Cadsby, Heather

English

Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

school won't provide any guarantees. But it can't help but increase the odds in our favour. Courses like Wen-Do force us to con- front the possibility of becoming a victim of violence. They stress awareness and avoidance as the first line of defence and urge us to trust our gut instinct when things start to feel weird. They identify the most vulnerable parts of the human anatomy and let us know that we are more than capable of inflicting minor to serious injuries in order to give ourselves time to espcape. Most importantly perhaps, they assure us that we are worth defending - that we have a moral as well as a legal right to ensure our own safety, and that we are never expected to tolerate physical abuse. A reasonably sustained, universal self- defence mining program has the poten- tial to change lives as well as perceptions. If it was common knowledge that a sig- nificant portion of the female population had received such instruction, women wouldn't be considered such easy targets anymore. And who knows? Our bodies might very well react instinctively - even if the person threatening us was someone we knew and loved. As The War on Women points out, there aren't nearly enough rape crisis centres or battered women's shelters. Particularly in these tough economic times, funding is limited. Although it's easy to say that the money should be re-directed from some- where else, three NDP provincial gov- ernments are currently discovering that there are more good causes than there is money. Perhaps even more heartbreaking, shelters are beginning to report second generation clients. Women who, as chil- dren, fled with their abused mothers are now themselves requiring sanctuary. It is hard to escape the feeling that our best efforts continue to miss the mark by along shot. Female self-defence training in junior and senior high school should become a primary goal of the Canadian women's movement. If wisely administered, such instruction need not disrupt current edu- cational curriculums significantly and, over the long term, shouldcontributerela- tively little strain to school board budgets. Setting up such a program will require some investment, to be sure. But once I am indebted to Carolyne F. Swift for the public health disease preventionanalogy. See "The Prevention ofRape" inRape and Sexual A s s a u l t , A R e s a t c h ~ A n n e  Wolbert Burgess, editor. New York: Garland Pub- lishing Inc., 1985, pp. 413-426. 2Montreal Assault Prevention Centre,"One of a Kind"in Healthsharing, Vol. 12,No. 2, Summer 1991,p. 16. Report of *e Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors and the Status of Women, the War Against Women, Barbara Greene, MP, Chair. Ot- tawa: Queen's Printer for Canada, June 1991. "Fiscal crisis turns OPP into Ontario's Part-time Police," The Globe and Mail, February 3, 1992, pp. Al, A3. every newly-graduated health and physi- Donna Laframboise is a Toronto writer cal education teacher knows how to teach with a degree in women's studies. She these skills, costs should be minimal. recently tooka basic Wen-Do course with Nearly ten years ago, I took the basic a group of high school students at To- Wen-Do course for the first time. Near the end of the last class, while other students volunteered to come forward and break a one-inch-thick piece of wood with their hand, all my public school insecurities came flooding back. Yes, I was willing to admit that other people could do this sort of thing - but not me, the klutz. In truth, I had no problem at all. I broke my board in half - as did everyone else. When the instructor then told us that fracturing someone's collarbone requires only a third as much strength, I began to believe that I really could take care of my self. But I remember being angry at the time, as well. Even though this kind of training was so simple and straightfoward, I'd had to make a special effort to seek it out. Because, even though I'd regularly found myself fearing for my personal safety, an educational system which endeavored to equip me with the skills necessary to lead a full, productive life hadn't prepared me for this. And because, even though there'd been ample oppor- tunity, I'd been taught nothing half as valuable in physical education classes over the years. Every time I readabout another woman found strangled, stabbed or beaten to death this anger returns. We could have at least given her a fighting chance. It might have been enough to tip the balance and save her life. VOLUME 12 NUMBER 3 ronto's Bloor Collegiate Institute. HEATHER CADSBY The girls of the fifties We thought our thighs were too fat our hair too curly, and our mothers boring. We learned how to iron and polish silver. Our bathing suits were one-piece and our skirts were ballerina. We didn't like Debbie Reynolds our sisters, or all-girl summer camps. The boys of the fifties wore ties to the drive-in gave us their school rings, went steady. They taught us to jive and sang dirty songs they thought we didn't get. We worefire ' n  ice lipstick and white underpants. We were the last of the virgins. Fabulous. We knew everything. Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington: The gender equity poem In the beginning she was twenty-two and he was an old maid of a man. She was a boy and he was a mother in a shawl. He drooped when he stood up sagged when he sat down and dragged his daddy-long-legs from room to room. She had a strangeenchanting strength and other men crazy for her. He was alone, proud, and given to fevers. In the beginning they talked and watched each other. She was used to a fiery man. So was he. - 

Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington: The Gender Equity Poem

https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/download/10518/9607

Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington: The Gender Equity Poem

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Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)