Fall 2003

Run Sheila, Run. Sheila Copps on the Liberal Leadership Race; PLUS: Homos on the Range Performance Artists Duo Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan in Profile; The Lightness of Being: The Work of Visual Artist Mary Pratt; Rape Drugs on the Rise.

Run Sheila Run by Kaj Hasselriis

Run Sheila Run

Twenty years ago, then Fisheries Minister John Crosbie called her "baby " and set off a storm of protest over sexism in politics. Sheila Copps went on to become the first female deputy prime minister.

Today Copps, a feminist and a fierce defender of Canadian culture, is vying for Jean Chretien's job. There won 't be a hockey game at Toronto's Air Canada Centre on November 15, but that doesn't mean there won't be noise. In fact, it will probably be noisier than ever.

Beauty Queens

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Author:

Candace Savage

Review by:

Penni Mitchell

Subtitled "A Playful History," Beauty Queens is a wonderful, uncritical look at the evolution of beauty pageants in North America seen through the eyes of a historian and told from the heart of a feminist.

Framing Our Past: Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth Century

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Author:

Sharon Anne Cook, Lorna R. McLean and Kate O'Rourke

Review by:

Penni Mitchell

While short essays by feminist historians like Veronica Strong-Boag give Framing Our Past a quick glance feminist credibility, this encyclopedic book is no source of feminist inspiration.

The Splendid Vision

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Author:

N.E.S. Griffiths

Review by:

Penni Mitchell

The National Council of Women of Canada has staying power. After 100 years of petitioning, lobbying and, slowly but surely, working to improve the status of women in Canada, the Council emerges as an undercredited feminist institution. The Council is no hotbed of radical activism, though it's influence on the equality stage in Canada is more pronounced that the organization's sleepy reputation. This, according to historian Naomi Griffiths, author of The Splendid Vision.