Writers speak up for strong women

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Aboriginal women from across Canada came together in Toronto June 12 to celebrate the publication of the anthology Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival, published by Sumach Press.

The book launch was held in the Iroquois Room at the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres (OFIFC) on Front Street East. OFIFC executive director Sylvia Maracle, a Mohawk, opened the evening with an Iroquois prayer. After the prayer, Cree activist Sharon Menow led a group of approximately 15 women in the Strong Woman Honour Song.

All royalties from the sale of the book will be donated to a new scholarship fund set up by the anthology's co-editors and managed by the OFIFC. The Heroic Women's Scholarship Fund will benefit single mothers over the age of 30 who are returning to school.

According to Sumach Press editor Beth McAuley, the scholarship fund will "support Native women who are coming behind these authors, and help them find their voices."

In order to reduce the costs of production and enable the press to donate the royalties, the 20 contributors to the anthology were not paid for their work.

The launch included performances by contributors Shandra Spears (Ojibway) and Gertie Mai Muise (Mi'Kmaq), who sang a traditional song with hand drum and rattle. Spears also read from her essay Strong Spirit, Fractured Identity: An Ojibway Adoptee's Journey to Wholeness. Muise was later joined by guitarist Steve Turner as she sang two original folk-rock compositions. The Four Directions Traditional Singers-featuring anthology co-editor Bonita Lawrence (Mi'Kmaq), contributor Laura Schwager (Mohawk) and Kelly Maracle (Mohawk)-also sang for the nearly 100 attendees.

Anthology co-editor Kim Anderson (Metis) said that Strong Women Stories discusses "things we all know but don't say-aspects of tradition and the role of patriarchy. It's about the things we need to question."

"Native people are often uncomfortable talking about differences," Lawrence said. "But it's important that we do so. It actually ends up building bonds between us. It lets us appreciate and honour each other for who we really are."

Some of the essays in the book ask if current notions of tradition are really tradition, or just ways in which women are marginalized and denied rights.

Contributor Dawn Martin-Hill, a Mohawk from Six Nations and the academic director of Indigenous Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, writes about an incident where the mother of a sexual assault victim was told by male peacekeepers that she would be "a traitor to her Nation" if she went to the police.

According to Kim Anderson, Martin-Hill said that when the book was published she would have to put on "a bullet-proof vest." How do Anderson and Lawrence think the book will be received at the community level?

"I think people will appreciate what the writers have to say," Anderson said.

"What these women have written is becoming part of the discourse now," Lawrence said. "Two of the essays are already being used in a summer course at the University of Saskatchewan."

Anderson and Lawrence think both men and women need to read the book.

"It doesn't matter whether you're male or female," Anderson said. "Everybody should read this book. It's about building a new vision for our communities."