Illustration by Matt Daley

This piece is one of 13 short stories set to appear in The Journey Prize Stories 26 anthology, available October 7. A huge This congratulations to author Nancy Jo Cullen!

At 1:27 a.m. Maggie’s phone blinked and whistled on her bedside table. Startled out of sleep, she knocked the cat off the bed. The grey beast yowled and sashayed out of the room. (To register his ill will the cat peed on the bathmat but Maggie wouldn’t take note of that for another six hours.) Maggie grabbed the phone, Lacey Vandermeer Text Message, it read. What on earth? She ran her finger across the glass screen and Lacey’s message popped up: Ty for the great fuck, baby I needed that. Right above Lacey’s message was Maggie’s earlier message, highlighted in green and sent at 8:37 pm, Don’t forget you’re coming to show me how to make tapenade tomorrow. 2 pm sharp.

Maggie blushed and sweat sprang from her pores. She kicked the blankets off her legs. I think u meant to send this elsewhere she typed quickly and hit send. Maggie pulled off her nightie, wiped her brow and armpits then lay spread eagle on the bed waiting for the flash to dissipate. Again, her phone whistled: MOM! LOL!! Ooops!

It’s bloody scary to get a text in the middle of the night. Maggie hit send.

Srsly mom, I’m sorry, came the reply.

And now, she was awake, thank you very much. Maggie turned off the sound on her phone and tossed it across the bed. The streetlights glowed from behind her white curtains. Bloody light pollution. She flipped onto her stomach but it was no good either. She grabbed her phone and opened Twitter. Sure enough at the top of her feed was a post from Lacey: That moment when u send ur mom a text meant for your lover. #awkward #atleastimgettingsome. The tweet had been favourited by Dane Davis. (Good God, who named their child Dane Davis?) Maggie opened up Dane’s profile: short, dark hair, thick black glasses, buttoned up shirt, and brownish complexion. Boy or girl? Hard to say and, with Lacey, impossible to predict.

Maggie switched on the lamp and typed another message; I have a job interview tomorrow FFS!

You’ll do great!

NOT my point!

An honest mistake!

Maggie switched off the lamp and, again, tucked her phone under the pillow. She was going to feel like hell in the morning.

#

By 2:00 p.m. Maggie had finished a 10K run, forty push-ups, forty chair dips and one hundred crunches. Her left hip was giving her trouble but twenty bucks for a yoga class was out of the question at this point in time. Maggie faced herself in the dining room mirror (hung just so to make her apartment look larger than it was) and lifted her arms above her shoulders; so far she was staving off scrotarms. Her face was another matter, her complexion was smooth but the lines around her eyes were deepening and the skin on her upper chest was starting to pucker. On the up side, no double chin and her hair colour looked totally natural.

Of course Lacey was late. Maggie flopped onto the couch. Her stomach was killing her, the side effect of another job interview. The interview was conducted by a toxic little snot named Jasmine; Maggie guessed her chances for the job were nil as soon as she walked through the door and spied Jasmine’s Betty Page hair cut and gold stud in the left bottom corner of her mouth.

“Maggie?”

Maggie thrust her right hand forward, “Maggie Vandermeer.”

Jasmine passed Maggie a limp hand then quickly withdrew it, she ran her finger down Maggie’s resume, “So, you’ve been working in PR for—” she stopped her finger back at the top of the page and looked up, “six years?” Her voice rose with the question.

“Closer to twenty-three,” Maggie said. “Since my daughter was almost four. That’s my selected resume.” She pulled a four-page document out of her bag, “I have the complete resume here.”

“That won’t be necessary. Are you conversant in social media?”

“I use Facebook and Twitter. I’m Linked in.”

“My mom doesn’t get Facebook at all,” Jasmine said. “You know, she posts weird things on my wall. Unnecessary things. That touchy, feely stuff with sunsets and oceans.”

Maggie gave Jasmine an understanding nod.

“We’re trying to build a brand here so our staff have to be adept at social media. You know, we want to trend because people like us, not because we look like sentimental throwbacks. Not because people are laughing at us.”

Maggie nodded again.

“So it’s important that our people can leverage a strong social media presence.”

“I have twenty plus years of public relations experience to leverage.”

“Mmm hmm,” Jasmine said. “What would you say your greatest weakness is?”

The interview didn’t improve. As her chances faded Maggie made a last-ditch attempt to get Jasmine to look at her resume by mentioning that her daughter was Pushyboots, which definitely excited Jasmine’s attention, just not in the way Maggie had hoped that her close relationship to the famous sex-advice blogger would do.

Jasmine slapped her desk and exclaimed, “So, you’re the Former Drinker?”

Maggie nodded. “Ten years this September.”

“I can’t believe I just interviewed the FD!” Jasmine stood up.

“I guess you’ll have something to talk about over lunch.”

Jasmine opened her office door, “Well, thank you very much, Maggie Vandermeer. Say hi to Pushy. We totally love her.”

#

Lacey arrived at 2:24 p.m. “I said 2:00 p.m. sharp,” Maggie said.

“Artichoke, olives, capers,” Lacey raised the cloth bag in her hand, “Besides you could do this yourself. It’s totally easy.”

“The point was to have a visit with you.”

“I’ll make us a coffee,” Lacey walked into the kitchen.

It wasn’t the afternoon Maggie planned for. Although she arrived in a happy mood Lacey was gone at 4:13 p.m. At 2:31 p.m. Lacey was bubbling with excitement over a pending book deal based on her blog. She was thinking about quitting her bartending job.

“Trust me, you might regret that,” Maggie said.

“My book contract?”

“No, quitting the bar.”

“I’ve been doing it a long time,” Lacey said. “I can always find another gig.”

That was true enough. By the time Lacey was seven, Maggie had trained her in the art of the perfect vodka martini. A fearless inventory had caused her to recognize that. Lacey should be allowed to say so.

The tapenade took all of three minutes in the food processor. Maggie lifted a spoonful of the mixture to Lacey’s mouth.

“No.” Lacey held her hand up. “It’s best to let it steep for a couple of hours.”

“Well, I can’t eat it all by myself!” Maggie said.

“Don’t be crazy. It’s great with a chicken breast, or on pasta.”

“I don’t eat pasta.” Maggie patted her stomach.

“Jesus mom,” Lacey said, “You have to stop obsessing on your weight.”

“Caring about how you look is different from obsessing.” Maggie licked the tapenade off her fingers to prove her point, then changed the subject. “I met a Pushyboots fan at my interview today.”

“How did Pushyboots come up?” Lacey asked.

“Well, you know, she didn’t think I could trend. Or whatever.”

“What?”

“Trend as a verb. You know, make something trend. So I told her you were my daughter. It’s tough out there,” Maggie said. “At my age.”

“It’s hard everywhere these days. That’s why people strike out on their own, make their own work.”

Maggie lifted her eyebrows but said nothing. Of course, Lacey was right. And, also, grossly oversimplifying the situation. As if she hadn’t thought of going out on her own. Of course she’d thought of it, but she preferred the structure of a job. At a job, work starts at 9:00 a.m., work ends at 5:00 p.m., overtime is banked and paid days off are taken in lieu. It was efficient.

“It’s kind of weird though, you bringing up Pushyboots.”

Maggie never should have said mentioned it. “I was losing the interview.”

Lacey shrugged, “You shouldn’t do it.”

“I can’t say you’re my daughter?”

“Not in that context.”

“I don’t complain about you writing about me.”

“I don’t write about you.”

“What about the FD?”

“I’m writing about myself, even if I mention you. Plus, it’s in code, nobody knows who you are.”

“Jasmine knows who I am.”

“Who’s Jasmine?”

“The little twot who interviewed me.”

“That’s harsh.”

“Who’s Dane?”

“Jesus mom, stop creeping me or I’ll block you.”

“I didn’t thank you for the great fuck.

“Oh. My. God. Let it rest!”

“Let’s just try a little bit of that dip now. These lentil chips are yummy.”

“You go ahead.”

“Look at me. Don’t I look like someone who could trend?”

Lacey nodded. Barely.

“I’m not stupid.”

“They probably want someone young enough to train. You know, in their way of doing things and such.”

“I’d be obliging.”

Lacey raised her eyebrows.

Maggie pointed a finger at Lacey. “You have no idea.”

Lacey looked at her phone. “I’ve got to go, Mom.”

“Say hi to Dane for me.”

“Very funny.” She kissed her mom on the cheek and closed the door behind her.

And then, the long evening stretched in front of Maggie.

#

It is a commonly held belief among those abstaining from alcohol that sobriety maintenance cannot be managed by enjoying any sort of relationship with other stimulants, aside from coffee and cigarettes, neither of which Maggie could tolerate. However, a little weed could go a long way toward mitigating the effects of life. Most certainly she wasn’t smoking all day long, and it certainly wasn’t as if she was getting her kid to roll her a spliff, but weed created for Maggie a soft focus lens view of the day. In fact, it helped a great deal. Of course, she didn’t announce it at meetings, and she was careful to only attend a meeting if she was straight. For sure, the meetings helped too, but some days Maggie just needed a little more. It was hardly a crime.

It was hot and close, a perfect summer evening. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians, and lovers, and drunks, and on the roads helmetless bicyclists in shorts and tank tops pedaled around traffic, slowed by the din and sparkle of nightfall. In summer everything was young.

Maggie turned into the gates of the park. The white stone and wrought iron of the arches were, Maggie believed, resplendent. She liked to amble through the gates as though she was walking onto her own estate, and that further up the park stood her own Pemberley, or some such place. She tilted her head slightly and smiled, then took her place on a bench and crossed her legs carefully, one flat gold flip-flop dangling from her toes. She held her iced latte in front of her turquoise painted toes and snapped a photo. She typed #lactosefree #summernights #turquoisetoes #maggievandermeer, then she posted it to her Instagram account. She knew how to bloody trend.

A burst of laughter rang from behind the bench. Maggie turned, two university-aged girls in light cotton dresses lay on their stomachs reading a small newspaper. Their long hair fell over their shoulders and grazed the top of the blanket. One of them rolled onto her back holding her stomach, still giggling. They were as beautiful as they ever would be. From Maggie’s perspective, they were near perfect.

She stood up and walked casually in their direction. She smiled at the girl on her back. The girl on her back smiled at Maggie.

“Beautiful night,” Maggie said.

The girl flipped back to her stomach. “It is,” she said. She turned toward her friend and flipped to the next page of the paper.

Maggie could take a hint. “Have a nice night,” she said. “Don’t talk to strangers.” She walked up the path toward the north end of the park, peals of the girls’ laughter chiming. “Being alone is not the same as being lonely,” Maggie reminded herself. She held her phone against her ear so as not to look crazy. “Being alone is not the same as being lonely,” she said.

#

It wasn’t for want of trying. Maggie had taken photos of: a cupcake piled with maple icing and topped with a slice of bacon #reward, #runninglife, #maggievandermeer (of course she’d only had two bites and thrown the rest away), herself in new white-framed sunglasses #summer, #instacute, #maggievandermeer, the cat wasted on catnip #wasted, #catnipped, #maggievandeemeer, and a photo of her with a dashing Mexican actor who played in some spy show Maggie hadn’t seen, but there was a crowd of women encircling him so it seemed like a good idea to get a snap, #hotstuff, #javierdiaz, #swoon, #maggieVandermeer. In addition, she’d been tweeting weather reports, news of the day, photos of cute animals, and whimsical observations such as, as much as it is reality we will not live trouble-free lives, so we will worry when they come, all followed by the hash tag, Maggie Vandermeer. Still, she failed to trend.

“What’s up with the hash tag?” Lacey asked.

“I’m trying to trend.”

The phone was silent then Lacey sighed heavily. “Maybe you need to see someone,” she said.

“Being alone is not the same as being lonely,” Maggie said.

“I meant a doctor, not a date. I think you’re depressed.”

“I’m being proactive.”

“It’s ridiculous, Mom.”

“It’s ridiculous to take action?” Maggie was indignant.

“It’s ridiculous to think you’re going to trend.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Maggie said and hung up.

When Lacey called back Maggie put her phone on Do Not Disturb.

#

And so Maggie found herself at the job fair sitting in a in a hard chair in a banquet room crowded with college graduates and the LocaFolk! logo projected on a screen at the front of the room. Flanking the screen sat a row of festival workers there to explain the month-long food and cultural festival that the girl with the microphone, Kayla, kept referring to as a harvest festival as though no one in the audience had ever eaten a Thanksgiving meal in their lives.

I want to poke myself in the eye #punishing, #jobunfair, #ihatedpeprallies #maggievandermeer, she tweeted.

She returned her attention to Kayla just in time to catch the warning that under no circumstances could anyone selected as LocaFolk try to engage the attention of the celebrity chefs that attended the event. Apparently, that was the last thing a celebrity chef was interested in, and if you even tried to talk to a Jamie Kennedy or some other such person you would be promptly fired. Capiche?

The crowd nodded its head in agreement. Maggie suppressed an urge to bleat like a sheep. Desperate times.

#

After waiting for an hour (she was number fifty-eight), Maggie was led to a room where six tables were set at a discreet distance apart from one another; each table was occupied by two interviewers and one interviewee. A bearded boy with a waxed moustache, and a sallow-faced girl with large framed glasses interviewed Maggie.

Her first mistake: Maggie shook their hands vigorously. Did no one care about the importance of having a firm handshake? As soon as her butt hit the chair Maggie felt the energy drain from her body. Deflated, she could barely muster the force to open her mouth.

The girl, Maggie thought her name was Jenna but in the span of thirty seconds could no longer be sure, held a pen poised in front of a pad of paper where she’d neatly printed Maggie Vandermeer across the top. The boy, Dustin, clasped his hands and asked her gravely, “Have you been to any of our events at LocaFolk?”

Maggie nodded and smiled. “No. Not really. I don’t eat out much.”

Probably Jenna scribbled a note.

“Food intolerances,” Maggie added.

“What brought you to LocaFolk?”

“Yeah,” Maggie nodded again. “You know, I’m not sure.” She drew a deep breath, “Okay, I need a job.”

Dustin blinked, Jenna wrote another note. Her letters were neat and round.

Maggie tried again, “I’m forty-eight years old. I’ve been in the workforce nearly as long as you’ve been alive. I don’t even know what I know, but I know a lot. Trust me, I’d be an asset. I’m not just saying that.”

Dustin nodded. Jenna tapped her tooth with the end of her pen.

“And I’m very fit. I can run 10K in forty-five to forty-eight minutes.”

Jenna started to scribble again.

“So, you know, I can stand for long periods.”

Dustin and Jenna exchanged a glance. Dustin pushed his chair back.

“Would you like to know what I’d do if a customer was displeased?”

“No, no, that’s good,” Dustin said. “Thank you Maggie. It’s been great.”

“Thank you, Maggie.” Jenna said airily.

Maggie graced the pair with a full-toothed, sparkly smile. “The pleasure has been all mine,” she said. She stood up and pulled her bag onto her shoulder. She wasn’t going to try to shake their limp hands again.

#

I could start an etiquette school…? Maggie sent the text to Lacey.

Lacey’s reply rang back in less than a minute. It’s 4 am!

Well what do you think? Maggie hit send.

No!! Jesus. Turning phone off. Now.

Maggie flicked the burning ash off her joint and dropped it in the ashtray. She opened Twitter. Well, that was a stupid idea, she typed, #maggievandermeer.

It’s not like she really believed she was going to trend.

She set herself up on the floor and executed ten push-ups, careful to keep her shoulders away from her neck and her spine straight. She flipped onto her back. She tightened her core (keeping her spine in a neutral position) then she lifted her legs six inches off the floor and held the position. She should apply for a job at Lululemon, or be a fitness instructor. The baby boomers would relate to her. She let her legs drop. She’d like to see pasty little Jenna pull that off. Or that Dustin, she saw the tobacco stains on his fingers.

She could teach all those fat chefs how to eat properly.

She pushed herself into a back bend.  How many thirty-year-olds could do that?

Her kitchen was shining. From this angle she could see the freshly polished, black fridge door. She could start a cleaning business. She let herself back down into a resting position. Except, ew. There was something about other people’s pubic hair that just made the bile rise in her throat.

Maybe Lacey could get her a bartending job. It would be nice to talk to the people and to help them. Except not really, unless she wanted to kiss her sobriety good-bye.

When the stores opened she would buy a lottery ticket. Why the hell not?

Lacey was awfully quick to judge for someone who, herself, sent unwanted texts in the middle of the night. Maggie sat up, grabbed her phone and texted Lacey: Judge not lest ye be judged. She wondered if Lacey, who had never even set foot inside a church would know even what she was talking about.

If you know what I mean. Maggie hit send.

Really, Lacey had some nerve. I mean, SRSLY?? Maggie hit send.

You’re turning off your phone??? Maggie was on a tear. She hit send.

Do unto others. Maggie hit send.

If you know what I mean again. Maggie hit send.

A better person would stop texting. Maggie stood up and brushed her hands on her thighs. She was hungry so she poured herself a glass of water. She was exhausted and completely wide-awake. Her blood was ringing in her veins. She really shouldn’t have sent those messages.

Mommy loves you sweetie. Maggie hit send.

Don’t ever forget it! Maggie hit send.

But show a little gratitude maybe. Maggie hit send.

I’m not drinking if that’s what you think. Maggie hit send.

When you reach midlife you can’t sleep any more. Maggie hit send.

A little something to look forward to! Maggie hit send.

Maggie took a photo of her fridge door, her outline reflected in the image. At least my kitchen is clean! She typed under the photo and hit send.

Because she didn’t want Lacey to worry, Maggie texted: Rocking out to Fleetwood Mac!

I guess I’m second hand news too ;-/ Maggie hit send. Hopefully that wasn’t too glum.

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow! ;^* That was better, Maggie hit send.

Say hi to Dane. Maggie hit send.

Unless Dane was a 1-nighter. Maggie hit send. Jesus, she was tired. And hungry. She grabbed six almonds from the fridge then wiped it free of fingerprints. She lay down on the couch.

Is a 1-night stand even safe? Maggie hit send.

Trust me it’s not. Maggie hit send.

I’m going to try to sleep now. Maggie hit send.

Sometimes I get the feeling you don’t even like me. Maggie hit send.

What if someone breaks in and your phone is turned off?? Maggie hit send.

You shouldn’t just assume everything is fine. Maggie hit send.

I’m talking about you, not me. Maggie hit send.

But your book thing is great! Maggie hit send.

If you need my help with anything just call. Maggie hit send.

But not as soon as you wake up. Maggie hit send.

Because I’m going to go to sleep now. For real. Maggie hit send.

So don’t call when you wake up. Maggie hit send.

She turned her face toward the back of the couch. The cat sprang from his chair and curled himself at the end of Maggie’s feet.

She sent her final text of the night: Have a sweet day :-p

Then: @>— >—

And then: I mean it. Don’t call.

And just in case Lacey would worry she was crazy, Maggie typed her final, final message on her phone’s small screen: It’s all good.

She hit send.

Nancy Jo Cullen’s short story collection, Canary, is the winner of the 2012 Metcalf-Rooke Award. She is the fourth recipient of the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Emerging Writers.

Across Canada, dozens of nuns, women priests, worshippers, and one female bishop are part of a growing movement to pry the Catholic Church from its patriarchal roots. In its place, they’ll build the world’s most massive vehicle for social justice. Welcome to the fight for a pro-women, pro-gay, pro-liberal Church

Near twenty pairs of feet circle the labyrinth at Trinity Square Park in Toronto. Each pair belongs to a member of the city’s Taproot Faith Community. Founded in 1995, the group is primarily Christian-oriented and predominantly Catholic, but welcomes members of every faith. Together, they meet bi-weekly on Sundays—a small nod to traditional tenets of Catholicism from a group that, depending on your views of the church, isn’t very traditional at all.

Despite a history rooted in good deeds and loving thy neighbour, much of society is more likely to identify today’s Catholic Church as the ultra-conservative ringleader in the fight against gay and reproductive rights (among other things). This assessment has merit—as recently as August, Pope Francis reiterated the importance of protecting human life at conception, shortly after Brazil announced plans to distribute the morning-after pill to women who’d been raped—but groups like Taproot really wish it didn’t. Together the groups form an emerging, far-reaching movement that has eschewed Catholicism’s restrictive directives, and, in their place, adopted a new raison d’être: to refocus religion’s considerable power into the fight for social justice. That long list includes achieving gay rights, reproductive choices, ending racism, and finding gender equality.

Today’s Taproot meeting at Trinity is one more step toward the social justice end goal. Every year in July, Taproot meets to “walk the labyrinth” and focus on one, big social issue. This time, a member named Gertrud leads everyone in 10 minutes of Tai Chi to begin the service. Movements flow uninterrupted by the awkward giggles of a group trying something new. In time, each member’s face finds a focused calm as Annie Lennox’s voice sings from speakers. From that calm, minds are instructed to meditate. Often, Taproot focuses on ending homelessness or mainstream media manipulation; for the special meeting, members dedicate their thoughts to the refugee. They’re particularly concerned about a prisoner in Taiwan who is on death row for murder and is, perhaps, innocent.  Earlier, Taproot wrote the prisoner a letter; they’re now reading his reply.

The group’s members include both men and women, but it’s the latter that make up the bulk of the broader movement. In Canada, for instance, the progressive-minded collective is formed of various members of the larger Christian faith community, much of it ambiguously Catholic-centred like Taproot, plus dozens of nuns, a handful of women Catholic priests, and also Canada’s only woman bishop. On a worldwide scale, we have groups like U.S.-based Nuns on the Bus, an organization that is part of Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of American nuns. The nuns travel the country lobbying for social justice, such as more humane immigration laws; LCWR has also advocated for insurance coverage of birth control. “A new church is emerging, based on diversity within unity and social justice,” says one Catholic female priest. “It is an egalitarian community with a focus on the gospel’s values, not the law of and obedience to all the fellas in control.”

Like much seismic change, however, the path to wrestle control from the fellas has not been easy. While some faith groups, like the Anglican Church, allow women priests, the Catholic Church immediately casts them out. As a result, these women are barred from using official Catholic Church space and have had to be innovative: some use their homes for Sunday services, and many borrow the space of United Church buildings (which welcome women religious leaders). Leading women are scrutinized by the Holy See (the Catholic Church’s Episcopal jurisdiction in Rome’s Vatican City) and called radical feminist nuns—apparently a putdown—by Pope Francis. “There’s a dichotomy of us and them,” says Monica Kilburn-Smith, Calgary’s only Catholic woman priest, whose parish meets in a rented hall. “They put God as the oppressor and at the top of the hierarchy. And [women] are ‘other’.”

It wasn’t always this way. In the ’60s the Vatican council, led by Pope John XXIII, introduced a more modern and forward thinking Catholic Church. It promoted equality—including gender roles within the Church—and a more inclusive, understandable liturgy. Then, in 1976 the Pontifical Biblical Commission voted 12-5 in favour of a decree that stated there are no scriptural barriers to prevent women from ordination, and the act does not go against Christ’s intentions. The good news for women didn’t last. In 1994, Pope John Paul II started to undo the work of his progressive predecessors: “We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

There’s since been scant positive talk of ordaining women heard at the Vatican. Given its roots in patriarchy, it’s not surprising that the Church would regress. Consider the story of the Virgin Mary, who, as the Blessed Virgin, obeyed The Father without question (as is often expected of all good Catholic women today). “Mary has been stripped of her wisdom and courage,” says Canada’s only woman bishop, Marie Bouclin. “She is seen as saying, ‘Yes, God,’ meekly.” Bouclin seems determined to never be meek, even if it means she’s counted among the so-called bad girls who advocate for equality blind to gender, race, denomination and sexual preference. In fact, several not-so-meek groups—such as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Catholic Network for Women’s Equality, and the Roman Catholic Womenpriests—are fighting to get back on a progressive track. They face considerable opposition, with holy men the world over reiterating the old message.

Take Neil MacCarthy, the Archdiocese of Toronto’s director of communications. When asked about the fight to ordain women, he says: “The Church isn’t in a position to ordain women, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Then adds: women are always welcome to volunteer at the Church, perhaps as a pastoral assistant or youth group leader. His stance is both common and indicative of the Church’s general view on women leaders. Still, such naysayers haven’t stopped progressive Catholics from trying.

In 2002 a bishop, referenced only as Bishop X to maintain his anonymity, ordained women priests. The Danube Seven are what followed: seven German and Austrian women ordained on a cruise ship in the middle of the Danube River. Despite prompting from the Holy See, the women would not say the ceremony, witnessed by 175 people, was invalid. They were excommunicated after refusing to repent.  Two years later three women were ordained by the same Bishop, at a secret ceremony, before he retired from his part in the sacrilegious ordinations. In 2008 the Vatican released a decree that stated women who are ordained and bishops who try to ordain them face automatic excommunication. It pointed to the Catholic Church’s Canon Law 1024 (Canon Law is the body of Church laws made by ecclesiastical authority), which reads: “A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly.” All ordained women and their supporters are technically “contra legem”: against the rules.

Bouclin was not ordained by Bishop X, but rather a trio of women bishops—as was the intent with the original wave of ordinations. It was 2011, and after already having served as a priest for four years, Bouclin rose to the challenge when called upon, both by her peers and, she says, God. Like many women who have been similarly called, Bouclin strives toward a collaborative model of church—a precept that, arguably, is what has the Vatican and its men-in-power so freaked about women-led churches in the first place. Bouclin believes in a collaborative model where intimate communities are formed, and then heard. There is compassion there, she says, not obedience to laws. Her fight is not “against” but “for”—for  cooperation and gender equality.

The Church does not sanction her authority. “My [former] bishop sent a memo to all the priests not to give me communion,” Bouclin says. They have not spoken directly in years. Bouclin did not consult him when she decided to be ordained. “I’m not the local bishop’s favourite person,” she says, referring to something a journalist once told her. “That makes me smile.” Bouclin adds, “I can only surmise that he wishes that the first woman bishop for Canada didn’t live on his territory.”

Considering the challenges and the resistance within the Catholic Church, it is fair to ask: Why do change-seeking women stay? Kilburn-Smith, the Calgary priest, likens excommunication to “being sent to your room until you behave and can come down for supper.” Kilburn-Smith was ordained, and subsequently excommunicated by the Vatican, May 29, 2008 in Victoria. She doesn’t regret it, and believes she serves a community that needs her as its priest. Besides, there is something about the Church: she loves the sites of altar decorations and stained glass windows; the smells of incense and lit candles; the rituals using fire and water, drama, and dance. When she answered the call to priesthood, she wasn’t necessarily being radical. “I hoped it would get people talking [about woman priesthood],” she says, “instead of leaving.”

Mary Ellen Chown would also rather work within the Catholic Church—albeit a renewed one. Chown is the national coordinator of the Catholic Network for Women’s Equality (CNWE). Chown joined the CNWE in 2000, a result she says of her Catholic upbringing and education, which actually opened her eyes to the need for social justice in the world. In 1981, at 22, Chown travelled to Grenada, where she worked at a school for the deaf through the organization Canadian Crossroads International. There, she saw the weight of family responsibilities placed solely on the women. Yet, they had no power to shape the economic and political decisions affecting their families. She saw the same when she lived in Mexico four years later, where children desperately tried to sell gum, carry groceries, anything for money. Chown thought: The Catholic Church could be a real force for good.

“The Catholic Church, as a global institution with great influence,” she says, “has a vital role to play in the world in being a leading example of justice and equality for women in all parts.” Yet, she saw how Catholic culture influenced a sense of male entitlement over women—be it women living in poverty, or those expected to tolerate their husband’s extra marital affairs. Still, Chown is certain the Church can model equality and justice between women and men. It need only start by remembering Jesus’ radical response to women at the time: it was women to whom Jesus first taught the Gospel. If the Church did this, she says, women can be agents of change at all levels of society.

In the end it often comes down to this: Sure, Chown could walk out the proverbial church door right now, but who would that help? Certainly not the many who are oppressed in the name of the Church, who would, she feels, with her silence be given implicit permission to operate under the current status quo. The fight may be difficult but she, and her colleagues in the church, believe the shift is coming—change is inevitable and the hierarchy will have to catch up. “The human project is a long one,” says Kilburn-Smith. She compares the Catholic Church to the Berlin wall: it came down fast, but the process getting to that point took time. She’s willing to stick it out.

Photo by Steve Payne

Words of wisdom from fat activist Jill Andrew

Jill Andrew wants to start a fat revolution. When she was a kid, says Andrew, she used to play around with euphemisms to make herself feel better about her body—PHAT (pretty hot and tempting) was a popular one. “As I grew up,” says Andrew, “I realized, ‘No I’m fat.’ I’m fat, I’m beautiful and I’m talented and I’m accomplished.” She wants other women to feel the same way. As part of promoting the size-acceptance movement in Canada, the 35-year-old Scarborough, Ont. resident has founded a bunch of fat-forward events and festivals, including the Bite me! Toronto International Body Image Film and Arts Festival and the Body Confidence Canada Awards. She also runs the fat fashion blog Fat in the City with her partner Aisha Fairclough, has won a slew of awards, and is in the process of completing her PhD. We caught up with Andrew in September to talk all things fat and feminism.

On what the anti-fat argument’s really about: We need space. At it’s core, the anti-fat argument is not only about women sucking up the medical system’s funding, it’s also an issue of women not being allowed to take up space. It’s an issue of women not being allowed to take up space. It goes back to the classic, ‘a good girl will be seen and not heard.’ Well now I think it’s, ‘a good girl will be invisible and silent.’

On why fat activism has to be a feminist issue: Feminism for me is about exposing the patriarchy that we live in. It’s about exposing how sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism: about how all of these -isms of inequity work together to hamper women’s lives, to silence our stories, and to create obstacles for us getting forward. Fat discrimination fits into all of those areas. It needs to be a feminist issue because that’s the only way it can highlight how women’s lives, particularly girl’s lives, are impacted negatively by size discrimination.

On the grey areas of fat acceptance: There comes a point as feminists where we ask ourselves, ‘Hmmm. Where’s the grey area when it comes to promoting fat acceptance?’ We want to promote acceptance, we want to promote loving our bodies but, at the same time, part of the feminist project was that we didn’t only focus on the aesthetic and the material of our bodies. We focused on our minds, we focused on what our bodies could do: such as taking us to work, allowing us to buy property, allowing us to bear children, and allowing us to create policies to better women’s and girl’s lives. There’s a bit of a paradox. We want women to love their curves, love their rolls, and claim fat proudly. We want women to care about how they look—by that I mean care about loving the way they look—but at the same time we cannot lose footing on some of the, dare I say, ‘bigger’  issues.

On using euphemisms, like curvy and plus-sized, for the word “fat”: These words make the fat body invisible. They depoliticize the fat movement, or the size-acceptance movement. The language waters down and makes the fat body invisible. What it is really is fat hate. It’s a message of: it’s there, we recognize it, but we don’t want to see it—so we dress it up and call it above average, call it something else, something prettier, something frillier, something that’s ‘mainstream’ that we can ingest.

I’m not saying that these words—curvy, voluptuous, plus-sized—are the most terrible thing in the world. What I’m saying is that when we push those out first, and only those, to the detriment of calling fat fat, we lose the political and the personal element that fat has for us. We need to get the word fat out. F-A-T. Language is a tool that society uses to further the medical agenda of pathologizing fat as an obesity epidemic. Fat as the terriblest thing you can be in this world. Fat as asexual.  Fat as out of control and irresponsible. And fat as loser. And all of these things we know are just not true. They’re just not true and we have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

On the danger of “get healthy” campaigns: The sad thing is, I’m not against a healthy lunch. I’m not against fruits and vegetables, right? But where the problem comes in, is that the fruits and vegetables become a means to an end, and that is: lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. What the means to the end should be instead is: Have healthy food, your brain functions better. It shouldn’t just be about the looking body. It should be about the doing body. What are we doing?

On why she teaches kids to be aware of the media: I teach kids to dig deeper, and to always ask the question: Why? Who is benefitting from a piece of advertisement? Who is the implied audience? Who has the gaze? Is this a picture that is for women to feel empowered about themselves? Or is it a picture for them to stand up in front of the mirror and say, ‘Oh crap, what do I have to change now?’

On why a call to action is also a call to reality: This is the way the world is set up. We can’t turn our face to it. We can’t think that what’s inside a woman is all that counts, because that’s not the case. The body is the site of so much social capital—it’s what you are read by instantly. But we can educate useage to know not to take it at face value. If you’re a person of colour who feels that you’re ugly, rather than saying to yourself, ‘Just buck up Jill. Where’s your self esteem? Come on, Jill, don’t be so dumb,’ educate yourself and try to peel it away: ‘Why do I think being darker skinned isn’t as beautiful? Where is that coming from?’

On privilege: I do not tell children it’s what’s inside that counts. That’s a phony piece of reality to give a child in this consumerist culture. What I tell them is these are the images you’re going to see and are going to be told are better: white is better, thin is better, able-bodied is better, straight (as in heterosexual) is better, straight teeth are better. These are all the messages you’re going to get. If you happen to fit into those categories, it’s not your fault. You can’t be blamed because you’re white; you can’t be blamed because you have straight teeth. What you have to recognize, though, is that you have a certain amount of privilege having any of those boxes checked off. Therefore your responsibility becomes: How do I use this privilege to educate and draw awareness to the fact that all those who don’t have those boxes checked don’t have that privilege?

On who should be the face of plus-sized fashion blogs: We have to be able to say, ‘Who’s getting the press? Who’s being put out there as the face?’ It’s not the 50-year-old, it’s not the First Nation, Metis, or Inuit blogger. Even though size is being put out, we also have to be critical of how it’s being put out. We don’t want to just recreate another Marilyn Monroe, but this time fatter. We want to show there are women of all sizes, all races, all abilities, and all ages who are actively participating in the consumer culture of plus-sized fashion.

On keeping the body-size acceptance movement diverse: It’s all about getting the histories of women out. If we’re not careful—if we create yet another pigeon hole with the plus fashion thing, the industry thing, the blogger thing—we run the risk of silencing yet other groups of women, too. That’s the scary, cautionary tale that we have to hold onto. It’s okay to love our size, it’s okay to promote the social aspects of the movement, but we have to keep a political and a critical head on our bodies, as well. And that means ensuring that diversity’s present, that it’s not tokenistic, and that it’s intersected: that we’re telling many stories, and not letting one story encapsulate all of them.

A scientific and anecdotal rumination on why today’s kids are more than all right—they’re the best generation yet

I had only been a College professor for three years when Gregory Levey’s controversial and much-discussed magazine piece “Lament for the iGeneration” was published in 2009. I interpreted it as a cautionary tale: if we’re in the hands of the next generation, we’re really screwed. Levey, a Ryerson communications professor, basically argued he’s pretty sure education has tanked; the iGeneration (those born in the 1990s) can’t handle post-secondary learning; and that the gap between the schools and the kids is too huge to mend. Dismal stuff, but I understood where Levey was coming from—kind of.

I was terrified when I first started teaching. I didn’t have any teacher training. I got hired via email. There was no mentoring, no lesson plans, no prep. One day I was writing a magazine column in my crap clothes from home, and the next I was dressed like a grown up stammering through a lesson at the helm of a full class. I just wanted them to like me. I guess that’s why I took it personally when they paid more attention to Facebook than they did to me during a lecture. It was an out-of-body experience to have to tell them to turn their computers off and listen to me. I felt the same frustration Levey described in his article: “Radical advances in technology over the past decade have made today’s young minds incompatible with traditional learning. It isn’t just what they know or don’t know. It’s also how they know things at all.”

Seven years later, I still die inside a little bit when, inevitably, I have to give the speech about shutting down screens when I’m directly addressing them. I hate that I have to say it, but now I don’t take it personally. I still worry that they won’t get the crux of the lesson if they don’t give me their full attention, but I know they’re not mentally flitting around out of disrespect. Instead of finger wagging, I immersed myself in learning what makes them tick. Asking them to drop their tech would be like asking you to wear your shoes on the wrong feet. It’s do-able, of course, but does it ever feel wrong. What I found is that this generation multi-task very well, and that the cynicism surrounding the iGeneration is dead wrong. Not only are the kids alright, they could be the best generation yet.

My cynical generation is great at slapping critical labels on the iGeneration. We do it all the time. “Everyone dumps on the youngest generation,” says Giselle Kovary, co-founder and Managing Partner of Toronto-based ngen People Performance Inc., which specializes in managing generational differences in the workplace. “But this generation is scary smart.”

The generation born in the 1990s has pretty much always known things we haven’t: Facebook (est. 2004), YouTube (est. 2005), Twitter (est. 2006), Google (est. 1996) and Wiki (est. 2001). Social networking to them is what colour TV was to GenX: It’s hard to remember life before it—and just like T.V. used to be the big scare, we are obsessed over what the internet does to children of the iGeneration, especially now that they’re growing up. All of this freaky attachment to tech is seriously messing with the “social” part of their brains, some experts say. Everyone — including iGeneration itself  — is extremely sensitized to the way young people interact with technology. The list of scientific studies on the topic is as expansive as the more amateur commentary making its way through social media circuits.

The conclusions that such technology-attached-brain studies and commentaries reach are overwhelmingly scary. They ring not of advancement and exciting future possibilities, but of one word: beware. Take, for instance, the conclusions of one cautionary book. “Besides influencing how we think, digital technology is altering how we feel, how we behave, and the way in which our brains function,” says Gary Small in his book, iBrain: surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind, which he co-wrote with his, wife Gigi Vorgan, in 2008. “As the brain evolves and shifts its focus toward new technological skills, it drifts away from fundamental social skills, such as reading facial expressions during conversation or grasping the emotional context of a subtle gesture.”

In other words, the iGeneration’s techno brains are morphing them into socially-inept robots.  It’s easy—perhaps too easy—to agree with this assessment, but I don’t buy it. In my seven years in the classroom, I’ve witnessed how much more mature this generation is than I ever was as a student. On the upside, this techno brain phenom has resulted in a cohort that can think on its feet, make snap decisions and, on the flip-side of all the negative studies about them turning into social morons, there’s just as much research to show that students who use tech to communicate are actually fantastic collaborators. It’s like they’re wired for it. They are fearless about pushing buttons—literally and figuratively—and, as one article put it, it’s “as if they’ve been programed how to know what to do.”

I’m in constant contact with my students, partly because they demand it and partly because it’s just easier that way. Why wait a week to get an answer from me, when they can fire off a quick message, get the direction they need and then press on with an assignment? Isn’t that just working smarter? I’ve talked a student through a class project at 8 p.m., while she was still at school and I was grocery shopping. I’ve conducted a class from my hotel room at Disney World during March Break without a single hiccup. The students didn’t think twice about passing me around on an iPad to answer questions. What’s more, they all showed up to class, even though they knew I wouldn’t be there in body.

“This generation is known for its innovation and creativity,” laughs Kovary over the phone. “Think outside of the box? Um, they don’t even know there is a box.” This generation only knows a world where the next-best version is released quarterly. What they’ve internalized is that there’s no need to wait until every detail is perfect. Instead, you make adjustments as needed, in real time. This freedom of approach is what, perhaps, makes them the gutsiest of all generations.  As Kovary adds, the iGeneration doesn’t get stuck in the older generation’s static world, or even in the status quo. Change is okay. In fact, it’s great.

If the box no longer exists, neither does any sort of social or geographical barrier. Enter the now ubiquitous crowd-sourcing movement. What once was a small world has become a teeny, tiny world and no generation is more adept at taking advantage of that than the iGeneration. When I was a kid (Ugh. Did I just say that?), I wanted to be a travel agent. (Don’t laugh. Who saw Expedia coming in the ’80s?). But I didn’t know anyone in the field, I couldn’t find a college or university program, and that dream died. Today, those obstacles don’t exist. The iGeneration doesn’t blink at the thought of finding valuable life, job, or education connections though technology or social media. Just as those from other generations might ask their spouse, mentor or close friend, the iGeneration will source hundreds of “friends” and “followers” for love advice, career advice, and even thoughts on what to eat for lunch.

It can seem gutsy to put out a public SOS on Facebook or Twitter, but that’s the way the iGeneration rolls. “They will crowd source, no matter what the challenge,” says Kovary. “Their ‘pack’ is 700 people.” While critics lambast the generation for its me-me-me focus, the truth is that collaboration comes naturally to this extended pack. Their willingness to source what other people have to say almost makes relying on others second nature.

In one class, for instance, I blindfolded my students and told them to make their way around the classroom, being sure to touch each of the four walls before returning to their chairs, in an unconventional attempt to teach them about deadlines (newsflash: I set them because I can see what’s coming). Almost the entire group instinctively worked as a team, made a human chain and executed the task in a pack. In the end, I made my point about deadlines (my due date is preventing you from ramming into the proverbial desk you didn’t see) and they reinforced the notion that there is power, and trust, in a pack.

Perhaps surprisingly, rather than creating a generation of followers and drifters—as is so often suggested—this ask-everybody-and-anybody-everything-and-anything attitude has created a cohort of peers. This extends to all areas, including business, and pretty much anything where top-down leadership was once instinctive. Now, says Kovary, everyone within a corporation is a peer.  “If a senior manager says ‘email me’, [this generation] will,” she adds. “If you’re going to tout open communication, get ready!”

Whereas other generations were meant to maintain respectful distance, connecting with people—all people—is the iGeneration’s natural expectation.  Or as 23-year-old Katie Fewster-Yan puts it, because her generation is able to make so many easy connections with people, the top-down model of leadership seems unappealing, even obsolete. Instead, she suggests the term micro-leaders. She is co-founder of Ruckus Readings. Ruckus is a Toronto-based reading series that promotes spoken word literature, one of many, she admits, that exists in Toronto—an exercise in diversifying options, instead of competing for an audience. “Since it’s so easy to connect with people,” she adds, “You can really choose to follow the ones you’re drawn to.”

For Fewster-Yan, this has nothing to do with a sense of entitlement (another common, and tired, criticism of today’s twentysomethings.) In fact, she mostly feels like she has the inverse of entitlement: that her resume is one small sheet in a massive stack of overqualified resumes, not even entitled to minimum wage despite her university education. She guesses that, more than anything, is why many of the iGeneration start things on their own, like she did with Ruckus Readings. It’s not that they feel entitled to be happy or immediately successful or even that they should jumpfrog over others with more experience. Rather, there is a general sense that the old model of “shimmying in at the bottom, hanging tight and working your way up” is broken. And why, in this new world of change and crowd-sourcing wouldn’t it seem that way? “I think of plenty of people as role models,” says Fewster-Yan, “but I see them more as exemplary peers than superiors.”

Or, as 22-year-old Chanelle Seguin says: “The best part is that the older generations are learning from the iGen.” Seguin is the sole staff reporter at the Pincher Creek Echo in Alberta, where she is responsible for writing and designing the weekly community newspaper. In addition to putting in a solid eight hours at the paper, she also works part-time at Walmart to pay off the line of credit she needed to move from Ontario to Alberta for the reporting gig. Plus, she is a volunteer Girl Guide leader, is planning to coach hockey and is working on her own sports magazine start-up, Tough Competition.

She says her generation was forced to become leaders. They had to teach themselves how to use Facebook, Twitter, smartphones, Bluetooth—and the list goes on. Her generation doesn’t, she adds, follow the same way other generations did. In that way, she admits, they kind of deserve the selfish moniker everyone slaps on them. “We are almost selfish,” says Seguin, “because we lead ourselves and don’t consider following anyone.”

Even so, don’t ask for an iGeneration’s undivided attention because you’re not going to get it. It would be like asking a Gen-X to go back to changing channels without a clicker, or trying to convince a Traditionalist that debt is good. It just feels wrong. The iGeneration is of the “do it now, fix it later” mentality. But why wouldn’t they be? They’ve come of age at a time when technology changes quarterly. Change is good. Rapid change means things are getting cooler.

Some have labelled this trait as the desire for immediate gratification, or a lack of stick-with-it-ness, but I think they’re wrong. I think it’s a matter of momentum. They can’t stay static because everything around them, the social life-sustaining technology that triggers their all-consuming dopamine, is in perpetual change. Science tells us that brain function from age 15 to 25 is dopamine induced, which is why this is life’s most emotionally-powerful span. It isn’t until later, sometime from age 25 onward, that the ability to control impulses kicks in. Dopamine is the feel-good chemical, it’s that little Russell Brand voice in your head that whispers, “Go ahead, luv, have another piece of cake.”

The iGeneration is swimming in it. Science also tells us that hits of dopamine, for the iGeneration, come from things like Facebook status likes and ReTweets. It’s easy to confuse this with narcissism. While nearly all researchers peg key human development on ages birth to three years, prominent figures in adolescent research beg to elaborate. They say people ultimately become who they are during adolescence. The prefrontal cortex—the steady-eddie part of our brain—starts developing just before adolescence and doesn’t stop until we’re in our mid-twenties, which means from puberty until then everything feels really intense. We can blame this intensity on dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres and gushes when we do something that feels good. This entire process is about preparing young people to shape their own notion of who they are as people, as they strive for self-actualization.

In Jennifer Senior’s article, “Why You Truly Never Leave High School,” published in January in New York magazine, the power of dopamine is explored. She quotes studies on the “reminiscence bump”—the term used for the fact that, “when given a series of random prompts and cues, grown adults will recall a disproportionate number of memories from adolescence.” This explains BOOM radio, mullets in 2013, why NKOTB can still sell out, and why otherwise placid grandparents can still bust a mean jive at a wedding reception. Societal circumstances change with the generations, but basic brain development doesn’t. The drastic variable with the iGeneration, though, is the breakneck speed of technology. According to iBrain, we haven’t seen this kind of leap since humankind first learned how to use a tool.

Every human being experiences the same stages of brain development, in that we’re all in prefrontal cortex development from puberty to our mid-twenties. The difference today is that dopamine hits are coming from tech, and tech is everywhere, and tech equals perpetual change. According to Joel Stein’s article, “The Me Me Me Generation,” published in May in Time magazine, in order to retain this generation in the workforce, companies must provide more than just money; they must also provide self-actualization. “During work hours at DreamWorks (for example),” Stein writes, “you can take classes in photography, sculpting, painting, cinematography and karate.”

This whole self-actualization thing is a bit much for Gen-Xers and Boomers to stomach, especially in the workplace. I get it. And it took me a few runs at it, but I now see that self-actualization is the only way to truly reach the iGeneration in the classroom. I don’t fancy myself Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Dangerous Minds, and I certainly have nothing on Dead Poets Society’s captain-my-captain, but when I handed out marshmallows to students in a magazine writing class I knew I grabbed them tighter than Facebook in that lesson. I had found a way to tap into their value system. It was all about them (ahem, self-actualization), yes, but I knew every student also had a story to tell.

Still, I had completely underestimated the power of my marshmallow lesson. I was humbled when one student’s composition described how it made him feel when he and his sister roasted marshmallows by candle flame because, as “apartment kids”, they never had the privilege of a backyard campfire. In Marshmallow, I expected a literal description of the taste of a marshmallow. Perhaps I underestimated the trust they had in me, and in their classmates, to share such personal stories. Educators need to find out what iGeneration’s values are by sneaking up on them with unconventional lessons.

I remember another lesson, where I had students write a hate letter to anyone or anything. Dear Money. Dear Coffee. Dear Dad. Anything. One girl, a Harley-Davidson employee, addressed her letter as: Dear Chrome-Loving Douche Bag. Of course, when I read it aloud to the class, there was an extended laughter pause, but the content of the letter revealed a real revulsion, and fear of, a middle-aged man who flirted with her during a sale. It’s bizarre. I’ve had some of the best Canadian journalists come speak in my classes, and I still catch students sneaking Facebook during the session. Yet, the Douche-Bag letter warranted undivided attention.

In a world so saturated with noise, it’s like the iGeneration is thirsty for honesty and direct, transparent communication. If you spin an inauthentic response, they will quickly abandon ship. I have to admit, there’s something endearing about a generation who wants to cut through the bullshit—much of it knee-jerk criticism of themselves.