promote bravery in martyrdom for both men and women, while at the same time preserving feminine decorum.”3 Her chaste concern for her appearance and “refusal to let her female body be exposed” is such that “Perpetua’s move away from femininity would lead her, not so much to give up sex as to enjoy it in the only way she could have access to it.”4

body as male, yet her modesty and self-consciousness as “a delicate young girl” is evident in that she strongly identifies with her biological femaleness.8 In contrast to other authors, such as Castelli or Cobb, Virginia Burrus believes that Perpetua’s “vision of ‘becoming male’ does not primarily express the alienation of self from body or the rejection of her worth as a woman.”9 She further argues that Perpetua is able to elude the male (eroticized) gaze by possessing both male and female identities simultaneously, and “by revising her body in such a way that it is unavailable for either sexual penetration or textualization … [her vision] reflects a radical rewriting of maleness and femaleness in the subversive discourse of dream.”10 In the same line of argument, Patricia Cox Miller has suggested that “when Perpetua embraces the male, what appears is an image of maleness whose highly valued ‘stance’ is a recognition of female identity.”11

In contrast to Waldner’s postulation that prophetic visions translated into social authority, Frankfurter sees the “posthumous editor’s description of the spectacle of [Perpetua’s] martyrdom” as a means of redirecting the audience’s focus to Perpetua’s and her companions’ bodies, “away from the visionary authority once evident in her prison diary.”5 The postchildbirth state of both Perpetua and the slave Felicitas exacerbates the pain and torment of their death. The editor writes, “even the crowd was horrified when they saw that one was a delicate young girl and the other was a woman fresh from childbirth with the milk still dripping from her breasts”6 Perpetua and Felicitas’ female bodies are emphasized in the spectacle of their execution, so that their physical exposure is the focal point of the narrative. Thus, while Waldner suggests two ways for the woman martyr to claim authority despite her femininity, Frankfurter proposes that her femaleness in no way detracted from her martyrdom; “for early Christianity was a religious movement consumed by the definition of its own boundaries, which it persistently conceptualized through bodies … It was a religious movement that had, by the third century, long revolved around the [positive] transvaluation and inversion of spectacles of punishment and pain.”7

The body of Perpetua is a site of ambiguous identity fraught with meanings as numerous as there are authors and commentators who have discussed Perpetua and gender. Craig Williams argues that her “characteristic combination of masculine determination and female corporeality, leads directly into the closing invocation of the martyrs as a group, undifferentiated by gender.”2 Although the homogeneity of early Christian martyrs is a contentious point, Williams writes that Perpetua’s feminine and masculine traits glorify distinctly masculine features while she retains her identity as woman. Her female characteristics are used in juxtaposition to highlight her male characteristics — presenting them more favourably than if they were considered on their own. This begs the question of how relevant her female characteristics when considered outside of a juxtapositional relationship with her male characteristics, which appear to receive so much more scholastic attention. In this paper I have attempted to argue that the multiple genders inscribed on the body of Perpetua are not exclusive identities, but exist on a continuum. 2 Although Perpetua’s corporeality remains feminine, her intellectual and religious identity is masculine in the historical context; her feminal qualities are effectively effaced, only her physicality as woman remains. In fact, the two genders as oppositional is required to construct the novel identity of the female martyr. Her body is simultaneously inscribed with the feminine and the masculine features of humanity

Rather than male, feminal, or ungendered, I propose that Perpetua embodied a dual-gendered identity. Contrary to being genderless, masculinized, or limited by visible femininity, Perpetua embodies characteristics unique to each sex, as well as those attributes unattached to a specific gender. Perpetua’s prophetic vision shows that she pictures her own

Candida R. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 32. 6. Stephanie L. Cobb, Dying to be men: Gender and language in early Christian martyr texts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 26. 7. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 132. 8. Bart D. Ehrman, “Persecution and Martyrdom in the Early Church: The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felictas,” in After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity, trans. Musurillo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 42. 9. Ibid., 46. 10. Elizabeth Castelli, “’I Will Make Mary Male’: Pieties of the Body and Gender Transformation of Christian Women in Late Antiquity,” in Body Guards, edited by Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub (New York: Routledge, 1991), 33; 35. 11. Johannes N. Vorster, “The Blood of the Female Martyrs as the Sperm of the Early Church,” Religion and Theology 10, 1 (2003): 94. 12. Kristi Upson-Saia, Early Christian Dress: Gender, Virtue and Authority (New York: Routledge, 2011), 84; 96 and Matthew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (London: The University of Chicago Press Ltd., 2011), 226. 13. Daniel Boyarin, “Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, 4 (1998): 620 and Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 75. 14. Cobb, Dying to be Men, 19. 15. Ibid., 25. 16. Castelli, “I Will Make Mary Male,” 31. 17. Cobb, Dying to be Men, 21. 18. Elizabeth A. Clark, “Holy Women, Holy Words: Early Christian Women, Social History, and the” Linguistic Turn.”” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, 3 (1998): 430. 19. Katharina Waldner, “Visions Propehcy and Authority in the Passio Perpetæ,” trans. Elisabeth Begemann in Bremmer and Formisano, 219. 20. Elena Martin, Iconic women: Martyrdom and the female body in early Christianity (PhD Diss., Durham University, 2006), ii. 21. Miecke Bal, “Perpetual Contest,” in Bremmer and Formisano, 141. 22. Gail Corrington Streete, Redeemed Bodies: Women martyrs in early Christianity (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 10; 39. 23. Bal, “Perpetual Contest,” 148-9. 24. David Frankfurter, “Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 17, 2 (2009): 233. 25. Ehrman, “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas,” 49. 26. Frankfurter, “Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze,” 233. 27. Streete, Redeemed Bodies, 41. 28. Virginia Burrus, “Word and flesh: The bodies and sexuality of ascetic women in Christian antiquity,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 10 (1994): 30. 29. Ibid., 30.

at the moment of martyrdom – yet these identities work together in their oppositional nature to create a novel identity, incorporating aspects of both genders. Although they lie beyond the scope of this paper, several key scholars such as Jan Bremmer, Elizabeth Clark, Patricia Davis, and Heidi Vierow have also explored the body of the female martyr. The authors discussed in this paper, including Elizabeth Castelli, Katharina Waldner, and Virginia Burrus, have suggested that Perpetua’s body may be thought of as a martyr act, in which demarcations surround identity and gender are remade. Using a framework based on Moss’ discussion of the different gender identities of the female martyr, it is possible to broadly understand modern scholarship in three different ways: the martyr’s masculinized feminine identity, the body’s participation as feminal, and/or possessing an ungendered or dual-gendered identity. As I have attempted to explain above, the aim of this paper is to propose that Perpetua embodied a dualidentity of masculine and feminine. This distinctive new form of selfhood identifies with both genders, using the socially defined characteristics of each to highlight features of this dual-gendered identity. The martyr’s body was visibly inscribed as female, yet her identity as a martyr could potentially supersede her femaleness. Moss explains, “the bodies of these women were on narrative display” and that “the author of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas repeatedly lingers on the bodies of the young women.”2 However, unlike her modern counterparts in cinematic culture, the suffering female martyr used blood as a record of truth and immediacy in a similar, yet distinct way from the male martyr. The mutilated female body, similar to its male counterpart, remains a record of truth of her martyrdom and spiritual commitment.3 Thus while her body was objectified, her spiritual motivation was held morally aloft.

NOTES 1.

Valentin Groebner, “The Crucified and His Doubles,” Defaced: The Visual Culture of Violence in the Late Middle Ages, trans. Pamela Selwyn (New York: Zone Books, 2004), 120. 2, Brent D. Shaw, “The Passion of Perpetua,” Past & Present 139 (May 1993): nn.2 and 3. 3. K.M. Coleman, “Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments,” The Journal of Roman Studies, 80 (1990): 44-73. 4. Shaw, “The Passion of Perpetua,” 4.

30.

Patricia Cox Miller, “The Devil’s Gateway: An Eros of Difference in the Dreams of Perpetua,” Dreaming 2 (1992): 62. 31. Craig Williams, “Perpetua’s Gender. A Latinist Reads the Passio Perpetuæ,” in Bremmer and Formisano, 77. 32. Cobb, Dying to be Men, 25. 33. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 32. 34. Shannon Dunn, “The Female Martyr and the Politics of Death: An Examination of the Martyr Discourses of Vibia Perpetua and Wafa Idris,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78, 1 (2010): 202.

Ashley Hobson-Garcia - “Bridgetown”

Breast Cancer Inequities in Canada and the United States: An Examination of Race, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status as Intersecting Determinants of Health Alexandra Kanters Introduction

inequities among Black women in Canada and the United States.

In both Canada and the United States, it is estimated that 1 in 9 women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, and that 1 in 29 women will die from it. 2,3,4 However, it has consistently been found that Black women are disproportionately represented among those affected by breast cancer.5,6 Although White women tend to have higher incidence rates of breast cancer when compared to Black women, Black women tend to have higher mortality rates.7 These findings suggest that it is necessary to look beyond gender and race as isolated factors in explaining this inequity. An intersectional analysis of the multiple factors that may combine to produce this inequity must be conducted by answering the following question: To what extent do the factors of race, gender, and socioeconomic status intersect to influence the prevalence, diagnosis, and progression of breast cancer among Black women in Canada and the United States?

Race as a Factor of Breast Cancer Inequity Race came to be understood as an intersecting factor in Black women’s health primarily through the work of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in the 1980s. In “Mapping the Margins,” Crenshaw claims that Black women are discriminated against not only on the basis of their gender, but also on the basis of their race; she argues that because anti-racist and feminist political movements have exclusively taken up the social issues of racism and sexism respectively, individuals with intersectional identities face a “double subordination” because they are marginalized in both.10 In this sense, Black women “fall through the cracks” of institutional systems and are thus oppressed along two matrices of oppression: race and gender. As a result, they are more likely than both their Black male and White female counterparts to be excluded from protection by these institutional systems.11

This paper evaluates these factors within the theoretical frameworks of critical/anti-racist theory and postmodern feminist theory. Both of these perspectives seek to move beyond the socially constructed notions of race, gender, and socioeconomic status, all of which pose significant challenges to Black women in modern society. The aims of critical/anti-racist theory and postmodern feminist theory have been combined by many contemporary women’s studies scholars to form a new perspective known as “anti-racist feminist thought,” which attempts to theorize the ways in which race, class, and gender intersect.8,9 It is through this combined theoretical perspective that race, gender, and socioeconomic status have been examined in this paper as factors that intersect to produce breast cancer

The theoretical frameworks of critical/anti-racist theory and intersectionality were developed in response to this exclusionary treatment as explanatory models that draw attention to the many social factors that intersect to produce inequities. Critical/anti-racist theory holds that the concept of “race” is socially constructed, rather than genetically determined. Likewise, intersectionality holds that multiple socially constructed categories of difference interact within society to produce a range of inequalities.2 Because race is deemed a socially constructed category rather than a genetic or scientific category within these frameworks, racialized health inequities between persons of different races can also be deemed socially constructed rather than biological, as is the case with

breast cancer disparities between White and Black women. Racialization is defined as “the extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or ‘group’,”2 and it has been found that racialized groups tend to self-report poorer overall health than non-racialized groups.3 A study conducted between 1974 and 2004 found that Black women reported the lowest levels of self-assessed health and well-being out of all the groups studied, which has been strongly linked to higher morbidity, mortality, and functional ability.4

Occupation Socioeconomic status intersects with both gender and race in significant ways. Canadian women of all races are less likely to be employed than men, and Canadian women who are employed earn an average of 62% less than their male counterparts.12 Similarly, it has been found that women of colour are less likely to be employed than White women, 13 and that although women of all races are more likely than men to be employed in part-time, temporary, or contract employment, women of colour are disproportionately represented in this population.14 Likewise, even in workplaces with preferential hiring and affirmative action policies, Black women are often “last to be hired,” because Black men tend to be hired over Black women, and White women tend to be hired over both Black men and Black women.15 Temporary and precarious employment has been associated with poorer health outcomes, as these jobs offer little financial security, and few, if any, health care benefits.

With respect to breast cancer specifically, Black women have been found to have a lower probability of survival at any stage of diagnosis compared to White women. Likewise, Black women experience a 5-year relative survival of only 62% compared with 79% for White women.5,6 Eley et al. suggest that this disparity is likely due to the fact that Black women tend to be diagnosed at more advanced stages of the disease than their White female counterparts; they found that 30% of the Black women who participated in the study presented with stage III or stage IV breast cancer compared with 18% of the White women participants. However, in a study conducted by Bradley et al., breast cancer outcomes were not found to be statistically significantly different between Black and White women after the social factors of age and socioeconomic status had been accounted for.7 This suggests that it is insufficient to examine race as the sole factor contributing to this inequity.

With respect to breast cancer specifically, higher rates of precarious employment have been proposed as a potential reason why Black women tend to be diagnosed at more advanced stages than their White women counterparts, because precarious and temporary employment leaves little flexibility to negotiate time off to seek treatment, and does not typically offer sufficient health care coverage for treatment if it is necessary.17 Income & Education

Gender and Socioeconomic Status as Factors of Breast Cancer Inequity

Socioeconomic status also intersects with gender and race in the domain of income. Although the wage gap appears to be narrowing, men still dominate higherearning groups and comprise a relatively small proportion of workers in lower-earning groups, while the majority of women still remain in lowest earning categories across the board.2 Likewise, there is an additional wage gap between racialized and nonracialized earners in Canada. Employment income for racialized persons was found to be 15% lower than the national average in 2011, and for racialized women, this inequity was found to be even greater.3 Women with higher incomes are more likely to receive screening for breast cancer in both Canada and the United States.4 Lower-income women are more likely to have later stages of disease at the time of diagnosis and poorer breast cancer survival when

Socioeconomic status refers to an individual’s position in society, and is measured by three components: occupation, income, and education.8 Low socioeconomic status has been found to be one of the largest risk factors for poor breast cancer outcomes, regardless of race, and it is considered to be one of the primary determinants of health in Canada.9,10 It has been found that people with the lowest socioeconomic status experience the highest rates of morbidity and morality, and that as socioeconomic status increases, health improves relative to it.11

compared to high-income women.2

NOTES

In terms of education, there exists a correlation between higher levels of education and higher levels of self-reported health; those with lower levels of educational attainment report worse overall health than those with higher levels of education.3 Similarly, a correlation appears between higher education and regular screening for breast cancer. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to receive regular screening and are more likely to be knowledgeable about the risks and benefits of mammography screening and early cancer detection than those with lower levels of education.4 With respect to race, although women represent the majority of students in postsecondary institutions in Canada,5 White women are disproportionately represented among this population.6 Likewise, it has been widely theorized that many educational institutions operate on racialized, biased curriculums, which systematically disadvantage non-White groups, including Black women.7 This disparity in education may help to additionally explain the differing rates in breast cancer detection between White and Black women.

Canadian Cancer Society’s Advisory Committee on Cancer Statistics, Canadian Cancer Statistics 2013 (Toronto: Canadian Cancer Society, 2013). 2. C. DeSantis et al., “Breast Cancer Statistics, 2013,” CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 64, no. 1 (2014): 52-62. 3. Canadian Cancer Society, “Breast Cancer Statistics,” Breast Cancer Society of Canada, 2013, http:// www.bcsc.ca/p/46/l/105/t/Breast-Cancer-Society-ofCanada---Statistics 4. B.L. Wells and J.W. Horm, “Stage at Diagnosis in Breast Cancer: Race and Socioeconomic Factors,” American Journal of Public Health 82, no. 10 (1992): 1383-1385. 5. A. Ghafoor et al., “Trends in Breast Cancer by Race and Ethnicity,” CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 53, no. 6 (2003): 342-355. 6. D.F. Williams, “Racial/Ethnic Variations in Women’s Health: The Social Embeddedness of Health,” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 4 (2002): 588-597. 7. Enakshi Dua, “Canadian Anti-Racist Feminist Thought: Scratching the Surface,” in Open Boundaries: A Canadian Women’s Studies Reader (3rd ed.), eds. Barbara A. Crow and Lise Gotell (Toronto: Pearson Publishing, 2009), 35-48. 8. Himani Bannerji, “Introducing Racism: Notes Towards an Anti-Racist Feminism,” in Open Boundaries: A Canadian Women’s Studies Reader (3rd ed.), eds. Barbara A. Crow and Lise Gotell (Toronto: Pearson Publishing, 2009), 29-35. 9. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241-1299. 10. Sarah Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health: Intersectionality & Multiple Axes of Inequality” (lecture, McGill University, Montréal, QC, January 21, 2014). 11. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 12. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), quoted in Sarah Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health: Intersectionality & Multiple Axes of Inequality” (lecture, McGill University, Montréal, QC, January 21, 2014). 13. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 14. Jason L. Cummings and Pamela Braboy Jackson, “Race, Gender, and SES Disparities in Self-Assessed Health, 1974-2004” Research on Aging 30, no. 137 (2008): 137-168. 15. H.H. Dayal, R.N. Power, and C. Chiu, “Race and SocioEconomic Status in Survival from Breast Cancer,” Journal of Chronic Diseases 35, no. 8 (1982): 675-683.

Conclusion Overall, it appears that the intersecting factors of race, gender, and socioeconomic status strongly influence the prevalence, diagnosis, and progression of breast cancer among Black women in Canada and the United States. This paper emphasizes the importance of an intersectional analysis when examining health disparities between different groups, and seeks to move beyond categorizing identity into linear categories. Using anti-racist feminist thought as the primary theoretical framework indicates that multiple categories of difference intersect along a variety of axes of oppression to produce inequalities, which in turn indicates that more than race must be taken into consideration when attempting to explain breast cancer inequities. According to feminist scholar Enakshi Dua, anti-racist feminist thought aims to shed light on “the process by which racialization produces differences among women, challenging the idea that a common experience with gender exists.”8 This paper has been an attempt to promote and implement this framework within the context of breast cancer inequities in Black women in Canada and the United States.

16.

J.W. Eley et al., “Racial Differences in Survival from Breast Cancer: Results of the National Cancer Institute Black/White Cancer Survival Study,” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 272, no. 12 (1994): 947-954. 17. C.J. Bradley, C.W. Given, and C. Roberts, “Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Breast Cancer Treatment and Survival,” JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute 94, no. 7 (2002): 490-496. 18. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 19. Dayal, Power, and Chiu, “Race and Socio-Economic Status in Survival from Breast Cancer” 20. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 21. Colleen Reid, “Women’s Health and the Politics of Poverty and Exclusion,” in Women’s Health in Canada: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Policy, eds. Marina Morrow, Olena Hankivsky, and Colleen Varcoe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 18-31. 22. Elizabeth McGibbon and C. McPherson, “Applying Intersectionality & Complexity Theory to Address the Social Determinants of Women’s Health,” Women’s Health & Urban Life 10, no. 1 (2011): 59-86. 23. McGibbon and McPherson, “Applying Intersectionality & Complexity Theory to Address the Social Determinants of Women’s Health”. 24. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 25. Ibid. 26. Reid, “Women’s Health and the Politics of Poverty and Exclusion”. 27. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 28. Reid, “Women’s Health and the Politics of Poverty and Exclusion”. 29. McGibbon and McPherson, “Applying Intersectionality & Complexity Theory to Address the Social Determinants of Women’s Health”. 30. S.J. Katz, J.K. Zemencuk, and T.P. Hofer, “Breast Cancer Screening in the United States and Canada, 1994: Socioeconomic Gradients Persist,” American Journal of Public Health 90, no. 5 (2000): 799-803. 31. C.J. Bradley, C.W. Given, and C. Roberts, “Disparities in Cancer Diagnosis and Survival,” Cancer 91, no. 1 (2001): 178-188. 32. Cummings and Jackson, “Race, Gender, and SES Disparities in Self-Assessed Health, 1974-2004”. 33. Katz, Zemencuk, and Hofer, “Breast Cancer Screening in the United States and Canada, 1994”. 34. Statistics Canada, “Postsecondary Enrolment and Graduation October 2009,” Education Indicators in Canada: Fact Sheets, last modified October 28, 2009, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-599-x/81-599-x2009003eng.htm 35. G. Kao and J.S. Thompson, “Racial and Ethnic

Stratification in Educational Achievement and Attainment,” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 417-442. 36. Berry, “Theorizing Gender & Health”. 37. Enakshi Dua, introduction to Scratching the Surface: Canadian, Anti-Racist, Feminist Thought, eds. Enakshi Dua and Angela Robertson (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1999), 7-8.

Sex Work in Canada & Bill C-36 Kareem Ibrahim

On December 6th, 2014, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act came into full effect. The irony in this is doubtlessly in that this act endeavours to eradicate sex work, under the guise that it is a form of human trafficking, by criminalizing its purchase and all related communications. Sex work around the world has always been a topic of great controversy and this recent poorly timed legislation has made this discussion become increasingly relevant. Many features of society that are in strong opposition to the liberation of sex workers include religious groups, sex-negativity in our hyper-sexualized society, gender essentialism, antitrafficking feminism and gendered oppression. In Canada, despite a move to a more progressive view of sex work with the Supreme Court striking down many of Canada’s prostitution laws in the past year, Bill C-36 now compromises the safety of sex workers across the nation as the purchase of this service has now been criminalized. On December 3rd, 20132, the Court held that sections 210 (keeping a common bawdy-house), 212(1)(j) (living on the avails of prostitution) and 213(1)(c) (communicating for the purpose of engaging in prostitution) of the Criminal Code imposed dangerous conditions on prostitution and violated section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person.3 When adult sex work is criminalized, sex workers experience decreased control over the conditions of their work and often become subject to increased violence and discrimination. The federal Conservative government reacted quickly and emphatically to this decision, tabling a new proposal in the House of Commons on 4 June 2014. Bill C-36, The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, has been under review and revision since that time and will almost certainly be passed into law during the fall 2014 sitting of the

House of Commons.4 Gender-based violence is a very pressing issue both in Canada and abroad, but it is not due to the existence of the sex work industry, contrary to ideas perpetuated by popular culture and stereotypes. In this essay, I’ll explore the history of the sex workers’ movement in Canada and Bill C-36, in addition to examining the issues behind this form of gendered oppression. As Kimmel accurately notes, “Gender identities are both voluntary and coerced; we are pressured, forced, sanctioned, and often physically beaten into submission to some rules.”2 Despite the strong arguments regarding the importance of sex work , many of the voices that were highly in favour of Bill C-36 saw it as doing Canadian society a favour by making this practice much more difficult to engage in, namely because many felt that sex work is a form of human trafficking and has very few “voluntary” aspects to it. The Sex Professionals of Canada3 spoke actively against this notion, reminding politicians that although many statistics point to the unfortunate tragedies that often force people into prostitution, there are many women that do it of their own volition with additionally many more women that rely on this work to sustain themselves.4 Similarly to the many conservative and religious groups that actively spoke out against sex work and its existence in Canada, “these groups have come together to advocate for harsher criminal and economic penalties against traffickers, prostitutes' customers, and nations deemed to be taking insufficient steps to stem the flow of trafficked women.”2 In India, similar movements for and against sex work emerged as early as the 1980s3, but the existence of “a pervasive gender bias in the judiciary”4 stunted progress. It’s noted that, “Organizations such as Sakshi in Delhi have reported very conservative views among the judiciary in surveys and have worked to train judges in new ways

of thinking about gender.”2 India and Canada are comparable in that laws concerning sex work have not come close to satisfying their mandate, because “Despite the amendment of rape and dowry laws during the I980s, for example, these laws have not been enforced or implemented. The problem of dowry murders continues.”3 Much the same way, Canadian activists and critics of recent legislation have expressed how “Bill C-36 advances a conservative moralism under the auspices of protecting the vulnerable from exploitation.”4, leaving women more vulnerable to violence than before. As Koczberski recognized when analyzing women in development, many aid policies and programmes, “fail to acknowledge the specific social and cultural context of women’s lives”5,which is similar to this new legislation.

rights. There is a power struggle between those that lump sex work in with human trafficking and those that stand for basic rights and freedoms by giving economic agency to many financially and sexually oppressed groups, namely female sex workers.11 Evangelical advocacy around human trafficking both in Canada and the US was supported by the government, through both direct funding and the general preference that the state gave to Catholic activist groups at the time.12 An important consideration in the dialogue surrounding sex work and human trafficking is how we define these ambiguous terms, specifically the latter. It’s stated that, “Trafficking as defined in current federal law and in international protocols could conceivably encompass sweatshop labor, agricultural work, or even corporate crime, but it has been the far less common instances of sexually trafficked women and girls that have stimulated the most concern by conservative Christians, prominent feminist activists, and the press.”13 In order to maintain consistent and just legislation, why are we not targeting Canadian corporate groups that inflict similar kinds of harm nationally and internationally? As Brian McLaren, a progressive evangelical author and activist noted, "It's disturbing that nonprofits can raise money to fight sex trafficking in Cambodia but it's much harder to raise awareness about bad trade policies in the U.S. that keep Cambodia poor so that it needs sex trafficking.”14 This notion reflects the ongoing colonial project and how too often we overlook our own imperialist attitudes, as a state, when we are probably inflicting more harm abroad than we claim to be preventing within our own country. This is made evident in that “There is a large body of critical feminist literature documenting the ways in which Western feminist forays into the international human rights terrain are inseparable from neocolonial state interests.”15

Yet the question remains; why does one choose to pursue sex work to begin with? Countless misinformed stereotypes may point to preposterous conclusions such as laziness to find other work or to no conclusion at all, but the stark realities are more tangible and founded. It’s asserted that, “Seventy to 80 percent of those involved in the Canadian sex industry began as children...and 80 to 95 percent are fleeing sexual abuse that usually began at home.”6 This connects to the issue of gendered oppression at play both in Canada and worldwide. As Davis accurately notes, “Gender is colonially-influenced power inequalities that are reproduced by institutions”7, which makes it easier to understand why it is not only women that take part in the sex work industry but also men, namely gay men.8 Widespread poverty and gendered violence perpetuate the dangers surrounding sex work, and this has resulted in the growth of a large industry that accounts for millions of workers worldwide, many of which legally have the right to pursue this occupation, such being the case in Canada.9 The beginning of the twentieth century saw much action on prostitution abolition, in the US particularly, as tensions surrounding migration, urbanization and industrial capitalism began to mount and “a series of red-light abatement acts, which brought the nation's first era of widescale, commercialized prostitution to a close.”10 Pioneers of the early women’s movement, Laura Lederer, Dorchen Leidholdt and Donna Hughes as prominent participants in the antitrafficking movement, came as a surprise to many of the grassroots feminists of the early second wave who advocated heavily for women’s reproductive

In a world where society is not male-dominated and where the labour force and decision-making bodies do not exclude women, it is likely that legislation such as Bill C-36 would have never come into effect and the issues that perpetuate these uncomfortable culture shifts would be less prominent. As Acker accurately notes, “Gendered expectations and behaviours of top corporate [and political] leaders seem to continue to be defined in terms set by hegemonic masculinities, even when women fill these positions.”2 The overall exclusion of women from the

labour force, even if it exists in decreasing amounts today, has resulted in women occupying lower-paying jobs, if any at all. As globalization increases, women are disproportionately affected, with poverty pushing women into sex work, with the continuing devaluation of jobs that are predominantly occupied by women, including household work and prostitution, and with decreasing state welfare for single mothers and others who need it.2 Sex work is a great example of how gendered oppression has taken multiple forms through both the delegitimization of a female-dominated industry3 and through the silencing of voices from a large population consisting mostly of women, specifically those in financial need.

Like most social issues, there is a great deal of intersectionality in gendered oppression that is at play in rendering sex work an unsafe practice through this new legislation. As Kimmel notes, “sex role theory see these differences as aberrations, as the failure to conform with the normal sex role”7, one of the founding ideologies behind gender norms and the dangerous generalizing mentalities that allow for marginalized groups such as Indigenous, queer, and non-white sex workers to fall through the cracks and experience multiple difficulties and violence in their practice.8 Classism, racism, colonialism and sexism all play prominent roles in further propagating the dangers surrounding the sex work industry for the respective marginalized groups. For example, a concrete way in which classism manifests is that only people with the means and resources are granted a voice to advocate. This is rarely the affected group, given that sex work is most often pursued out of financial need.9 Numerous organization advocate on the behalf of sex workers and other marginalized groups, such as Pivot Legal, Sex Professionals of Canada, the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Stella and many more. In addition to giving a voice to sex workers, these groups also cater to the ignored needs of some of these marginalized groups. They address striking inequalities, such as the fact that Indigenous women are 3-5 times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women.10 In addition, it certainly adds to the struggles of the sex work industry that publicly-funded religious groups speak strongly in opposition to prostitution and its existence, evidently a feature of neo-colonialism.11 Sex-negativity and antipornography easily align with the rhetoric used by antitrafficking groups who have decided to advocate heavily against the legalization of sexual service purchase. Despite the fact that many prominent feminist leaders subscribe to these mentalities, the large majority of the resistance comes from religious and conservative backgrounds.12

The implementation of this policy will not just return the sex work industry to its previously dangerous and violent state, but it will exacerbate the issue through the creation of two new prostitution-related criminal offences. The following three overarching objectives apply for all provisions of Bill C-36: “protecting prostitutes, considered to be victims of sexual exploitation, protecting communities from the harms caused by prostitution and reducing the demand for sexual services.”4 In addition, the new offences include prohibiting an individual from purchasing sexual services at any time and in any place and forbidding advertising the sale of others’ sexual services.5 Essentially, in order to work in the sex industry legally, one needs to work in complete isolation and silence. Sex workers are currently required to work under such circumstances if they wish to avoid arrest and incarceration; needless to say, most workers are unable to meet these requirements. Without distinguishing between those who exploit sex workers and those who safely help keep the industry alive, Bill C-36 is aiming to put an end to prostitution. The Supreme Court’s statement illustrates this exact phenomenon: “The law punishes everyone who lives on the avails of prostitution without distinguishing between those who exploit prostitutes (for example, controlling and abusive pimps) and those who could increase the safety and security of prostitutes (for example, legitimate drivers, managers, or bodyguards). It also includes anyone involved in business with a prostitute, such as accountants or receptionists. In these ways, the law includes some conduct that bears no relation to its purpose of preventing the exploitation of prostitutes. The living on the avails provision is therefore overbroad.”6

Given the results of the Bedford Decision2 and the current realities that sex workers face with Bill C-36, this act is in dire need of revision in order to provide a safe working environment for those in the sex work industry and to avoid violating the constitutional rights and freedoms of this group. Hundreds of organizations have spoken out against this new legislation which will increase violence against sex workers and force them into unsafe situations in order for them continue their work. Although some of the

underlying notions behind this antitrafficking effort are valid in that there are patterns of violence in the sex work industry, as “prostituted women are 60-120 times more likely to be murdered than the general public.”2, there is a fine line between protection and perpetuating danger. As a society, we must target all forms of violence equally, without attempting to erase an entire population of workers in an industry that exists on constitutional and legal grounds through contradictory legislation. The policy should be revised in a manner consistent with the decisions of the Supreme Court in December 2013. It’s no surprise that “…all nine justices on Canada’s highest court were convinced that the legislation, singly and together, created an intolerable situation for those providing sexual services by making it nearly impossible for sex workers to carry out their legal occupation safely.”3 In order to better serve marginalized groups, it’s important to listen to the voices of those communities rather than impose legislation that completely alters their experience without consultation or consideration. If the policy is to adhere to its title, then essential revisions would include unionization of sex workers and the legalization of purchasing sexual services. Although together, “the proposed legislation actually surpasses previous legislation’s scope and potential impact”4 there is little doubt that it would not withstand a Charter challenge, giving hope to sex workers across Canada. Disproportionate violence against women and marginalized groups, namely sexual violence, is certainly a reality that needs to be addressed5, but targeting the sex work industry as a whole is not the right way to go about this, as this further marginalizes large groups of unprotected workers.

3. Brock, Deborah & Texeira, Robert, “Beyond Exploitation and Trafficking: Canadian Critical Perspectives on Sex Work.” 74. 4. Michael Kimmel. 2000. “Chapter 5 - Inequality and Difference: The Social Construction of Gender Relations.” The Gendered Society Reader. Oxford. 5. Sexual Professionals of Canada (SPOC). (Dec 2). http:// www.spoc.ca 6.. Ibid. 7. Elizabeth Beirnstein. Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights and Freedom in Contemporary Anti-trafficking Campaigns. Signs, 2010. 8. Sally Merry. 2006. “Chapter 4: Disjunctures between Global Law and Local Justice.” Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. 9. Ibid. 10.Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Brock, Deborah & Texeira, Robert, “Beyond Exploitation and Trafficking: Canadian Critical Perspectives on Sex Work.” 74. 13. Gina Koczberski. 1998. “Women in Development: A Critical Analysis.” Third World Quarterly 14. The Canadian Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation – Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. (Dec 2). < http://www.catwinternational.org/> 15. Josh Wingrove. “Canada's new prostitution laws: Everything you need to know” - The Globe and Mail. (Dec 2) <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ canadas-new-prostitution-laws-everything-you-need-toknow/article19610318/> 16. The Canadian Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation – Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. 17. Legislative Summary of Bill C-36: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. (Dec 2). 18. Berstein. Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights and Freedom in Contemporary Anti-trafficking Campaigns. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Joan Acker. "Gender, Capitalism, and Globalization." In Critical Sociology. 2004 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid.

NOTES 1. Brock, Deborah & Texeira, Robert, “Beyond Exploitation and Trafficking: Canadian Critical Perspectives on Sex Work,” Labour/Le Travail, 74 (Fall 2014). 2. Legislative Summary of Bill C-36: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. (Dec 2). http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/ LegislativeSummaries/bills_ls.asp? ls=C36&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=2&source=library_prb& Language=E

27. Legislative Summary of Bill C-36: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. (Dec 2). http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/ LegislativeSummaries/bills_ls.asp? ls=C36&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=2&source=library_prb& Language=E 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Kimmel. “Chapter 5 - Inequality and Difference: The Social Construction of Gender Relations.” 31. Sexual Professionals of Canada (SPOC). (Dec 2). http://www.spoc.ca 32. Brock, Deborah & Texeira, Robert, “Beyond Exploitation and Trafficking: Canadian Critical Perspectives on Sex Work,” Labour/Le Travail, 74 (Fall 2014). 33. Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). (Dec 2). www.nwac.ca/en/ documentsSISLiteratureReview_March2008_Final.pdf 34. Berstein, Elizabeth. Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights and Freedom in Contemporary Anti-trafficking Campaigns. Signs, 2010. 35. Ibid. 36. Legislative Summary of Bill C-36: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. (Dec 2). 37. The Canadian Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation – Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. 38. Brock, Deborah & Texeira, Robert, “Beyond Exploitation and Trafficking: Canadian Critical Perspectives on Sex Work.” 74. 39. Ibid. 40. Jakobsen, Hilde. 2014. “What’s Gendered about Gender-Based Violence?” Gender and Society.

Ashley Hobson-Garcia - “Within the House”

Complicating Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Applying the frame of Human Rights to Muslim Women in India Ashley Hobson-Garcia Introduction

standpoints of Muslim women, by creating a standard from which an egalitarian position can be realized. I will begin by critically discussing the complexities of an HR framework in a postcolonial setting. I will then utilize these insights to analyze the condition of Muslim Women in India, with a focus on personal family law. Finally, I will assert that the application of HR must remain pliable if it is to be viable. My task is to forward HR as a pragmatic base for Muslim Women’s empowerment.

The empowerment of subaltern women has always been questioned, moreover, the true extent of their emancipation as liberated subjects constantly doubted. To conceive Indian women as passive beings requiring western remedy is an incomplete assessment hinged upon western liberty norms. Furthermore, under the ‘woman question,’ Indian women were envisioned solely as ‘victims’ requiring ‘saving’ and ‘protection’ by colonialists, nationalists, and now modern westerners. To reduce Indian women to victim status is a gross injustice, only furthering western agendas, and specifically elevating western subjects to saviour status. Constructed as ‘victims’ of patriarchy, violence, and discrimination, Indian women then become targets for western intervention. Within the diverse category, that is Indian women, exist the subset Muslim women. ‘Othered’ within the Indian state, Muslim women inhabit a unique location bearing the burdens of severe discrimination, and legal disadvantage in the private sphere, due to personal family law. Personal family law not only constructs women’s marginalization in the ‘private’ sphere, but also disadvantages them in the public domain. With the inarguable existence of oppression and ‘quasi citizenship,’ the remedy to Muslim women’s status is a complicated task. Superficially, extensive claims of Human Rights (HR) for the world’s women, notably the clichéd ‘destitute’ third-world women, may seem liberating, but these are largely impotent, unless contextualized. To contextualize does not mean to employ a cultural relativist argument, but rather, to mediate between universalism and cultural relativism, to extend a pragmatic base from which the conversion of norms of women’s rights are given currency in postcolonial India. This paper will argue that while the gendering of HR has afforded women increased recognition, its potency as an effective framework lies in its rendition in local contexts, and its ability to influence the

Convention on the Elimination All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) Important to this analysis is the IHR law, specifically the Convention on the Elimination All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW). Under this HR treaty, women are guaranteed equality, non-discrimination, a n d s t a t e o b l i g a t i o n . C E D AW " c o n d e m n s discrimination against women in all its forms” (Article 2). Simply, CEDAW requires states to take the necessary steps to eliminate discrimination through the modification of varied social and cultural areas, in both public and private domains.2 Needless to say, CEDAW, an international convention on gender equality, is a useful frame for women faced with discrimination, such as the group Muslim women. Specific to this paper, India ratified CEDAW 1993 and subsequently employed it in varying levels.3 At the individual level, women challenge the justice system by seeking recognition for rights, using norms of equality and nondiscrimination as bases for appeals.4 At the judiciary level, the Supreme Court of India embodies the principals of CEDAW in national legislation.5 Lastly, the legislature has increasingly drafted laws in accordance to CEDAW.6 CEDAW, the international convention of women’s human rights, has had an effect on the ‘formal’ Indian context, but inarguably it is not an extensive one.7 Thus, problematizing International Human Rights is an essential step.

neglected aspects” of global rights agendas.11 With a global call for women’s rights as human rights questions of homogenizations and specificity are key.12 For this reason, the gendering of HR allowed for a focus on women, but not without limitations.13 Limiting its effectiveness are questions of the role of law and the grouping of women for women’s rights.

Problematizing Women’s Human Rights To fully explain HR as a useful device in the postcolonial setting is to frame it within the discourses of law, feminism, and postcolonial theory. These theories are not mutually exclusive but can work in concert to create a complete frame of HR, one that can be helpful to women in diverse cultural settings. From its inception, HR ascribed an international moral vision based on the exclusion of the ‘others,’ colonized persons, and women, thereby advancing and legitimizing colonialist and imperialist agendas.2 Created upon dichotomous constructs of East versus West, and the civilized versus the uncivilized, its western imperialist foundation cannot be denied. Also crucial are the ways in which it was utilized as a “tool of coercion by […] countries with differing value systems” believed to be superior or proper.3 In both accounts the latter of the binary, the ‘other,’ was essentialized and reduced to an inferior status collated to the West. Despite its proclivity to reduce and universalize states and citizens branded as the ‘other,’ Uprendra Baxi declares Human Rights as a gift to culture and civilization.4 But I argue, it is a ‘gift’ that must be qualified and malleable, especially for the persons it is geared towards. Notwithstanding the merit of HR to preserve, protect, and promote basic rights of persons, Baxi also problematizes its application in ‘so-called’ third world settings.5 Notably, “human rights matter only if they can ameliorate suffering and give voice to the human suffering.”6 Baxi explains that human rights “action [can be a] blueprint for a just society; but [it is] a blueprint with vacant spaces.”7 It is this vacancy which I contend, needs to be filled, before HR can be applicable to settings outside its Western birth. Envisioning HR as a largely incomplete blueprint allows for it to become a pliable and changing structure. Filling this void are the necessary qualifications of gender, religion, and culture, distinct to diverse settings. Equally important is the legalization of HR and the ways in which it can be interpreted and promoted by states. Nevertheless, one must gingerly execute this task mindful not to reinscribe neo-imperialist agendas, homogenizing categories of gender, and absolute descriptions for religion and culture.8 With such a complicated intention, post-colonial theory is necessary component.

Although the addition of gender to HR was beneficial for the recognition of violence against women, it was a narrow retort, especially when integrated or confederated with law. Ratna Kapur problematizes this narrowing of women’s claims to social justice in human rights.2 Notably Kapur argues, that human rights laws prioritize legal strategies, and thus promote the sense that human rights frames are representative of women’s progressed status.3 Adding to this, legal strategies have “discursive effects on the meanings of gender, culture, and subjectivity,” and such meanings remove the heterogeneity of women.4 Lastly, the way in which the discourses of law constitute subjects through assumptions of culture, can in turn deepen cultural essentialism, reinforcing tropes about third-world women.5 Increasing the marginalization of women, is the added tension “in the translation of women’s human rights into law,” in which the state persists as the core of the liberation process.6 Liberation then becomes equated with the legal responses of the state, which may not always be an emancipatory ally to women.7 “The legalization of human rights reinforce the notion of third world women as victims, while simultaneously reinforcing the first-world and third world divide.”8 Ultimately Kapur proposes that the dialogue between women’s rights and laws require review. Indeed, it needs to be “re-conceptualized as a discursive [site] where competing normative visions of the world are fought out and dominant meanings destabilized, supplanting these with alternate understandings.”2 Similarly, it must account for the subalterns outside the circuits of power, “those who have to struggle to evade […] hegemonic formations in which law is exercised.”3 As explained above, the blueprint of human rights must be open to alteration. Beyond gendering, HR needs to be responsive to gendered subalterns. Vrinda Narain powerfully declares, “human rights can be both an emancipatory ally as well as an emissary of the state.”4 It is with such insights that I further my analysis in understanding how HR, though limiting, can be useful to the gendered subaltern in India, and her relationship with the state.

Extending this analysis, I will now elaborate on how such modifications are valuable for the ‘blueprint’ of HR. The gendering of HR is not a new phenomenon, but under the popular slogan “women’s rights are human rights,” a heightened consideration for the condition of women was realized.9 Furthermore, it was under this platform that there began a “ moving of women from the margin to the center.”10 Consequently it required states to “take better account of women’s lives” and recognize that “women’s issues are not separated, but [rather] are

Muslim Women in India Having outlined some necessary qualifications for HR as a constructive blueprint for subalterns, this paper will now describe the position of Muslim women in India. Muslim women face significant challenges as citizens and members of the largest minority.2 The constitution

settings.16 As illustrated in the Shah Bano case, questions of gender justice and minority rights are neglected factors that must be considered.17 Also important is the strong hold that the patriarchy wields in India, specifically the ways in which the patriarchy and religious fundamentalists prevented Shah Bano from obtaining equality. Indeed, the Shah Bano case can be used not only to exemplify the intersections of gender and religious identities, but also their ties in assigning unequal citizenship status. The case also displays how the Indian state’s commitment to democracy, secularism, religious freedom, women’s equality and constitutional rights, can be minimized.18 The Indian state neglected to enforce the constitutional principles in the private domain. Equally limiting, the Indian state is wary to initiate direct reform to Muslim personal law, believing that legitimate and effective change must be from within. Importantly, religious personal law is protected as a minority right, a state priority.19 Considering these factors I want to forward this argument to include the salient factors at work.

of India guarantees equality and freedom from discrimination. 2 Nevertheless, the law in India unequally differentiates between individuals on the grounds of religion, and further marginalizes persons on the basis of gender. Personal law is discriminatory to women and further denies women equal rights within the family.3 Herein, religion becomes a factor in the delegation of minority status, producing a system of ‘differential’ citizenship.4 Religious personal laws are maintained and justified under the protection of religious freedom and minority group rights.5 While ostensibly committed to secularist policy in the ‘public domain,’ the state remains impotent in the ‘private sphere.’ For this reason constitutional guarantees are not translated equally to all citizens, and Muslim women can be described as holding a ‘quasi’ citizenship status. Specialized in this discussion, Narain notes, “Muslim women are simultaneously included and excluded from equal citizenship, as the state’s guarantee of equality does not extend to the private sphere of family.”6 Under the guise of multiculturalism and group rights, women’s rights and equality are not translated to the private sphere and are rendered invisible. Materializing this invisibility, is the controversial Shah Bano case and the following Muslim women’s Protection of the Rights on Divorce Act.7 Under this 1985 case, the Supreme Court called for a uniform civil code, which would give all women, irrespective of faith, equal rights, these including alimony and maintenance.8 In this judgment, Shah Bano, a 73-year of Muslim divorcee, was granted maintenance, to be paid by her husband under the criminal code.9 Herein, the court placed its judgment as part of the criminal code rather than civil, receiving all personal law.10 Opposing such a decision, male religious leaders convinced the Supreme Court to overrule the decision and enact a new law controlling Muslim women’s access to spousal support, removing the husband’s duty to support.11 Here Muslim women were again denied the guarantees of equal citizenship. The state neglected to administer the constitutional principles in the ‘private sphere,’ appeasing male religious leaders.12 As evidenced above, within the Indian context exists the conflict of personal law, identity, and gender rights.13 For these reasons Muslim women are tied to unequal citizenship and existence within competing notions of rights. Hasan notes that little attention has been focused on the multiple cross cutting identities of Muslim women based on class, language, and religion among others.14 Indeed, “the system of personal law always has created a legal and social quagmire.”15

With a clear disconnect between HR and the reality of Muslim women in India, the obvious question is how to bridge this gap? How can the vacancies within the blueprint of HR be filled so as to empower subaltern women, but still remain open to change? Admittedly, the answers to these questions are multifarious, and thus, moving beyond the articulation of HR is a difficult endeavor. Within CEDAW rests the necessary gender and specific guarantees of equality and nondiscrimination that Muslim women need. Here India’s formal ratification of CEWDAW is helpful. 20 Accordingly, HR can be a used as a normative framework for Muslim women to seek the necessary equality and non-discrimination grants they require when utilizing the courts for remedy. Nonetheless, the blueprint of HR must exist for the service of subaltern women, and must be inclusive of their unique and intersecting positions. Implicit is the notion of the subaltern’s choice to engage with, or dismiss HR frames. In short, viewing HR as an incomplete, and possibly never complete blueprint, is important for the flexibility that any international frame requires. HR as a pragmatic base, can allow Muslim women the opportunity to “reclaim a selfhood freedom from essentialist definitions of gender identity and group interests.“2 Accounting for HR’s western birth, and its inclination to rely on essentialist conception of subject and remedies is crucial. Resonating here, is Chandra Mohanty, who concentrates on the production of ‘third world woman’ as a “singular monolithic subject.”3 She argues the homogeneity of ‘women’ as a group is not rooted in biology but rather in the “sameness in their

Beyond Rhetoric to Application Annie Bunting argues that HR approaches need to be more reactive to the needs of women in diverse cultural

oppression.”2 Therefore, the “discursively consensual homogeneity of women as group is interpreted as reality for all women further enforcing the representations of women as powerless, and exploited.”3 Offering interesting insights to this case is Inderpal Grewal’s theorizations on transnational feminism, which necessitates attentiveness to the intersections of nationhood, race, gender and economic exploitation.4 Speaking on Muslim Personal Laws, Grewal notes that what she terms the theory of “commonality and simplicity”, as it is presenting in the [discourse of HR], cannot enable us to understand women as subjects, as agents of progress' nor can it enable the fashioning of tools that would address the particular configuration of power, in the ‘scattered hegemonies’ that women live.5 Grewal notes that if feminist praxis are to address the “multiply constituted and linked hegemonic formations (not only capital or class)” that work within women’s lives, it must recognize the ‘sites of struggles,'6 struggles to address the universalizing and common sense discourse of HR.

subaltern voices it attempts to aid. My paper has not set forth any tangible solution to the unequal status of Muslim women, but I have alluded to the usefulness of two descriptions of HR, envisioning HR as a largely incomplete blueprint, from which post-colonial feminist must advance useful propositions against ‘victim status,’ binary thinking, western superiority, and universalism and totalizing discourses. Secondly, I have framed it as a pliable and pragmatic base for further action, importantly, the actions of feminist and subalterns themselves. HR is the pragmatic base for Muslim women’s empowerment and the ration of complete citizenship. NOTES 1. "India." CEDAW South Asia India Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. 2. Ibid. 3. Vrinda Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." Human Rights Quarterly 35.1 (2013): 92. 4, Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid, 7. Upendra Baxi. "From Human Rights to the Right to Be Human: Some Heresies." India International Centre Quarterly 4th ser. 13.3 (1986): 134. 8. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India."106. 9. Baxi. "From Human Rights to the Right to Be Human: Some Heresies." 185. 10. Ibid. 11. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 106. 12. Baxi. "From Human Rights to the Right to Be Human: Some Heresies." 186. 13. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 111. 14. (Bunch). 15. Inderpal Grewal. "'Women's Rights as Human Rights': Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality." Citizenship Studies 3.3 (1999): 338. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., 351. 18. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 106. 19. Ratna Kapur. "Re-visioning the Role of Law in Women's Human Rights Struggles." The Legalization of Human Rights: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights and Human Rights Law. By Saladin Meckled-García and Başak Cali. London: Routledge, 2006. 101. 20. Ibid., 102. 21. Ibid., 107. 22. Ibid., 108. 23. Ibid., 109. 24. Ibid., 108.

Conclusion: A Mere Proposal “HR as a tool for addressing oppression now seems so much a matter of common sense that to practice critique […is] difficult.”7 Even though the gendering of human rights has given women heightened visibility, it must now re-focus its energy on being a dynamic tool for subaltern women in diverse states. Affirming this agenda Grewal, notes HR politics demands a ‘radical complexity’ in the practice of feminist politics and minority rights advocacy.8 For such a vision, there needs to be a shift from conceiving HR as only a progressive narrative. Similarly, there needs to be a move away from women’s human rights, which necessitate a homogenous category of women and fixed definitions of oppression. At the same time, although the gendering of human rights and the implementation of CEDAW has made visible women’s discrimination, non-discrimination and gender equality is yet to be a material reality for all Indian women. Through the focus on the case of Muslim women in India, this paper has sought to highlight the intersections of religious law, gender discrimination, and human rights frames. Particularly, it has focused on the ‘quasi citizenship’ of Muslim women as a problem requiring attention. Muslim women are a considerably disadvantaged subset compared to other Indian women, and non-Muslims, who benefit from constitutional guarantees. There is no simple solution to this problem, nor is the implementation of HR, beyond ‘formal’ legal settings to the private and daily lives of women, an easy or instant resolution. It is but a process, that must be qualified and considered closely, integrating the

25.

Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 107. Ratna Kapur. "Re-visioning the Role of Law in Women's Human Rights Struggles." 110. 27. Grewal. "'Women's Rights as Human Rights': Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality." 351. 28. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 115. 29. Zoya Hasan. "Gender, Religion, and Democracy in India." Third World Quarterly 31.6 (2013): 950. 30. (Rajan 148). 31. Vrinda Narain. Reclaiming the Nation: Muslim Women and the Law in India. Toronto [Ont.: University of Toronto, 2008. 5. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 95. 35. Hasan. "Gender, Religion, and Democracy in India." 943. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Narain. Reclaiming the Nation: Muslim Women and the Law in India. 12. 40. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 96. 41. Hasan. "Gender, Religion, and Democracy in India." 949. 42. Ibid., 951. 43. Ibid. 44. Annie Bunting. "Theorizing Women's Cultural Diversity in Feminist International Human Right's Strategies." Journal of Law and Society 20.6 (1993): 6. 45. Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India." 96. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., 104. 48. Ibid., 103. 49. Ibid., 114. 50. Chandra Talpade Mohanty. 2003. Feminism without borders: decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. 333. 51. Ibid., 337. 52. Ibid., 338. 53. Grewal. "'Women's Rights as Human Rights': Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality." 338. 54. Ibid., 348. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., 338. 57. Ibid., 352. 26.

Colin’s Cure: The Secret Garden’s Fantasy of Control of the Body Clara Lagacé

Disabled characters are everywhere in children’s books of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Either villains, such as the famous Captain Hook in Peter Pan, or saintly invalids like Tiny Tim in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, they are more often than not victims of the author’s flat characterization. Complex, realistic and multifaceted characterization is only given to the able-bodied heroes. However, in Frances HodgsonBurnett’s The Secret Garden, published in 1911, Colin is an unexpectedly complex “invalid”; yet still a problematic representation of disability. The novel tells the story of Mary Lennox who grew up in India, removed from all rules and expectations. Orphaned by a cholera epidemic, Mary is sent to Misselthwaite Manor, a mysterious setting where she discovers many things: a secret garden, a healthy Yorkshire friend and a disabled cousin who had been hiding away in “the huge, rambling house.”2 Through Mary’s story, the novel reveals its primary interest in health. While her cousin Colin’s disability is debated – critics claim him to be disabled, chronically ill and hypochondriac all in turn – the novel’s final moral is that a happy life is a healthy life, and, importantly, that it lies in the hands of the unhealthy to overcome their situation. Through a master narrative of cure, The Secret Garden presents a fantasy of control of the body that has gendered differences.

encounter with the gardener Ben Weatherstaff shows that when he is distracted by something else he forgets his state and “[sits] bolt upright”.4 Likewise, the narrator explicitly expresses the master narrative of cure when he declares Colin “had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had been aware of it.”5 As Rosemarie Garland-Thomson argues, “cure rather than adjustment or accommodation is the over determined cultural response to disability.”6 In this sense, regardless whether Colin is actually disabled or not, Burnett’s novel falls into line with GarlandThomson’s notion for it presents a fantasy of control of the body with its storyline about cure and its triumphant ending. In fact, the final sentence of the book displays Colin, “with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter, [walking] as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire.”7 Colin has cured himself. He is always, at all points in the story, in control of his body; he simply must recognize it. By stating that cure is the appropriate response to disability, the novel supports the view that disability and chronic illness are associated with chronic misery and unhappiness and that the “acceptance of […] one’s illness is generally perceived as ‘giving up hope.’”8 For example, Mr. Craven is a hunchback and has been unhappy for most of his life, because he has given up hope in life. Colin is miserable for the same reason. No adjustment to their situations is possible. They must be healthy to lead fulfilling lives.

As Dowker suggests, “in many books, disability and […] its cure are associated with character. Cure [results] directly from a healthier attitude to life, often implying a voluntary relinquishment of the disabled role”.3 Colin learns to hope for a different future, one that does not include a premature death, and from that point he learns to walk again. He becomes healthy because he sets his mind to it, implying that physical impairment is all in the mind. For instance, Colin’s first

Another illustration of the cultural response to disability that Garland-Thomson identifies is when Mary must learn to be “independent”. While this also has to do with the issue of her being spoilt as a young

child, it nonetheless exposes the harsh judgment reserved for less independent people. Martha exemplifies society’s judgment when she does not understand how Mary “[waits] for another person to do things for her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.”2 There is a general sense of disdain reserved for those who are unable to take care of themselves and control their bodies. Disability is often seen “as a sign of – or threshold onto – regressive dependency.”3

Colin’s disability stresses this notion: “one of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy, morbid past days had been his hatred of being a sickly, weak-backed boy, whose father was afraid to look at him.”7 A disabled person is expected to live removed from everyone else, without any human bonds. This outlook is in keeping with the “entrenched cultural prejudice that reads illness as a kind of punishment, a sign of mental weakness or moral lapse.”8 Not only is it impossible to be happy when you are ill or disabled, but the novel also shows how it is impossible to be a good human being, somehow morally lacking. Undeniably, Mary and Colin have horrid manners at the beginning of the story, repeatedly rude with everyone around them, but they evolve into perfectly lovable children as they become healthy. Their evolution is paired with the season’s movement from winter to spring to associate bad manners with nasty weather and good temper with new life.

Moreover, because disability – and poor health in the case of this novel – is understood as a state of regressive dependency, it is crucial that the characters conform to normative ideas of healthiness. Mrs. Sowerby exemplifies the cultural response to health. She is so intent on Mary and Colin recovering their health that she goes to great lengths to ensure it. She spends money she realistically cannot afford on a skipping rope for Mary to improve her health by exercising outside. The amiable woman sends baskets of home baked goods to the three young gardeners when she learns that Colin and Mary are unable to help themselves from eating the cook’s food because of their growing appetite, but wish to keep up the appearance of being sickly at the Manor. Dickon’s mother spares no expense or trouble, though she has fourteen children of her own to feed, in ensuring they regain their health. Mrs. Sowerby’s actions tacitly suggest that it is impossible to lead a fulfilling life if you are ill. A good life is a healthy life.

While the narrative of cure is present in both Mary and Colin’s storylines, there are nevertheless different fantasies of control of the body specific to each gender. Dowker claims “the main difference between the treatment of girls and boys is that there is more stress on girls learning to be useful to their families, and on boys developing and demonstrating courage.”9 Because Mary grew up in India, on the margins of British society, the folk at Misselthwaite Manor accept her odd behaviors and nonconformity as part of her exotic upbringing. Mary transgresses the gender script presented to her because “she [does not] know anything about rules.”10 She does not play the part of the passive young girl she should be playing. Mary falls into her gender script by taking care of Colin and playing an active part in the recovery of his health. She takes care of her family in that way. “[C]ultural associations of disability with dependency, childlikeness, and helplessness clash with cultural expectations of masculinity but overlap with cultural expectations of femininity.”11 Mary’s more passive state at the beginning of the novel is much less frowned upon than Colin’s confinement to his bed. Mary is expected to want to remain still and passive, without engaging too much in life. Colin on the other hand, undergoes a vast transformation, as in order to become healthy he must also conform to the master narrative of masculinity.

A good life is a healthy life because only by being healthy are the cousins allowed to form relationships and laugh. At the beginning of the novel, Mary is playfully called “Mary Mary Quite Contrary”, because she is always ill tempered and likes nobody. While she lived in India Mary had “always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything”4 but since she has moved to Misselthwaite Manor and goes and plays out of doors, her growing healthiness allows her “to care and to want to do new things.”5 The inference being that someone who is weak, sickly or disabled cannot care about anything or anyone. Colin’s condition does not allow him to interact with other people at all because as he says himself, he is always “ill and having to lie down.”6 Colin confines himself to an extremely lonely existence, refusing for people to even look at him. He internalizes the belief that his disability makes him unfit for any kind of relationship. The use of exceedingly negative imagery whenever describing

Dickon embodies masculinity. Indeed, the doctor

17.

Wendell, The Rejected Body, 62. Hodgson-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 165. 19. Ibid., 191. 20. Wendell, The Rejected Body, 60. 21. Ibid., 68.

praises Dickon, the exemplar of health, for being “as strong as a moor pony.”2 The evident comparison between both young lads illustrates the ideal of masculinity sought by Colin, but unattainable in his sickly state. When Colin begins to walk, he starts conforming to the master narrative of masculinity and cure which allows him to be “‘as straight as [Dickon].”3

18.

In conclusion, “difference remains a curse.”4 The Secret Garden’s master narrative of cure and its positive final outcome support the view that a happy life is a healthy life and that healthy lives are different for boys and girls. Colin and Mary become healthy because they want to. Even while this portrayal of disability is acknowledged as problematic, it is “unlikely that we will be open to regarding illness and disability as either sources of knowledge or valuable ways of being”5 when the novel still holds power over our cultural understanding and appreciation of disability. Novels like The Secret Garden must be examined through a disability studies lens to continue to challenge, in the hope of transforming, our insidious cultural beliefs.

NOTES 1.

Francis Hodgson-Burnett, The Secret Garden (London: Puffin Books, 1972), 52. 2. Anne Dowker, “The Treatment of Disbaility in 19th and Early 20th Century Children’s Literature,” Disability Studies Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2004). 3. Hodgsen-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 190. 4. Ibid., 208. 5. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory”, in Gendering Disability, ed. Smith, Bonnie G. and Hutchison, Beth (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutdgers University Press, 2004), 85. 6. Hodgson-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 253. 7. Susan Wendell, The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 63. 8. Hodgson-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 30. 9. Susannah Mintz, Unruly Bodies: Life Writing by Women with Disabilities (The University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 81. 10. Hodgsen-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 62. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 110. 13. Ibid., 209. 14. Mintz, Unruly Bodies, 72. 15. Dowker, “The Treatment of Disbaility in 19th and Early 20th Century Children’s Literature.” 16. Hodgson-Burnett, The Secret Garden, 35.

Julia Roberston http://www.uua.org/lgbtq/welcoming/ways/bathrooms

Conflict of Liberties: Does Pornography Deny Women Basic Freedoms?

Erica Pedersen Pornography has been a topic of much legal controversy in the past few decades. Conservative advocates of censorship have traditionally upheld a content-based obscenity argument, claiming that pornography corrupts societal morals. Given Western legal theory’s reticence to allow subjective morality to play a validating role in law, at least explicitly, and the American commitment to freedom of speech, this argument is rendered ineffective in American courts of law. In the 1980s, many feminists revived the pornography debate with a more legally substantial claim: pornography is measurably harmful to women. Championed by Catharine MacKinnon, this argument accuses some pornography of endorsing stereotypes and objectification of women, thereby shaping and reinforcing gender inequality in society.2 Particularly perceptive, or in Ronald Dworkin’s vaguely condescending words ‘imaginative,’ these feminists take this argument further to describe pornography’s more profound interference with women’s right to exercise both positive and negative liberty.

is that the abuse and degradation depicted is also, even if only implicitly, endorsed or recommended,” deliberately manipulating society’s view of women. 4 This definition may appear to involve a problematically vague test of validation in requiring proof of implicit endorsement. However, the degree to which society’s stigmatization of sexuality has repressed detailed discussion about sex has allowed the huge pornography industry to have unparalleled influence in defining sex and sexuality, which in turn gives its publications the legitimacy of endorsement; “Pornographers turn out to have authority over the sexual domain” and “whether they mean to or not, [pornographers] end up telling men and boys what sex is.”5 The largely unregulated internet has also allowed pornography to greatly expand exposure to its content in recent years and these abusive and degrading portrayals of women have become readily accessible to even the youngest and most impressionable of internetusers. Given this context and the scientifically proven links between repeated exposure and acceptance, it is difficult to deny that pornography is influential in creating and perpetuating gender inequality by normalizing the subordination of, and discrimination against, women. Feminists claim that pornography is an “influential form of propaganda vividly advocating male domination of women” and that this propaganda is all the more successful in garnering social acceptance because the implicit “male supremacist” power dynamic is disguised as sex.6 MacKinnon eloquently explains that pornography continually portrays “subjection itself, with self-determination ecstatically relinquished, [as] the content of women’s sexual desire and desirability. Women are there to be violated and possessed, men to violate and possess us [...] What pornography does goes beyond its content: it eroticizes hierarchy, it sexualizes inequality.”7 Women are thereby dehumanized and subjected to “disdainful and dismissive treatment, incompatible with [their] status as equals.”8

This paper will discuss the feminist argument for legislative action against pornography. It will first examine pornography’s role in perpetuating gender inequality and the claims of its subsequent denial of women’s positive right to self-mastery and their negative right to free speech. This paper will then discuss the validity of moral and legal grounds for censorship with reference to American Booksellers v. Hudnut.3 In conclusion, I will show that some moral and legal justification for censorship does exist as per the feminist argument, but, realistically, it may not be in the feminist movement’s best interests to pursue such legal action. Using Sexual Authority to Perpetuate Inequality Feminists like MacKinnon do not denounce erotic material on the basis of sexual expression; their focus is on harm, not obscenity. Alisa Carse explains that the key aspect of “the designation of material as ‘pornographic’

Not only does this foster bigotry and desensitize viewers to rape and physical violence against women, but it also compromises both men’s and women’s comprehension of equality of the sexes in any context, not just the sexual. Whether or not desensitization actually leads to more acts of abuse and rape has not been scientifically proven, but it is not difficult to see how this compromising of women’s status as equals could significantly obstruct their ability to exercise freedom, particularly in a traditionally maledominated society, by perpetuating damaging gender tropes.

reconstruction of female identity or is it simply a manifestation of a larger social force? Ronald Dworkin argues that, because pornography “is not in any general circulation,” it would be more plausible to classify it as a symptom of the sexism inherent in society, rather than an underlying cause.12 This initially appears to be a difficult critique, as it is almost impossible to distinguish cause from effect for self-reinforcing phenomena like social norms. However, the social positive feedback effect propagates norms through visibility, so the root cause actually becomes less important than the visible symptoms that sustain the idea. Thus assigning pornography a causal role is not as implausible as Dworkin claims, particularly now that the internet has outdated his assertion that pornography is not widespread.

Infringement on Women’s Positive Liberty A particularly salient argument against pornography draws structure and coherence from Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive freedom. According to Berlin’s theoretical framework, paraphrased by Ronald Dworkin, possessing negative liberty “means not being obstructed by others in doing whatever one might wish to do.”9 Essentially, a person may exercise negative liberty within the boundaries of legal restrictions, the negative space between laws. Contrarily, positive liberty is defined as a person’s ability to exercise self-mastery, that is, “to be the instrument of [one’s] own, not of other men’s acts of will [...] to be a subject, not an object.”10 This perspective identifies autonomy as a fundamental human right, a right that laws are created to protect.

Dworkin then shifts his critique to the magnitude of causality: even if pornography was assigned a causal role, its ability to propagate gender inequality, and thus infringe on women’s positive liberty, is “greatly overshadowed” by the impact of overt and implied sexism in more pervasive phenomena like television, pop culture, and advertising.13 On this account, feminists would benefit from crusading against sexist sentiment in these areas and the pornography industry would simply adjust to reflect the progressively less discriminatory tastes. Although valid, it may be argued that this critique underestimates the impact of the highly sexually charged context in which pornography circulates ideas. While subconscious sexism in advertising may be more prolific, depictions of female inferiority and vulnerability have an arguably stronger effect on habituation when “exposure is made vivid and compelling as it is through sexual arousal.”14

According to Berlin’s framework, pornography’s propagation of gender inequality and female subordination appears to result in a significant conflict between pornographers’ negative liberty to free speech and women’s ability to exercise positive liberty. According to many feminists, pornography defines women as sexual objects devoid of autonomy. This representation transcends the sexual realm and effectively “shape[s] [women’s] social image and reputation, which controls their access to opportunities more powerfully than their individual abilities ever do.”11 In short, discrimination in pornography denies women, as a group, their positive right to self-mastery and thus contributes to their exclusion, particularly from economic and political leadership roles, in an already patriarchal society. Despite this denial of positive rights, pornographers’ more explicit right to free speech has traditionally taken precedence, as will be shown in the American Booksellers v. Hudnut case.

Violating Women’s Negative Liberty Some feminist critics dive further into Berlin’s duality of freedom to bring forward pornography’s additional role in suppressing women’s ability to exercise negative liberty. Frank Michelman, for instance, argues that: A woman’s speech may be silenced not just by noise intended to drown her out but also by argument and image that change [a woman’s] audience’s perceptions of her character, needs, desires, and standing, and also, perhaps, change her own sense of who she is and what she wants.15

A primary critique of Berlin’s framework raises the question of causality: does pornography produce this

These critics argue that in defining and propagating a stereotype of women as subservient objects, pornography denies women their right to exercise control over society’s perception of them, and thus contributes to the construction of a silencing context from which women’s speech cannot break free. Like refracted light through a prism, women’s words are distorted by widely held stereotypes. Pre-conceived notions obscure the thoughts and ideas that women attempt to communicate to society in a way that detracts from their meaning and importance. On this account, women’s negative liberty to exercise free speech and participate in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ is thus restricted by pornographers’ expression. Michelman concludes that “if we want free speech in order to have a society in which no idea is barred from entry – then we must censor some ideas in order to make entry possible for others.”16 Government intervention is thus justified on this account to ensure equal or adequate access by all citizens to the marketplace of ideas, for this market “cannot promote truth or democracy when historical injustices handicap half the population.”17

Is Censorship Justified?

Dworkin responds to this argument by pointing out that although physical acts of silencing citizens would indeed violate a citizen’s right to free speech and warrant legal action, “there is no [Constitutional] contradiction in insisting that every idea must be allowed to be heard, even those whose consequence is that other ideas will be misunderstood.”18 On this account, although pornography is an indirectly silencing force that perpetuates stereotypes that distort the way the public hears women’s words, its censorship is not Constitutionally justifiable. Women are physically free to exercise their negative liberty to free speech. How that speech is then interpreted is determined by society and, like speech by any other actor, it may be distorted by the widely held beliefs of that society.

There are many justifications for the importance of free speech, but nearly all of them echo a concern about giving any single entity the power to declare unconditional truth. Assuming that citizens have the ability to exercise autonomy of thought (a rather optimistic outlook), freedom of speech allows the promulgation of many different ideas so that “confrontations with misguided views provoke audiences to reconsider their judgments and to reassess the foundations of their convictions.”20 Theoretically, a ‘marketplace for speech’ would be a space in which every idea is shared and evaluated by a variety of rational and independently thinking actors. However, an inevitable reality is that some actors, particularly those with existing norms or temporary hysteria on their side, have emerged with particularly loud voices which continually drown out the voices of those seeking social change.

Whether or not one agrees with the magnitude of the role that some feminists claim pornography plays in preventing women from exercising both positive and negative freedom, it is difficult to deny that pornography perpetuates a female image that is degrading, and which compromises the equal position of women in society. Therefore, at least from a moral perspective, restriction of a small group of pornographers’ freedom to widely disseminate lowvalue speech that vilifies a traditionally repressed group seems inconsequential, considering the impact that censorship would have on women’s freedom, whether positively or negatively defined. In reality, however, the issue is more complicated. As will be shown in the American Booksellers v. Hudnut case, the primary legal obstacle that antipornography feminists face is the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which holds that “Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”19

Anti-pornography feminists are not wrong in claiming that negative, dehumanizing stereotypes distort women’s speech, infringing on their negative liberty to a greater extent than social constructs distort the speech of other demographics. These feminists are also not wrong in assigning a large role in the creation of those stereotypes to pornography. However, I argue that intervention in the form of censoring certain speech because it leads to the misinterpretation of other speech would not only be a dangerous precedent to set, but a nearly impossible one to maintain.

MacKinnon carried the feminist anti-pornography argument into the legal sphere with the Indianapolis Ordinance, claiming that pornography, as a practice, “creat[es] and maintain[s] sex as a basis of discrimination” and that “the bigotry and contempt [pornography] produces, with the acts of aggression it fosters, harm women’s opportunities for equality and rights [of all kinds].”21 In 1985, Judge Easterbrook declared this ordinance a violation of the First Amendment, and thus unconstitutional, in American Booksellers v. Hudnut.

In this case, Judge Easterbrook accepted the feminist assertion that pornographic depictions of subordination play a role in perpetuating inequality. However, he explained that censoring even particularly demeaning pornography, as proposed by MacKinnon and her colleagues, would constitute “thought control,” because it would establish “an ‘approved’ view of women, of how they may react to sexual encounters, [and] of how the sexes may relate to each other.”22 Furthermore, he stated that “the Constitution does not make the dominance of truth a necessary condition of freedom of speech” as this would imply that the court has the “power to declare truth.”23 Here, Judge Easterbrook neglected to explain how the ordinance establishes a dangerously solitary ‘approved’ view of women rather than simply restricting the mass propagation of a few morally repugnant views by an influential source. Moreover, he did not elaborate on why the court is unable to declare ‘truth’ insofar as women’s equality and their right to liberty is concerned, despite such equality being the foundation of the Fourteenth Amendment.24

dangerous stereotypes in society, both in social definitions of sexuality and femininity. These stereotypes then infringe on women’s ability to exercise the basic human right to self-mastery, as well as on their negative liberty to equal access to the marketplace of ideas. If freedom is positively construed, these moral grounds may be translated into legal justification for the censorship of particularly violent and degrading types of pornography. Despite all this, it may not be in feminists’ best interests to pursue such policies. Freedom of expression is crucial to facilitating social reform and even though restriction may be in the best interests of women now, the precedent could lead to extremely problematic restrictions on social activism in the future. As Hoffman states, “viewed in historical context, a relaxation of constitutional protection for ‘dangerous ideas’ is far more likely to open feminists and their allies to legal harassment than to promote their political success,” particularly when the power is wielded by the maledominated state.26 Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect any restriction on the pornography industry to be truly enforceable, especially in the internet age. Instead, feminists should focus on shifting the narrative from within, be it through producing pornography that focuses on sexual equality and female autonomy or through facilitating discussion about sex and gender roles to reduce pornography’s monopoly on the subject.

In American Booksellers v. Hudnut, Judge Easterbrook feebly defended freedom of speech as an absolute right, and thereby supported a definitively negative conceptualization of liberty. From this perspective, pornographers’ basic right to free speech trumps the impact that the content of their ‘words’ has on any other parties, whether repressed or not. Carse notes, however, that the absolute protectionist argument is actually contrary to current law, which has historically interpreted freedom of speech in light of a positive definition of liberty. Thus construed, freedom of speech is not a basic right, it is “at most one expression of our liberty and, as such, a right we have in virtue of a more basic right to liberty understood as independence or self-mastery.”25 Therefore, the Constitution does not protect a “qualified right” like speech if it interferes with an individual’s more fundamental right to positive liberty. This interpretation is much more receptive to the feminist argument against pornography, and accepts that restrictions on women’s positive and negative lib erty could support a group libel case for legal action. Conclusion Pornography occupies a socially influential role in society through its domination of the sexual realm. While its depictions reflect social preferences, the prevalence of debasing and dehumanizing female gender tropes has an undeniable effect on reinforcing

NOTES 1. Alisa Carse, “Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?,” Hypatia 10, no. 1 (1995): 167. 2. American Booksellers v. Hudnut, in Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy, ed. David Dyzenhaus, Sophia R. Moreau, and Arthur Ripstein, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007): 914-920. 3. Carse, “Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?,” 159. 4. Jennifer Saul, “Pornography, Speech Acts and Context,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106 (2006): 234. 5. Eric Hoffman, “Feminism, Pornography, and Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 133, no. 2 (1985): 518. 6. Carse, “Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?,” 166. 7. Ibid., 167 8. Ronald Dworkin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy, ed. David Dyzenhaus, Sophia R. Moreau, and Arthur Ripstein, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 961. 9. Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy, ed. David Dyzenhaus, Sophia R. Moreau, and Arthur Ripstein, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 349. 10. Catherine A. MacKinnon, Only Words, in Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy, ed. David Dyzenhaus, Sophia R. Moreau, and Arthur Ripstein, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 956. 11. Dworkin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 966. 12. Ibid. 13. Carse, “Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?,” 164. 14. Dworkin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 967. 15. Ibid. 16. Hoffman, “Feminism, Pornography, and Law,” 529. 17. Dworkin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 967. 18. U.S. Const. amend. I. 19. Seana Valentine Shiffrin, “Speech, Death, and Double Effect,” in Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy, ed. David Dyzenhaus, Sophia R. Moreau, and Arthur Ripstein, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007): 923. 20. American Booksellers v. Hudnut, 917. 21. Ibid., 916. 22. Ibid., 918. 23. U.S. Const. amend. XIV. Sec. 1. 24. Carse, “Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?,” 161. 25. Hoffman, “Feminism, Pornography, and Law,” 533.

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

ASHLEY HOBSON-GARCIA identifies as a Trinidadian woman and feminist. She has a double major in Women’s Studies and Political Science. Her focus includes women’s empowerment and agency particularly in the ‘developing’ world. Her research interests include postcolonial, critical-race and feminist-theory. Currently, Ashley is working on her Women’s Studies honors thesis, which examines the legal status of women in Trinidad and the potential of transformational constitutional change. Under the close supervision of feminist and legal scholar Professor Vrinda Narain she has written a range of papers on subaltern agency, Aboriginal women’s rights, ‘women’s human rights’, feminist constitutionalism, and inclusive citizenship.

JENNIFER MUELLER is an undergraduate studying art history and international relations at McGill. Her primary research interests are in eighteenth-century British and French art, particularly portraiture and the depiction of women and minorities. Jennifer is keenly interested in the way in which notions of masculinity and femininity have evolved throughout history, particularly in the areas of visual culture and religion. In her other studies she has focused on the preservation of world heritage sites and ethics in contemporary global museum practice. Jennifer plans to pursue her graduate studies in art history. ERICA MORASSUTTI will be graduating this spring with a major in Art History and minors in Italian and Communication Studies. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring old buildings and leading the editorial board of the art history and communication studies journal. In addition to her art history studies, Erica is interested in feminist theory and beauty culture. She would like to thank Dr. Cheryl Thompson for her guidance in writing this paper.

KAREEM IBRAHIM is a student in International Development, Spanish & French and hails from so-called Ottawa. He spends the majority of his time talking too fast about things he cares about, namely all things community or inclusion related. Some of the things he loves include biking, word games, sunshine, sweating profusely, people, mangoes, DIY everything, dancing, shameless farts, Soundcloud and unfamiliar smile exchanges.

ERICA PEDERSEN is a U2 student from Boston working on a double major in Economics and Political Science. Her academic interests include politics of gender, international humanitarian law, and international relations. She is heavily involved in leading female empowerment initiatives both on campus and in the Montréal community, serving as Co-President for McGill Women in Leadership Students’ Association and Event Coordinator for TEDxMontréalWomen. In her spare time, Erica enjoys traveling and snowboarding. After interning with the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, she plans to pursue a J.D. in Comparative and International Law and continue advocacy for marginalized communities.

ANNA ORTON-HATZIS is in her final semester of her joint honours Art History and Anthropology degree at McGill University. She has a passion for the visual arts and has curated collections in Saskatchewan, Canada, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Her curation experience in Scotland led to the upcoming publication of her honours thesis about female potter Emma Muse in the Scottish Pottery Society’s 26th Annual Review in May 2015. Next fall she will be pursuing her Master’s degree in Art History and aspires to curate professionally.

OUR EDITORS ALEXANDRA KANTERS is a U2 Honours Philosophy student with minors in Social Studies of Medicine and Women’s Studies. Her main areas of interest are in bioethics, public health, and feminist theory, though she ultimately hopes to pursue a career in law. When she’s not crossing t’s and dotting i’s for Intersections, Alexandra enjoys studying in the music library, crafting, and eating donuts. She is thrilled to have been a part of Intersections this year, and she is very grateful to the rest of the WSSA Collective for all of the hard work that went into producing this volume.

CLARA LAGACÉ reads voraciously, drinks too much tea, and is trying to grow her hair long enough to make into a braid. While waiting for her hair to lengthen, Clara is completing a Joint Honours undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies and English Literature, focusing on Canadian literature. Someday, Clara will travel the world. With a long braid down her back.

JULIA ROBERTSON is in her third year at McGill and loving every minute of it. She is doing the Women’s Studies honours’ program while studying Psychology and French. She has a passion for social justice and smiling (it’s her favourite). When she’s not buried in books she enjoys partaking in eating contests, holding eye contact for way too long, and browsing imgur. She would like to thank her friends and family who show her constant love and support.

TAYLOR JARZABEK is a third year McGill undergraduate studying Women's Studies and History. In her spare time, she enjoys baking and hopes to attend culinary school in the future. She is involved in the McGill community through her position within the WSSA (Women' and Sexual Diversity Student Association), and as a member of the McGill chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma.

ÂŠ Intersections Journal 2015