THE
ISSUE
Published since Nov. 21, 1910 Circulation: 3,500 ISSN 0845-356X Suite 3-04 8900 114 St. NW University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J7 Advertising www.f-media.ca Cover Adanna Onuekwusi
JANUARY 2019
Editor-in-Chief Arts & Culture Editor Oumar Salifou Jonah Dunch Managing Editor Sofia Osborne
Opinion Editor Andrew McWhinney
Art Director Staff Reporter Jessica Tang Adam Lachacz Photo Editor Director of Finance Richard Bagan & Administration Lukas Adomonis Online Editor Victoria Chiu Webmaster Papa Gyeke-Lartey News Editor Nathan Fung
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GSJS The Gateway is published by the Gateway Student Journalism Society (GSJS), a student-run, autonomous, apolitical not-for-profit organization, operated in accordance with the Societies Act of Alberta. Copyright All materials appearing in The Gateway bear copyright of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.
ILLUSTRATION SHELLEY TIAN “SIT LIKE A GIRL”
DEAR READER, This issue is about power. It’s about boldness. It’s about real-life superheroes. It’s about women. This magazine has been a long time coming. The Gateway, just like this university, and really this world, hasn’t always been the most welcoming place for women and their work. But we’ve been trying really hard to change that. In this issue, we centre women’s voices and experiences — whatever they may be. We hope the strength of the women in this issue comes through in the design as well, in the loud, unapologetic type and the visuals of women in movement. We give you: the
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Jessica Tang Sofia Osborne Art Director Managing Editor
JANUARY 2019 | 3
CONTENTS NOTES
06
REQUIRED READING
How to be a Superhero Explore space with neurosurgeon and citizen-
08
Breaking it Down
10
How We Got Here
scientist astronaut Shawna Pandya.
12
Beauty and the Bomb Take a critical look at the body positivity movement.
Get beyond the stereotypes about Indigenous peoples with Chelsea Vowel.
Chart the history of queer feminism.
Experience The Arts Without Leaving Campus Live Theatre Shows Mainstage Concerts Gallery Exhibitions
ualberta.ca/artshows
SMALL PRICE .
FEATURES
DIVERSIONS
14
Trickle-up Economics
19
Stages of Recovery
24
See how things are changing for women in business.
Learn how the Edmonton theatre community is responding to #MeToo.
Fight Like A Girl
32
Horoscopes
34
Crossword
36
Comics
See what January has in store for you.
Test how woke you are.
Get some comic relief after one hell of a year.
Read the stories of women martial artists who kick ass and take names.
a collaboration between
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CONTRIBUTORS JERALDINE CHONG
OLIVIA DEBOURCIER
“Backhanded Compliments” Jeraldine is a fourth-year art and design major. Her comic in this issue illustrates common racial microaggressions that Asian women experience and other women of colour can relate to.
“How to be a Superhero” Olivia is in her third year of environmental and conservation science and is passionate about science communications.
BREANNE DAGENAIS
Horoscopes and crossword Nina is a fourth-year English major, ready to graduate and flaunt her big words at grown-up wine tastings.
“I Love Me” t-shirt and zine Breanne is a fourth-year visual communication design student. Her piece promotes the empowerment of all individuals, inspiring them to love what makes them unique.
NINA LEGESSE
SHAY LEWIS “How We Got Here” Shay is a fifth-year philosophy student with a minor in women’s and gender studies. She often writes on queer-focused topics in her own time.
DANIELLE MCBETH
SHELLEY TIAN
“Women’s March” Danielle is a fifth-year student in the design program, with a focus on visual communication design and sociology. Her illustration for this issue shows the diversity of a women’s march.
“Sit Like a Girl” Shelley is a fifth-year computing science student. With this piece she hopes to convey her frustration with manspreading on public transportation.
CHRISTINE MCMANUS “Beauty and the Bomb” Christine is a third-year psychology major who loves her cat, Earl Grey tea, and writing until 3 a.m.
ADANNA ONUEKWUSI Cover Adanna is a fourth-year industrial design student who likes to tell stories through her work. She did the cover for this issue, which shows a knight with the Nigerian flag draped across her chest plate.
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KATE TURNER “Breaking it Down” Kate is a first-year native studies student. She appreciates the new perspective that writing this month’s article gave her on feminism, Indigenous identity, and being unapologetically bold.
ALEXANDER VINCENT “Cry Me a River” Alex is a fourth-year fine arts major who is interested in monster and creature design.
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HOW TO BE A SUPERHERO A Q&A with neurosurgeon and citizen-scientist astronaut Shawna Pandya. TEXT & ILLUSTRATION OLIVIA DEBOURCIER
Dr. Shawna Pandya’s life reads like the origin story of a superhero before they get their powers. She grew up in Sherwood Park and completed her undergraduate degree in honours neuroscience at the University of Alberta, going on to do her master’s in space studies at the International Space University in France before returning to the U of A to complete her degree in medicine. Dr. Pandya is currently training to become a citizen-scientist astronaut with the PoSSUM and PHEnOM projects, which study upper atmosphere clouds and microgravity, and is co-founder of CiviGuard, a disaster response technology developed alongside her peers at Singularity University in 2009.
She is a skilled martial artist and speaker, is working on getting her private pilot license, and is certified in skydiving, scuba diving, and survival training. The Gateway interviewed Dr. Pandya last March while she was in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan completing her residency training in family medicine. This interview occurred about an hour after she finished assisting in an emergency delivery of a baby, because that’s just how she rolls. The Gateway: What inspired you to go into STEM? Dr. Pandya: I was always a very sciency, mathy, nerdy kid. In high school I thought, “Well, you can’t go to school to be an astronaut, so what else can I do?” So I opted to follow in the footsteps of one of my heroes, the first Canadian female in space: Roberta Bondar, a neurobiologist. Therefore, the next step was to do something neuro. So that’s what led me to want to be a neurosurgeon. Which of your experiences have you found to be the most formative? If we want to look at the undergraduate phase, I was always driven to do everything I possibly could that interested me. So yes, I was taking six courses at a time, but I was also very involved in the Students’ Union community and the larger student community. I was on 10 SU boards and committees, I was an SU councillor, I was involved in orientation — I even dressed as GUBA. I was also head of the undergraduate science society and the president of the Neuroscience Students’ Association, and I was involved with the debate society. Also my time at the space university was amazing; it was like a year at Starfleet Academy. From there I went to intern at the European Astronaut Centre Crew Medical Support office and that’s when I realized I could meld my passion for medicine and space into a career. This fueled my desire to become a citizen-scientist astronaut.
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What is a citizen-scientist astronaut? When I say I’m a citizen-scientist astronaut candidate, that’s separate from what governmental agencies like the Canadian Space Agency or NASA are doing. The term citizen-scientist means that you are curious and passionate about science and you may not be trained formally in the field, but you do have some background and are keen to help contribute to science. Project PoSSUM is one of the citizen science projects I’m involved in. The thought was to go up into space as citizen-scientist astronauts to gather data behind these clouds thought to be related to climate change. To think that I could be in a space suit in zero gravity and contribute to science is mind-boggling and still excites me to this day. You can’t be in a space suit and not have a giant grin on your face, because it’s so much fun. What value does space exploration hold for you? Humans are explorers by nature — they’re scientists, they discover, they innovate. To purposely stick to Earth would be to go against our nature. Often there’s the perception that, “Oh why would we explore space when we have so many problems on Earth?” Really that’s a false dichotomy. There are so
many examples of space spinoffs that have benefited our daily life on Earth in medicine like vaccine storage and breast cancer imagery. So there’s both the primary driver of discovery and exploration and doing the hard things because we can, but also because they do have benefits for everyday life on Earth. What is it that really drives you in what you do? I love learning and there have always been things that I’ve wanted to do. I realize that our time on Earth is finite, and if I don’t do those things now then when are they ever going to get done? And then there’s the people. A really important lesson I’ve learned is that in order to have good people around you, both to drive you and also to motivate you, you have to be one of those good people who in turn inspires others and drives others to do better. What advice do you have for women entering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields? Be the change you want to see. If you want to see more women in STEM, then be a woman in STEM. There should be nothing stopping you if you don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Act like you belong there, because you do belong there. g
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REQUIRED READING
BREAKING IT BREAKING IT BREAKING IT A discussion with Chelsea Vowel, author of Indigenous Writes PHOTO COURTESY OF CHELSEA VOWEL TEXT KATE TURNER
Chelsea Vowel, also known as @apihtawikosisan on Twitter, is tired of explaining that Indigenous people are human. With her beautifully beaded jewelry and brightly coloured hair, Vowel is a recognizable figure in Pembina Hall, where she works in the faculty of native studies on Cree language curricular development. Vowel is also a full-time graduate student, doing her masters on Métis futurisms, where she looks at Métis perspectives of the past, present, and future in the context of science fiction and related sub-genres. This will be her third degree from the University of Alberta, having completed her bachelor of education in 2000 and her bachelor of law in 2009. What first brought me to Vowel’s office was her book, Indigenous Writes, published in 2016, which tackles stereotypes and questions that are commonly brought up about Indigenous peoples in Canada. The book is both brutally honest and relatable, the perfect tone for dismantling misconceptions and addressing biases. It began as a series of posts on Vowel’s blog, the first of which was about the federal funding of the Attawapiskat First Nation. The post, on what was just meant to be “an anonymous, geeky language blog,” went viral, and she felt a responsibility to continue doing the work of breaking down information to find the truth.
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Vowel describes Indigenous Writes as a “labour saving device,” a way to explain the facts of the Indigenous-Canadian relationship so that conversation can move past the common sticking points: that Indigenous peoples are freeloaders, that they don’t pay taxes, that they are scary and aggressive, that they deserve to be shot or incarcerated. “These stereotypes have really serious impacts on Indigenous peoples’ lives,” she says. “People use these stereotypes to dehumanize us and to justify all manner of violence against us. Whether it’s trying to justify residential schools or trying to justify not caring about murdered and missing Indigenous women, if they can dehumanize us and say that we’re less than human then all of a sudden it doesn’t matter what happens to us; any amount of violence is okay.” She wants to move past these stereotypes, to be able to talk about what we can do in the future now that we all agree that Indigenous people are human. But she can’t seem to get there, no matter how many times she discusses it or how many tweets she sends or books she writes. “Nobody wants to believe that they are part of something evil and bad,” she says. “People get hung up on that guilt stage once they start to realize the truth of the history of Canada, and I think it’s overwhelming… Having to deal with such a huge legacy
REQUIRED READING
DOWN DOWN DOWN of what is honestly horrific violence against so many people is too much for people to bear.” And so Canadians turn to stereotypes to justify their history. Vowel comes face-to-face with these stereotypes in the comments underneath news articles. With the increased visibility of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous issues, “that sort of online racism just really ramped up,” she says. She uses her own social media accounts to respond and show the truth to counter these misconceptions, and has become a visible face in the fight. “I’m not a mean person, but I play one on Twitter,” she says. “People often come at me in bad faith demanding that I educate them but in a way that is so clear that they’re not actually looking for information, they just want a fight. [Indigenous Writes] for me represents my most honest attempt to reach out.” I also wanted to talk to Vowel about Indigenous feminism. When I asked her how she views the feminist movement, she brought up the inherent whiteness of mainstream feminism. It has never been a cause with which she’s identified because it doesn’t seem to be about her as a Métis woman. For some Indigenous women, this rejection of mainstream feminism comes from the way “[the movement] is so inextricably caught up in gender
binaries that were brought with colonization,” Vowel says. While not all Indigenous societies were egalitarian, many already had gender equality pre-colonization, and thus many Indigenous women are not fighting against tradition like mainstream feminists. Rather, they would like to take lessons from the past. As we talked, Vowel told me that during the Women’s March in the United States, Indigenous women were drumming and told to be quiet. Actions such as drumming are things that “Indigenous women do to signify their power and their worth,” but they are seen as being disruptive or not fitting in, Vowel says. Not all Indigenous women identify as feminists, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about equality. “Indigenous women who speak out against gender violence in their communities face an incredible amount of backlash,” she says. “I don’t think white women feminists understand that the violence that Indigenous women face is so severe and so gendered that it’s really difficult for us to organize sometimes. That’s the thing about patriarchy and sexism: it’s the internalisation of it. Women police each other; that’s also very strong in our communities. But what those women assert over and over is that if we once again root ourselves in the land and in relationship to one another, hierarchies like that and subjugation like that simply can’t stand, they’re impossible.” g
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REQUIRED READING
HOW WE GOT HERE. TEXT SHAY LEWIS
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THE IMPORTANCE OF QUEER FEMINISM
While feminism has historically been a framework for questioning the legal and societal expectations of women and men, it has often done so without fully questioning the gender binary. Feminism has addressed bio-essentialism — the idea that someone’s biology defines their abilities — but has left the man/woman binary unchallenged. This has led a lot of feminist theory to describe most contemporary distinctions between men and women as societally constructed, while still holding a nebulous yet absolute distinction between them. The result has been rights-based solutions for gender-based discrimination — but while granting rights and protections may solve particular problems of gender-based discrimination, it doesn’t prevent such discrimination outright. For example, laws requiring equal pay haven’t prevented gender-discriminatory hiring practices. As such, the barrier feminism has run up against is a failure of imagination. Emerging in the 1990s, queer theory has proven to be a solution to this problem. Rooted in questioning assumptions about sexual orientation and gender identity, queer theory focuses on breaking down identity categories we take for granted, challenging their often rigid, box-based thinking. Central to queer theory is the undefining of things, accepting the oft-blurred lines between what we are and aren’t. It creates a push to undefine gender, opening up the possibility that the categories of man and woman are less definite than we think. This, in turn, helps prevent gender discrimination by both reducing societal focus on gender and making it harder to mark groups to discriminate against.
REQUIRED READING
CENTRAL TO QUEER THEORY IS THE UNDEFINING OF THINGS, ACCEPTING THE OFT-BLURRED LINES BETWEEN WHAT WE ARE AND AREN’T.
Interestingly enough, queer feminism’s approach to gender is more in line with the actual science. Physical presentation of sex-based phenotypic qualities — the physical distinctions between male and female — is actually distributed on a bimodal curve, rather than in two discrete bins. Seeing this distribution as discrete categories of “male” and “female” leaves out intersex folk, people whose genetic makeup and/or phenotypic presentation don’t match binary understandings of sex. There’s no clear-cut distinction between male and female, and even assuming there is, that distinction is essentially meaningless, given how morphable the human body is. Given the right hormones, a “male” will present as “female” and vice-versa. Even more damning for sex and gender distinctions, however, is how sex isn’t a determining factor for gender identity or expression. Not everyone’s gender identity matches their sex, and that shouldn’t be surprising, considering gender identity is more of a feeling than a narrow, unchangeable set of values. That there are men born without penises is a documented fact, and as such, men being born with vaginas shouldn’t be controversial. Moreover, gender identity and expression aren’t linked either. There are women who present and behave “masculinely,” and there are men who present and behave “femininely,” even though these ways of looking and behaving “masculine” or “feminine” are merely a result of socialization. Some of what we consider feminine, like make-up, high heels, and the colour pink, used to be considered unisex or masculine. Some things we
consider masculine, like computer programming or the colour blue, used to be considered feminine. The gender association of these activities is dependent on our current social narrative and shouldn’t be considered absolute. Queer theory helps explain why we shouldn’t see specific behaviours as being feminine or masculine. There’s no inherent masculinity to strength or bravery, just like there’s no inherent femininity to softness or vulnerability. There are women who are amazingly strong and brave and no less feminine for that, and there are men who are soft and vulnerable who are no less masculine. We think these things because society has trained us to do so; the project of gendering everything about our lives is pervasive from before birth to after death. Through queer theory, feminism has begun moving beyond rejecting the outcomes of gendering to rejecting the process itself. Feminism now has the framework not just to criticise and reject the systems at the core of sexism and gender discrimination, but show how they interplay with other systems of oppression and produce answers that are truly responsive to the reality people are living. It’s a sorely needed change. If feminism wants to stay relevant as we head into the 2020s, it must begin to deconstruct the boxes we live in rather than just moving or expanding them. g
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Beauty and the Bomb What the body positivity movement gets wrong. TEXT CHRISTINE MCMANUS ILLUSTRATION JESSICA TANG
Body positivity: two little words that have taken the internet (and the world) by storm. While the movement is not without controversy, its acceptance is growing, especially in the corporate sphere. Everywhere you turn, another company is using body positivity to market their goods. After all, the more demographics companies have to target their products to, the better. In a world where 80 to 90 per cent of women and girls in Canada feel unhappy with their bodies, it may seem like stamping “beautiful” on everything we once deemed ugly is the answer. Beauty is humanizing. Beauty makes you worth something. But it shouldn’t. We can change who is considered “beautiful” and who isn’t, but the concept of beauty remains a weapon of mass destruction. A bomb is a bomb, no matter what its target is or what causes it to detonate. Throughout history, we have ranked bodies based on aesthetic reasons. This is particularly true for women – from full-figured premodern sculptures to the much slimmer look of the 90s, women’s bodies have gone in and out of fashion like different styles of dresses. As the revolving door of history brings different bodies into and out of the spotlight, we assign value to them — and by extension, the people they belong to — based on whether they meet the beauty standards of the time. When certain bodies are devalued, the everyday person suffers. An all-too-common example of this suffering is that of plus-size women, especially when trying to access medical care. The same medical system that claims to help people live their healthiest lives often punishes women if they fail to meet conventional beauty standards. By this, I don’t mean doctors and patients having an open and respectful dialogue about weight and how it can impact your health. I’m talking about a widespread lack of basic respect for fat people (and especially women) as human beings. I’m talking about an explosion of suffering that has sent shockwaves across our society.
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In 2018, a BC woman named Ellen Maud Bennett made headlines when her obituary called out doctors for failing to adequately treat her. For years, Bennett felt unwell, but couldn’t pinpoint why. She sought the counsel of multiple doctors over a period of years, and none of them offered any suggestions beyond weight loss. By the time her true condition — a cancerous tumour — was discovered, it was inoperable and she had mere days to live. Bennett’s story is hardly unique: a 2015 study in the medical journal The Lancet found that people of size are less likely to receive screening tests, and doctors stereotype fat patients as less cooperative and more likely to ignore medical advice. Unsurprisingly, this discrimination has a gendered component: 59 per cent of women in a 2009 study reported being shamed by doctors compared to 39 per cent of men. A high Body Mass Index is moralized, and the way fat women are treated by the medical system reflects their position as “less than” in the eyes of society. Try as it might, the body positivity movement as it is now cannot save fat women from this nightmare, because it’s far too focused on altering an inherently corrupt system instead of addressing the problems that created that system in the first place. Sure, fat women might find themselves in a higher position on the hierarchy if the right pieces fall into place, but as we’ve seen before, “beauty” is a fleeting blessing for any given body type. Soon enough, fat women could be right back where they began, at the bottom of the heap, with no real ground gained. The thing about beauty is that it cannot exist on its own — without ugliness to compare it to, beauty has no meaning. Being “beautiful” is always at somebody else’s expense. If the aim of the body positivity movement is to uplift all bodies, the beautiful/ugly dichotomy is the wrong tool. Rather than simply choosing a new target to call ugly, we need to defuse the bomb and scatter the pieces. If we don’t, we are doomed to repeat the same narrative that we are trying so hard to break out of. g
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TEXT VICTORIA CHIU ILLUSTRATION JESSICA TANG
TRICKLE-UP ECONOMICS THE STATE OF GENDER PARITY IN BUSINESS.
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In October 2017, JPMorgan Chase, the largest American investment bank and sixth largest bank in the world, hosted an information session at the Alberta School of Business. The multinational company’s Calgary office sent three sharply dressed, similar-looking guys — all tall, white, and clad in navy suits — to deliver the presentation to the (mostly male) students interested in applying for one of their highly sought-after summer investment analyst positions. The hosts of the session began their presentation with an inside look at the bank’s culture. “At JPMorgan Chase,” one of the presenters began, “we like to have a really fratty environment.” They talked about how they liked to throw foam footballs around the office with their managers, work out together, and go for drinks after work “pretty much every day.” These words could be interpreted in one of two ways. The first is that the company’s culture is well-developed, convivial to those who join it and share similar interests, and stresses team involvement both during and after work, which can foster a sense of camaraderie. The second interpretation is more off-putting: that the mentions of a fraternity-like environment, cultural focus on traditionally male interests, and lack of female presence among the presenters implied that women aren’t welcome.
Business was largely dominated by men for much of history — but things are changing. The University of Alberta’s business school roughly reaches gender parity, with the most recent stats reporting 1,060 male and 963 female students in the faculty in 2016-17. This is supposed to have a trickle-up effect: more gender parity at the educational level carries up through the ranks as those same students get jobs and eventually do hiring of their own. However, change is slow — that progression from student to CEO takes time. Even though there is more aggregate gender parity in business today, many women still face challenges their male counterparts don’t. Often, these issues first come up when students start their foray into the workplace — there can be a distinct difference between the dynamics of the lecture hall and the employee lunchroom. Paris Morin, a third-year finance major, has noticed that these dynamics have affected her differently during her years studying business. She says she knew that by choosing finance as her major
she would be entering a male-dominated field where she could potentially be one of the only women in the room — but that the reality of it didn’t quite hit her fully until her second year in the program, when her workplace experience mounted. After being accepted into the faculty’s co-op program and working in several positions, Morin found that unless she looked for women in coveted roles, it was difficult to find female mentors. It was also intimidating at times, she says, to notice that the once-vague idea of being one of very few women was now reality. To deal with that intimidation, Morin says, she depended on her own personal growth and the development of stronger confidence over time. “I just became more okay with [the intimidation], because I partly stopped looking at it as a situation where I was ‘the other,’ and more of a thing where I could just challenge how the world worked,” she says. Morin also notes that having a strong support system — her parents and largely male group of friends — helped her keep going and continue to “push the envelope” even when she felt alone. “It’s definitely tough to go into a [finance] class and see group projects where there’s only one girl, and almost never any all-female teams,” Morin says, “but I think the [Alberta School of Business] has done a lot recently to open that field up to women.” With only 14.2 per cent of top executives at major companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock market index being women, it’s not a stretch to see how it might be hard to find mentors in fields with so few top female executives — the pool is simply smaller. Without female mentors and role models to relate their experiences and aspirations to, it can be alienating for young women to walk what feels like an isolating path. And while there are many inspiring stories about women in business, many of them focus on women in less male-dominated fields. “You see statistics about how [men and women] enter the workforce pretty much 50-50, but you don’t always see that funnel up,” Morin says. Sasha Jacob, a fellow third-year finance major, says her knowledge of the finance industry and conversations she had with professionals in the field helped quell the intimidation she also felt as a junior business student. She originally applied for PRIME, the Alberta School of Business’s exclusive investment management program, but when that didn’t
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pan out, she doubled down on her own efforts to endow herself with the skills and technical knowledge she needed to achieve her goal: securing a full-time investment banking position. Jacob, who will soon join TD Bank Group as an investment banking analyst, will be working with a team of approximately 20 people — but only three members, including her, are women. This drastic skew, she says, means a lack of women in certain fields of business can mean the odds may sometimes be in women’s favour in male-dominated fields, as companies aim for more diversity. Though it can be difficult to pursue jobs in places where women aren’t the majority, Jacob says the fact that there aren’t many women in certain fields shouldn’t be an insurmountable obstacle. “If you have a goal for something — even in a field where there aren’t as many women, like finance — and you put everything into trying to achieve it, it’s totally doable,” she says. Karen Hughes, a professor in strategic management and organization at the Alberta School of Business, says many companies have placed the issue of gender parity at the forefront. “I think organizations have a growing awareness of the value of gender diversity and inclusivity, and many are making progress. But it is uneven across fields and industries,” she says. It’s also uneven across levels of management. Women are often bottle-necked in terms of advancement at work, less likely to be promoted and ultimately hold top management positions. Part of this has to do with social norms. Overall, women are seen as less dependable, less visionary. They are less comfortable with tooting their own horns and are more likely to face criticism for snagging the limelight. All of this may give the impression that business is bent against women, but the truth is this situation is not the same across all areas of the industry. For instance, human resources is an area where women have made lots of good inroads, Hughes says, and there is significant awareness around gender diversity and inclusion in that field. And there are other areas, like marketing, that are actually thought of as more female-dominated, although some research has reported that men still occupy a large proportion of senior marketing positions. That’s not to say, however, that women in fields with higher gender diversity face none of the same
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problems as their colleagues in more male-dominated ones. The perception that women in business can be overlooked is magnified in fields where there are fewer women at the top, but it doesn’t just go away in places where women have a stronger presence.
Business spans a wide variety of areas of study: the Alberta School of Business offers 16 distinct majors ranging from entrepreneurship and innovation to Latin American business studies. The gender breakdowns between majors varies, and the numbers may not always be what one expects: accounting, for instance, is fairly equal both in the classroom and the workforce. In entrepreneurship, the current state of gender equality in Canada is also positive. “Today the ‘gender gap’ has narrowed quite a bit,” Hughes says. Entrepreneurially, women and men in Canada are about equally likely to be motivated by opportunities they identify in the market, rather than launching a business out of necessity. They’re also fairly close in reporting good opportunities, and in their fear of failure. However, women are still more likely to underestimate their skills and knowledge compared to men. “When you look at the Canadian population overall, the gender gaps widen a bit, suggesting there’s more work to do there,” Hughes says, citing
Women are seen as less dependable, less visionar y. They are less comfortable with tooting their own horns and are more likely to face criticism for snagging the limelight.
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a 2017 report she authored for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). “But the gender story in entrepreneurship in Canada is generally positive, and it will continue to be.” The tumult of new areas of business shake things up, too. The rise of technology has led to the development of new majors such as management information systems (MIS) and operations management (OM), which fuse the technical acumen of computing sciences and the qualitative features of business. Combining computing sciences — typically a heavily male-dominated major — and general business, the dynamics in these programs aren’t as set in stone as those of other, more established majors. Hala Khashashna, a third-year MIS major, chose this program because of her interest in technology. Comprising only around three per cent of the faculty’s students, she says the tight-knit nature of MIS majors and their professors has made the area of study a great long-term choice.
MIS uses some of the same skills required of computing science majors, but in contrast to typical computing science courses at the U of A, Khashashna says MIS classes achieve gender parity. However, the workforce these students move into doesn’t exactly reflect those half-and-half demographics: when Khashashna worked at the Alberta Investment Management Corporation this past summer, she says that of 100 employees in business technology, only 16 were women.
Sometimes instances of gender inequality fly under the radar — not necessarily because they’re purposefully hidden, but rather because it can be hard to recognize an imbalance unless it’s pointed out. This brings up the question of whether or not thinking consciously about these balances helps or hinders progress. On the one hand, pointing out gender imbalances can draw more attention to the
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need for more diversity in academic programs and workforces; on the other hand, critics argue that this approach strays further from awarding individuals positions based on merit, which they regard as the most objective and equal way of evaluating candidates. Not all female students feel that gender imbalances in business-related fields need to be brought to the forefront, and many say they haven’t experienced any major issues related to their gender in their work. Khashashna says she’s never noticed someone being overtly sexist towards her, but she’s also not sure whether her perceptions of the world have obscured her recognition of those kinds of incidents. “What I don’t know is if it happened and I just didn’t notice it, or if it really has never happened,” she says. That said, not acknowledging imbalances isn’t the solution. There are certain specific issues women often contend with more than men, with the most classic being the perceived choice between raising a family and having a high-powered career. For women who value both, this age-old tug-of-war proves especially challenging. Jacob, who’s spoken to many women across finance companies at varying levels of seniority, says she’s particularly noticed the distinct shortage of women above the vice-president level. Women who are higher up in their companies are also often unmarried or childless, making it hard for women who want families to find a role model whose behaviour, career choices, and lifestyle they can look up to. “As someone who’s extremely career-driven, but also very family-oriented — I know I want to have a family — it makes me wonder, ‘Do I have to choose one or the other, or will I be able to have both?’” Jacob says. “It’s something I have to keep in mind now and moving forward, even thinking 10 years into the future.” The myriad issues women continue to face in business, despite constant change and progress, paints a bleak picture for soon-to-be graduates. But Hughes cautions against being too cynical. “I tell my students that university is actually a lot like the real world,” she says. “The people you meet here will be part of your business network going forward; you’ll see many of the same dynamics, and you’ll depend on the skill set you develop here and continue to hone it.” It’s not as if things revert back to how they were in the Mad Men era once female graduates step into their first post-university jobs. And when they do
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stare down challenges, it’s important for women to remember to advocate for themselves using the confidence they have in their knowledge and abilities. “If there’s any one difference, studies would suggest that female graduates will face some bias in their skills and aspirations being underestimated,” Hughes says. “So [female graduates] need to work at communicating what they’ve accomplished, what they can do, and what they are aspiring to do.” That said, Hughes says female graduates also need to realize that many organizations have a growing awareness around gender issues, too, and that an important personal step for each graduate is finding opportunities in firms with that mindset. The onus is on everyone in business — not just the women — to make conscious choices to push for continued progress, even when it might be uncomfortable. To make change, women must step into powerful roles, and others must empower them to get there. “On average, it takes seven people to tell a woman to do something before she’ll actually do it — so find seven people,” Morin says, “because I think that’s the biggest thing. And I think if we can get over that obstacle that we place on ourselves, then I think it would really be all about showing up.” g
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Stages of
Recovery Responding to #MeToo, Edmonton’s theatre community probes its past and envisions its future. PHOTO HALEY DANG & NANA ANDOH TEXT JONAH DUNCH
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ack in spring, before summer festivals and fall papers, I found myself in the Westbury Theatre at the ATB Financial Arts Barns. This in itself wasn’t unusual, since the Westbury is one of Edmonton’s major theatre venues. What was unusual was that I sat onstage, in a circle of chairs, surrounded by other male theatre artists: actors, artistic directors, veterans of the craft. I was the youngest one in the room. It was May 23, 2018, and the Theatre Edmonton Project, a grassroots coalition of millennial theatre artists, had organized “Curtain Up: A Meetup for Male Identifying Members of the Edmonton Theatre Community.” Led by Derek Warwick from the University of Alberta’s Sexual
Assault Centre, the men in attendance discussed their experiences surrounding harassment and assault in their profession. The older artists looked back on how far we’d come, while the younger men looked ahead to how far we have to go. Gnawing questions and fraught emotions filled the circle. Hours later, the discussion gave way to silence: Brooke Leifso, a crip theatre artist and master’s student in expressive art for conflict, transformation, and peacebuilding at the European Graduate School, led those remaining in a workshop using visual art to reflect on the thoughts and feelings Warwick’s workshop had stirred in them. But these feelings were nothing new — the theatre community had spent the professional season reeling
from revelations of #MeToo. And many who had kept quiet about harassment and unwelcoming environments in their careers had now begun to speak up. “I’m seeing in the theatre community a want for practical skills to make change,” Leifso told me later. “What I hope for is an increased sensitivity of how to build safe creative spaces for everyone and avoid the pitfalls of toxic power dynamics no matter how they [arise].” When I met with Leifso in a downtown café a month later, the mood was palpably different. The summer sun shined down on us and our coddled eggs as we discussed the artistic community we both love — the same community that we had witnessed unravel since October. JANUARY 2019 | 21
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“The theatre community is particularly ripe [for change], because it’s a series of people who really want to do well,” Leifso said. “So how can we build places for compassion and reflexivity?”
Reshef, the company said they would not work with “identified predators,” including Craddock. When I called Schuurman, he was reluctant to dredge up the pains of the past. As he noted, these events were emotional, painful, and traumatic for In 2006, activist Tarana Burke coined a lot of people. But the company has the phrase “Me Too” to support surviworked to heal from its wounds. vors of sexual violence. Eleven years Now over a year out from the later, on October 5, 2017, The New York scandal, Rapid Fire has reviewed Times published a story reporting and publicized its policy against several allegations of sexual harassharassment and discrimination — and ment against Hollywood film producer Schuurman stressed that it reviews Harvey Weinstein. The Times’s report its policies on an ongoing basis. The spanned decades of alleged misconcompany has also created a form to duct. On October 15, 2017, actress Alreport incidents of inappropriate yssa Milano tweeted: “If you’ve been behaviour, with the option to report sexually harassed or assaulted write anonymously, and offers new consent ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” The and bystander training annually. response was overwhelming. “Creating safe spaces is not just Soon enough, people the world a checkbox,” Schuurman said. “It’s over — mainly women — began using constantly evolving… You have to #MeToo on social media to share make it part of the culture of your personal stories of sexual violence and organization, to always be cognizant calls for justice. Meanwhile, several of it and always be working on it.” other men in media and politics were Since improv is spontaneous, publicly accused of sexual misconperformers aren’t able to plan carefulduct, including Kevin Spacey, Louis ly in advance. This can lead to misunC.K., and James Franco. But #MeToo derstandings or unwelcome surprises didn’t only affect global industries — onstage. A few years ago, Schuurman it reverberated on a local level as well. introduced check-ins for performers As the hashtag became a moveto let each other know what they’re ment, Edmonton-based playwright, comfortable with doing in that night’s filmmaker, and performer Chris Cradshow. After October 2017, Rapid Fire dock used it in a personal Facebook made this an expectation. post. What followed, however, was “When you have clear boundaries, not a story from the receiving end of you know how far you can go, rather sexual violence, but a confession of than guessing and being vague about being its perpetrator. Craddock said he it,” Schuurman said. “These converhad touched without permission and sations only make us stronger; they acted as though women were objects, don’t hold us back. They in fact propel and that he was horrified to realize it. us forward… That makes for healthier Days after Craddock posted performers, better performances, and his confession, Rapid Fire Theatre better art.” (Emonton’s leading improv company) cut ties with the now infamous Three floors above RFT’s home in artist, who had once been its artistic Zeidler Hall stand the offices of the director. In an open letter signed by Citadel Theatre’s artistic director, RFT’s current artistic director Matt Daryl Cloran, and executive director, Schuurman, general manager Karen Chantell Ghosh. The hallways are Brown Fournell, and president Amir plastered with posters from bygone
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productions. Ghosts of plays, performances, and events haunt this venerable building — and mingled with them linger the phantoms of bullying, hurt, and trauma. “The theatre, quite possibly because of the intimacy and vulnerability of the creative process, was maybe more susceptible [to workplace bullying and violence],” Ghosh said. “When things went bad, they went bad bad.” Early in Cloran and Ghosh’s tenure, a number of artists and staff approached them about experiences of feeling unsafe in the workplace. When common themes emerged in these stories, the two approached the Citadel’s board of directors to consider taking action. In March 2017, Cloran released an open letter about the dark history of his company. The letter said that, at times, the Citadel has been a negative workplace for artists and staff, and that this is unacceptable. In the months that followed, Cloran and Ghosh met with artists who had felt alienated from the Citadel due to harmful experiences in their past. They provided opportunities for artists to return to the Citadel space after feeling unwelcome there. As per the letter, the company retained Wade King, a human rights and disclosure advisor, to implement a safe disclosure process. Due to the confidentiality of the process, Cloran and Ghosh said they couldn’t give specifics on the events described or name the alleged perpetrators. But, Cloran said, they took the lead from community members who wanted to resolve the harms of the past and move onward into — hopefully — more positive futures. On May 14, the Citadel hosted a gathering for theatre community members to discuss their experiences. For Cloran, this event was an important healing moment — one he hopes will precipitate a stronger spirit of openness and fellowship in the theatre he now runs.
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When things went bad, they went bad bad.
“[For me, theatre involves] building art in a manner that is about the group creating something great, as opposed to an auteur director who comes in and breaks or demands things,” he said. “It’s a shift in the belief in how great art can be made.” On an institutional level, the Citadel has hired a human resources specialist, which it didn’t have before. It’s also implementing training for managers to deal appropriately with their employees, especially in the high-pressure situations of theatre. The company is participating in the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association’s “Not in Our Space!” program, which aims to help artists address concerns with industry harassment. As of the time of writing, the Citadel is poised to publish a report on these efforts, and to release new reports on at least an annual basis to “continue the conversation” about its workplace environment. In the future, Ghosh hopes the Citadel’s staff will be
well-equipped to handle workplace problems and will have a reputation across Canada for being a place of “excellence and openness.” “It’s not paperwork, it’s ‘people work,’” Ghosh said. “If you stay vigilant and keep having these conversations, that is the only way you’re going to gradually shift culture.” At first, Heather Inglis didn’t quite believe the Me Too movement would lead to substantive change in her industry. But as the artistic director of Theatre Yes, an Edmonton-based “boutique” theatre company, she began to see a cultural shift when institutional leaders like Schuurman made statements in response to what had previously been only an online phenomenon.“I was shocked that there were colleagues of mine who had behaved poorly for whom there were consequences,” Inglis said. “That was not something that I had ever seen before.”
For Michelle Robb, a U of A BFA acting student and emerging playwright, the revelations regarding Chris Craddock likewise struck her as turning point. As #MeToo hit the theatre community, Robb was heartbroken. She used to look up to some of the individuals who were outed, though as a younger artist, she admits she’s largely in the dark about their alleged wrongdoings. “I’m hearing that usually male artists who I used to look up to have done bad things,” Robb said. “I want to know what the bad things are!” I worked with Inglis and Robb in the Citadel’s Young Playwriting Company while #MeToo was trending, and we often mulled over these ruptures in our theatre community in the company’s boardroom. In Inglis’s view, the Citadel is doing good work to get to the bottom of the “psychological bullying” of its past. But, Inglis said, the ingrained psychological basis of sexism and
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bullying requires vigilant, constant work to combat. Robb is unsure how far these efforts can go — especially since all public statements have been unspecific due to confidentiality. “Is it adequate? I don’t know what would be adequate,” Robb said. “Is it as bad as they’re making it sound? Is it worse? The language around it is hard to navigate when you’re addressing a public that’s both full of people who are in on ‘the dirt’ that’s been happening and people who are just entering the scene.” Inglis said a lot of the men who were called out in the past year have been “exiled,” and their careers are over. Craddock, for instance, has disappeared from the theatre community. According to Robb, this can have severe psychological effects. In Inglis’s view, we need to ask questions about what appropriate responses to crimes and social misdemeanors are when they’re occurring in public culture, not in the legal system. For her part, Robb wishes there had been more acknowledgement with #MeToo that “we don’t know the right answer” to rectifying or retributing harms. Considerations of mercy, Inglis said, appear in ancient texts throughout the world. “People are complicated,” Inglis said. “They’re good and they’re bad: everyone.” High-profile cultural commentators, including Canadian author Margaret Atwood, have echoed these concerns. On January 13, 2018, Atwood penned an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail called “Am I Bad
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Feminist?,” saying #MeToo is “a symptom of a broken legal system” and that we need to ask what will come next. Atwood borrowed the term “bad feminist” from the American writer Roxane Gay, who coined it to describe being a feminist while enjoying things that may seem at odds with feminism. In response to Atwood’s piece, Gay tweeted, “Actually, Margaret… with all due respect, this isn’t what I meant by Bad Feminist.” Gay, along with other feminist figures, has criticized Atwood’s line of thinking. On October 5, 2018, Gay wrote in The New York Times that “Despite everything we know about the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, women are still not believed. Their experiences are still minimized. And the male perpetrators of these crimes are given all manner of leniency.” The rhetoric that men have unduly suffered due to #MeToo, Gay claimed, downplays the experiences of women. Instead of reserving empathy for male perpetrators, Gay said we should focus on empathizing with and supporting female survivors. “The bar for a man’s ruin is, apparently, quite low,” Gay wrote. “May we all be so lucky as to have our lives so ruined.” Robb is exploring these themes in her play Tell Us What Happened, which is currently in development with Theatre Yes. The play follows a group of girls living together in Edmonton who run a Facebook group for “girls to go on and talk about their girl struggles.” At the start of the play, some of the girls in the Facebook
group realize they’ve been sexually assaulted by the same guy — and that guy is the best friend of the group’s founder. The girls’ lives are fractured as they question how to lead when the group’s stories become personal. “I wanted to see if I could find out what the right thing to do would be if that were to happen,” Robb said. “And I wanted to demonstrate how hurt girls can get at such a young age. I really feel bad for my characters since they’re forced to grow up a lot faster than they should.” Robb began writing the play in September 2017 — before the Me Too movement began in earnest. Robb isn’t sure if the play would be different if #MeToo hadn’t happened, but the event catalyzed discussion whenever she brought the play in to workshops. In Robb’s current (fifth) draft, the script makes no reference to #MeToo; she wants the events of the drama to hold up regardless of the cultural moment in which they’re staged. “I don’t believe that a hashtag is what started this movement,” Robb said. “I think a hashtag is what made this movement visible.” The play will premiere in Theatre Yes’s 2019-20 season as a co-production of Theatre Yes and The Maggie Tree, an Edmonton-based independent theatre company focusing on developing works by, for, and about women. For Inglis, Tell Us What Happened answers a need for artistic commentary on the cultural explosion that #MeToo precipitated. Inglis said the play fits her company’s mandate
If you stay vigilant and keep having these conversations, that is the only way you’re going to gradually shift culture.
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of “intelligent theatre for adventurous audiences.” Since Robb is a young woman playwright, she is, according to Inglis, uniquely positioned to talk to her peers about these topics in an intelligent and complicated way. “I think it’s our duty as artists to create conversation and dialogue about what’s important in our world,” Inglis said. “And Michelle’s play very much fits that bill.” Inglis hopes the women of Robb’s generation have healthier work experiences in theatre, and that they get more work as playwrights, directors, and leaders. “I think [the move to a post-#MeToo future is] going to be slower and stranger than we can possibly imagine,” she said. “I do hope that we can give people the benefit of the doubt for trying hard to do their best.” In an emailed statement, Leifso said she has stopped doing workshops for the professional theatre community because, while the people in power do want change, they don’t necessarily want to individually change. “The change required could topple the system currently built, starting with educational institutions,” Leifso wrote. “People before art.” Ultimately, she hopes we can not only combat harmful actions on an individual level, but oppression on a structural level. Efforts to call this future in from the wings may be fraught with alienation, contests for dominance, and generational and gender-based divides — but like Inglis and Robb, Leifso is hopeful. “I’m so curious to see how we move forward in the future in a way that has greater sensitivity,” Leifso said. “How can we hold complexity for each other?” g
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FIGHT LIKE A GIRL TEXT ANDREW MCWHINNEY PHOTO RICHARD BAGAN & NANA ANDOH
U OF A WOMEN IN MARTIAL ARTS 26 | GTWY.CA
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From karate to kickboxing to judo, martial arts make up a sizeable chunk of the many programs offered by the University of Alberta’s Campus and Community Recreation. But at the U of A, and in martial arts more generally, men tend tend to make up the majority of participants in classes. It varies between each martial art, with some classes’ demographics coming closer to parity, but oftentimes a class of 10 to 15 students may have only two or three women in it. What attracts these women to martial arts? For the women I talked to, it’s a way to gain a sense of confidence and control, to learn how to utilize one’s body to successfully counter attackers who may outmatch you in size or strength, and to break stereotypes about the docile woman.
On the faded mats of the Research Transition Facility (RTF) Gym, the students of the U of A’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) club prepare to engage each other in combat. One of these students, Sofia Karabatsos, faces her partner with a relaxed but focused look in her eyes. They gently nod to each other, smirking knowingly. They’re anticipating what’s coming next: one of them will make a mistake, one will pin the other and emerge victorious. They begin weaving and spinning around each other, slipping out of dangerous positions while trying to get their opponent into one. After minutes of stalemates and slippery escapes, Karabatsos finds something she can work with. There’s an explosive burst of energy, and suddenly she has her partner in an arm bar, holding his elbow joint in a position where she could easily hyperextend it. She isn’t going to break his arm, though. He cries out in a mix of shock and laughter, realizing that she’s outsmarted him. When they rise, he’s ecstatic, complimenting her technique, expressing his confusion at how he ended up in the lock. Karabatsos is a master’s student in cell biology, researching the ecology of bighorn sheep. She’s one of only two girls in the class. She is also a black belt in Japanese jiu-jitsu, an achievement resulting from six years of attending class three to four times a week. She began martial arts eight years ago, quitting ballet in pursuit of something with more energy and contact. Her father took her to a dojo in Ottawa, and she fell in love immediately. It wasn’t just the combat that drew her in; the intimacy of the sport also provided a unique gateway to friendship.
“It’s funny how it works,” she says. “I think that because people are training together in a defensive context, they’re out there to help each other. There’s a lot more trust, more give and take.” As a martial art, BJJ is ground-centric, focusing on subduing the opponent using grapples and joint locks. There’s no use of strikes; in fact, most of the time, BJJ practitioners “roll” with each other starting on their knees. Each combatant wraps and slides over each other in a serpentine manner, reacting to shifts in position, seeking the opportune moment to constrict their opponent. “It’s all about staying calm and treating it like a chess game,” Karabatsos says. “They do something, you work with that.” This strategic manipulation of momentum and muscle is why Karabatsos loves BJJ so much: by working with instead of against your opponent’s strength, you can be the tiniest person in the room and still defend yourself. Another girl in Karabastos’ class confided to her that she often felt intimidated to come train, afraid that she’d be tapped out immediately by the men in the class, many of whom are physically stronger and more experienced than her. As a black belt, Karabatsos hopes to act as a role model to women who share similar apprehensions. “I hope I inspire girls to know it’s not just about size,” she says, “it’s about technique. Anyone can be able to compete with a guy in terms of martial arts.” As a woman, Karabatsos’ experience in martial arts has been more positive than not. She found her first dojo in Ontario very open-minded. Her original instructor was female, and served as a guide to her. In Alberta, however, she’s begun to notice how she’s one of the few girls in her class.
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I hope I inspire girls to know it’s not just about size.
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But with role models to look up to, and as a role model herself, it doesn’t bother her much. “If someone really likes the martial art, they’re going to go just to roll because they need that kind of intimacy in their life,” she says.
During other evenings, the RTF Gym is also home to the U of A’s judo club. At the beginning of class, students discard their warm up clothes and don heavy cotton gi, specifically designed to be easily grasped by an opponent’s hands. Some wear the traditional white, while others wear competition blue. The students sit on the mats side-by-side, forming a line broken up by uneven white-and-blue stripes. At the call of the instructors, they bow into class, ready to prepare for the drills ahead. Today is not an ordinary class, however. Today, Amira Aissiou is receiving her first-degree black belt after training for 12 years. Her original instructor, also a women, is attending to commemorate the occasion. Aissiou just completed her bachelor of science in physics and biology, and now attends the U of A’s medical school. In a symbol of partnership and cooperation, the three instructors remove Aissiou’s brown belt together, replacing it with a black one. Then, the entire class takes turns performing throws on her. About 20 students, including the instructors, slam her down on the mats in such a wide variety of ways that I lose track. While I gently wince at a couple of the throws, she beams the whole time. Then it’s time for Aissiou to teach a technique to the class for the first time. She walks the class through a throw step-by-step, explaining each movement confidently, eventually lifting her demo partner effortlessly off of his feet and onto the floor. After a few more demonstrations, Aissiou and I leave the gym to talk. She smiles thoughtfully as she recollects her first judo class, which took place at her local school in Spruce Grove. At 11 years old, she’d been seeking an extracurricular activity that would allow her to vent aggressive energy without harming others. A local judo club would rent out her school’s gym to hold their class, and it piqued her interest. Since then, she’s trained in several dojos around Edmonton. In high school, as she prepared for provincial competition, she practically visited a new dojo every day she trained. Each one was more than pleased to host her.
Like Karabatsos, Aissiou is one of the few female practitioners in her class. Despite this, she’s never felt alienated; she says every club she’s trained at, including the one at the U of A, has been incredibly supportive and encouraging of their female students. What’s kept her training for so long, she says, is the community, one in which everyone is invested in helping each other grow in strength and skill. “I think for women, it’s really important to have something you can define yourself with, and for me, judo is that thing,” she says. “If it weren’t for me just saying, ‘I’m just going to try this, who cares?’ I wouldn’t be here.” Aissiou finds great confidence and strength in this, as it has allowed her to defy the stereotype of the docile woman. The dojo also serves as a place where she can practice mindfulness, letting stress evaporate while she focuses solely on training. She credits it with helping her get through her undergrad. “I think there’s a lot of stereotypes like, ‘Women should be in dance’ or they should be in gymnastics, not in combat,” Aissiou says. “I feel empowered because I’m not this useless thing that isn’t able to do anything.”
The U of A wado-kai karate club’s dojo rests quietly in a dance studio in the basement of the Education Building. While the dojo is the heart of the class, students practice cardio by running through the hallways, up and down the stairs, and through lecture halls. The building acts as a circulatory system, pumping students through its arteries and veins until they cycle back to the dojo. Once they return, students perform their kata, a series of choreographed strikes and blocks, defending against an imaginary opponent. When they finish, the cycle continues; they quickly exit the heart and run once again through the veins of the building. Among the circulating students is Cheryl Weiss, a first-degree black belt. She’s a U of A alumna who graduated from the pharmacy program in 2010. She’s more than just a black belt and a pharmacy grad, though. She’s Sensei Cheryl, one of my instructors in this karate class. Under head instructor Sensei Sean Bowen, she helps teach the techniques and core tenants of the art. Weiss began practicing martial arts in 2013, while working at a pharmacy by the far east end of Whyte Avenue. One day, staff parking was moved to the back alley, an area the pharmacy shared with a liquor
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Pictured: Sofia Karabatsos (in white) and Amira Aissiou (in blue)
“IT’S ALL ABOUT STAYING CALM & TREATING IT LIKE A CHESS GAME.” JANUARY 2019 | 29
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store and a Money Mart. Unsurprisingly, closing up shop at night and returning to her car made Weiss feel nervous. “I thought that I could either feel uncomfortable every day for the rest of my life, or I could start doing something about this,” she says. “I couldn’t control the location of my work or the location of my designated parking stall, but I could do something about feeling helpless in that situation.” For Weiss, martial arts has not only provided her with that sense of control, but a community of individuals pushing each other to flourish. The greatest challenge in wado-kai, she says, isn’t competing with your classmates; it’s about finding out how hard you want to push yourself and growing your potential. Some of the women who’ve joined the class are stronger and more physically fit than the men, but that doesn’t matter; with such an intense focus on individual advancement, there’s no room for discrimination or judgement against anyone, regardless of their gender, background, or age. “I don’t ever think I notice that I’m often the only girl in the class, and I don’t think the other partici-
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pants notice either,” she says. “It’s not about gender; it’s about becoming the best you can be.” This environment allowed Weiss to train until she was up to three months pregnant, and then return five weeks after giving birth. Over her time at the U of A dojo, Weiss has noticed that some women have joined the class looking for a sort of weekend self-defense course. While you can’t learn to adequately defend yourself in a weekend, she says, that shouldn’t stop women from trying martial arts; they do, however, have to be prepared to commit to years of learning. “You can start to build your confidence in a day or a class, [but] true skill comes over years and years of training,” she says. “It’s important to come into [martial arts] with that sort of long view.” After we chat, Sensei Cheryl and I return to the dojo. I begin to work on my kata, and she observes quietly, scrutinizing every move I make with an impeccable attention to detail. Halfway through, she stops me, correcting me on where I’ve planted my feet. I thank her, carefully shift my feet two inches further out, and continue. g
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“IT’S NOT ABOUT GENDER; IT’S ABOUT BECOMING THE BEST YOU CAN BE.” Pictured: Cheryl Weiss JANUARY 2019 | 31
ILLUSTRATION DANIELLE MCBETH “WOMEN’S MARCH”
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T-SHIRT & ZINE BREANNE DAGENAIS “I LOVE ME”
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DIVER SIONS
HOROSCOPES TEXT NINA LEGESSE VISUALS JESSICA TANG
Aries Mixtapes are so last year. Consider releasing your sex tape this month. Cancer Roses are red in Vancouver, it’s raining men in your life will continue mansplaining. Leo Next time you’re a bystander when someone’s getting groped on the bus, don’t be.
Virgo Love is in the air, Virgo. It’s viral. You should get vaccinated.
Pisces Life gave Beyoncé lemons. Do what she did.
Taurus You will have more energy than usual this month. Try channeling it into a productive activity, like getting ahead on assignments or dismantling the patriarchy.
DIVER SIONS
Aquarius I’d tell you to treat yourself, but you’re already a snack.
Libra Keeping secrets, I see? Shame sucks. Leave that shit in 2018.
Scorpio Scorpions are predatory animals. And they have a dancing ritual before they mate. Just thought you should know.
Capricorn Turn your New Year’s resolution into a New Year’s revolution and seize the means of production.
Sagittarius Self-love is less time-consuming than self-loathing. Try it today!
Gemini Everyone’s at least a little gay. I wouldn’t worry about it. g
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of Science and ? 12 She coined intersectional feminism 13 Birth control device in the form of a silicone cup 16 These yellow jackets can escort you home at night 17 Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning drama (not La La Land)
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DIVER SIONS
Student Admission: $10 ($8 MatinĂŠe) Metro Cinema is a community-based non-profit society devoted to the exhibition and promotion of Canadian, international, and independent film and video.
campus made radio since 1984
metrocinema.org Roma December 26 - January 10 Alfonso CuarĂłn has demonstrated an uncanny ability to reflect on the human condition while offering boldly entertaining cinematic experiences. Shot on 65mm in black and white, the semi-autobiographical Roma chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 1970s.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World JAN 7 @ 6:30PM Metro Cinema and Direct Play present a video game inspired film paired with classic console and cabinet games in the lobby! In Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Scott must defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes in order to win her heart.
Burning
January 25 - 31
tune in stream online volunteer
Jongsu is an alienated and frustrated introvert whose already difficult life is complicated by the appearance of two people into his orbit: first, Haemi, a spirited woman who offers romantic possibility, and then, Ben, a wealthy and sophisticated young man she returns from a trip with.
cjsr.com 0-09 SUB
Metro Cinema at the Garneau 8712-109 Street | metrocinema.org
Metro Cinema receives ongoing support from these Arts Funders:
DIVER SIONS
Backhanded compliments
By Jeraldine Chong
“What? did I say something wrong?”
“You’re like a chinadoll.”
38 | GTWY.CA
“You’re exotic.”
“You’re pretty for an asian girl.”
While you wait printing. Wait times may vary.
we save your
-ignments you’ll wipe tears of joy from your eyes.
Lower Level SUB subprint.ca Open Monday–Friday: 9am—5pm