For many female inmates in Canada’s prisons, a routine trip to the gynecologist could mean being shackled to a bed. This is according to a 2016–17 investigative report from Canada’s Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI). About one-quarter of female maximum security prisoners interviewed in the investigation reported being restrained during off-unit movement, including health care appointments and visiting hours with children. According to the report, male prisoners are not subject to the same movement restrictions. This is one of several alarming statistics related to Canada’s justice system reported in the past year. While overall rates of adult incarceration declined slightly in the past decade, rates of women and Indigenous people in Canada’s prisons are on the rise. Yet the OCI report notes no increase in female criminality in Canada over that period. Here are the numbers:

30%
The approximate increase in the number of federally sentenced female inmates in the past decade.

60%
The increase in the number of Indigenous female inmates over the same period. The greatest increase came in British Columbia. In 2016–17, 47 percent of women admitted to federal custody in B.C. were Indigenous—nearly double the percentage 10 years ago.

50%
Indigenous women represent 37 percent of all women behind bars, but they make up 50 percent of the maximum security population in federal prisons. Ninety percent of the women interviewed for the OCI investigation reported being segregated during their maximum security sentence, and 83 percent also reported having mental health problems. One region noted that women in segregation are provided earplugs to block out the screams of others in segregation in the same wing.

3
The number of recommendations presented to the Canadian Senate at an open caucus this year to keep women out of prisons and successfully reintegrate offenders into communities.
1. Strengthen community programs that alleviate poverty and prevent crime
2. Reform sentencing, classification and segregation
3. Make the prison system more transparent and accountable

This is the question west-coast filmmakers Ian MacKenzie and Nicole Sorochan want their audience to think about, especially within the realm of female DJs with their transmedia project, Amplify Her.

Through a documentary-style, feature-length film, a graphic novel, and a motion comic series, Amplify Her tells the story of seven female electronic artists making their way and growing as musicians in an otherwise male-dominated industry. The project’s mandate is to recognize the distinct qualities women bring to the electronic scene.

What started as the brainchild of MacKenzie as part of his mission to “uncover and amplify stories of the emerging paradigm” soon turned into something much larger when Sorochan came on board after learning that the project would celebrate these women rather than asking why there aren’t more of them in their industry. “I think many women today are tired of that question,” says Sorochan. It’s this refreshing perspective that allows the project to not only focus on what DJs like Blondtron, AppleCat, and Lux Moderna uniquely bring to the table, but also bring to light how these women are expressing sexuality, body positivity, and gender diversity through their art. Moreover, when the graphic novel was put into production, various artists came together and “it created a safe environment for women to share their talent, collaborate with other women, and shine a light on the value they each bring to the world through story,” says Sorochan.

Amplify Her has toured across the west coast in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Sorochan says she’s been ecstatic with the response from viewers, especially those from audience members who say they can identify with the film. And while there are no current plans to add more elements to Amplify Her, Sorochan is currently focused on securing more screenings to reach different audiences, inspire more women, and provide meaningful discussion.

Illustration by Matt Daley.

On February 9, 2016, at 3:45 p.m., Gail Benshabat sent a text to her 27-year-old daughter, Lisa, asking if she wanted to catch an early movie. Benshabat was wrapping up her workday at a quiet special needs school in the north end of Toronto, about a 30-minute drive from the third-floor apartment where she lived with her daughter.

Lisa never texted back.

“I knew something was wrong,” Benshabat recalls. She returned home and rushed up a flight of stairs with an immediacy only a mother can know, calling out Lisa’s name. With no response, she put her bag down and rounded the corner of her kitchen into her daughter’s bedroom down the end of the hallway. Lisa was hanging lifeless from the ceiling fan in her room.

Lisa left three letters for her loved ones: one to Benshabat, one to her older sister, and one to her extended family and friends. “Mom,” she wrote on the first of five pages, “I want you to know that you did everything you could to help me and more…. I couldn’t have gotten this far in life without your endless love and support. At this point you can tell that I lost hope that I would ever get better.”

Lisa suffered from interstitial cystitis (IC), a little-known medical condition characterized by chronic pelvic pain and a heavy pressure in the bladder and pelvic region, often associated with urinary frequency and urgency. It manifests in sharp, shooting pain, pressure, or spasms in the bladder, pelvic region, and lower back. It has been likened to carrying a bowling ball with knives in it.

IC currently has no known cause or treatment. It is also tremendously difficult to diagnose because its symptoms mimic other conditions. It’s not unusual for a diagnosis to take up to 10 years.

The pain of the illness—a pain that has been classified by some doctors as being worse than bladder cancer—was wreaking havoc on Lisa’s life. She felt she had frequency to urinate more than the average person. But doctors said there was little they could do. Even after her death, the message was repeated. On the night of Lisa’s funeral, Benshabat woke up at 3 a.m. and started writing emails and letters to the doctors who cared for her daughter. Many replied offering their sympathies; yet, one psychiatrist responded with his condolences but still suggested that Lisa’s pain was all in her head.

This is a common theme for many female chronic pain sufferers: their symptoms are dismissed as psychosomatic despite studies and tests confirming the opposite. According to a report in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics in 2001, “women who seek help are less likely than men to be taken seriously when they report pain and are less likely to have their pain adequately treated,” the researchers conclude. These findings have been repeated in medical journals in several years since.

It’s not uncommon for women with marginalized illnesses like IC to feel hopeless, even suicidal. It’s why chronic pain patients—often women—attempt suicide four times more than the general population, and why suicidal ideation is three to four times higher in IC sufferers. Even in a field that has been criticized as sexist for decades, doctors continue to perpetuate stigma against women—and for chronic pain sufferers like Lisa, that can often be the difference between life and death.

***

There were few years in Lisa’s young adulthood that weren’t plagued by constant pain. She found some relief in 2001 when, after Benshabat took to the internet to conduct personal research on IC, she found a urologist in Toronto who would prescribe the pain medication Pyridium. The pills relieved the bulk of Lisa’s symptoms for a couple months when she was 12 and again when she was 24, but she still experienced intermittent pain, spasms, and urinary urgency. Unsure when the symptoms would hit, she slept in until noon most days hoping to avoid a longer day of pain.

Many doctors dismissed Lisa. After waiting for months for an appointment with a Toronto IC specialist, she was told the pain was nerve related and there was nothing to be done. Another specialist in St. Catharines, Ont. offered no hope.

Then, a female doctor at Women’s College Hospital gave her some hope, conducting her own voiding test in her office. “It is not in your head, Lisa,” the doctor confirmed. Finally, someone set the record straight. For the first time ever, a doctor confirmed what Benshabat and Lisa knew all along: her pain was real.

Desperate, Benshabat and Lisa turned to a doctor at Toronto Western Hospital to insert a sacral neuromodulator, a surgically implanted device that sends out mild electrical pulses to the nerves in the lower back. The device helps people with urinary function and with chronic pain. But it doesn’t help everyone.

By her 24th birthday, Lisa had seen the inside of more than 10 specialists’ offices across North America—and no one could stop her ongoing physical agony

“It took us some time to persuade [the urologist] to try out the sacral neuromodulator,” Benshabat says. Eventually, he agreed. But after two weeks, Lisa noticed that there was no change to her symptoms and asked that it be removed. Postsurgery, as Lisa was wheeled into the recovery room, tears streamed down her face from the pain she was experiencing. The doctor turned to her. “I don’t know what else I can do for you,” he said and promptly left the room. There was a look of horror and outrage on the attending nurse’s face. “She went to bat for us,” Benshabat says.

When Lisa and her mother left the hospital that day, Benshabat “filed that bad experience away at the back of my mind. Our hopes were shattered,” she says. “I wanted to file a complaint to the hospital but at this juncture I needed all the strength to keep Lisa’s hopes up.”

Benshabat and her daughter did not stop searching for relief. In 2014, Lisa visited pain clinics, received more medication. She had MRIs and CAT scans. She was tested for EhlersDanlos, a connective tissue disorder, but a geneticist ruled it out. She saw physiotherapists, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and an osteopath.

By her 24th birthday, Lisa had seen the inside of more than 10 specialists’ offices across North America—and no one could stop her ongoing physical agony.

There were still options. Benshabat encouraged Lisa to keep trying. There was a doctor in Kitchener, Ont., who offered up bladder instillations, a cocktail of medicines that are put into the bladder directly. The same doctor’s research assistant encouraged Lisa to take part in their clinical trial for a new IC medication. Lisa declined: she wanted immediate relief, not a trial. The research assistant was disappointed. “You know some people with IC take their lives,” she told Benshabat.

Benshabat kept searching. She found a highly recommended physiotherapist in Kitchener with remarkable results in relaxing pelvic floor muscles. Later, she came across an IC specialist in Michigan, a three-hour drive away, but a date mix-up made Lisa miss the appointment. It wasn’t rescheduled.

“We didn’t want to overdo it,” Benshabat says. “So many doctors were all repeating the same story: It’s a disease that is not well understood and that they don’t know enough about.”

Fifteen years after her first experience with pelvic and bladder pain, with no answers on the horizon for how to live a normal, pain-free life, Lisa gave up.

***

Lisa’s experience is not singular, and gender biases remain glaringly common in North American physicians’ offices, the ER, and medical research—regardless of the ample studies highlighting the problem. While an estimated one-tenth of Canadians under 44 experience chronic pain, a disproportionate number of sufferers are female.

Yet, according to “Relieving Pain in America,” a 2011 report published by the Institute of Medicine on the public health impact of chronic pain, women’s reports of pain were more likely to be dismissed. Joe Fassler’s eye-opening essay for The Atlantic in 2015 details this through the story of his wife Rachel and her dismissive experience in a Brooklyn, New York emergency room department. Nurses frequently told her to stop crying from the pain—a pain that was the result of a twisted fallopian tube that her attending physician misdiagnosed as kidney stones because he didn’t check the tests before finishing his shift.

Rachel’s experience recalls the “Yentl Syndrome,” a term coined in a 1991 academic paper by Bernadine Healy, noting that women do not receive aggressive or proactive treatment in their initial encounters with the health care system until they “prove that they are as sick as male patients.” The study was named after the 1983 film Yentl starring Barbra Streisand, whose character dresses up as a boy in order to receive the education she desires. Healy found that men were often expedited and taken more seriously than women when treating cardiovascular complaints.

Later, in 2014, Katarina Hamberg, a researcher out of Sweden’s Umea University, found “women are less likely than men to receive more advanced diagnostic and therapeutic interventions” for coronary artery disease, Parkinson’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, neck pain, knee joint arthritis, and tuberculosis—all chronic illnesses—even when they presented with the same severity of symptoms as their male counterparts.

For Abigail, an artist from Kingston, Ont., suffering with endometriosis, it’s a familiar story. Abigail, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, suffered debilitating menstrual cramps since the age of 14. Her first doctor dismissed her suggestion it was endometriosis, another chronic and hard-to-diagnose disease that manifests in severe menstrual cramps and gut-wrenching pain; she was instead prescribed Midol, a medication billed to help menstrual pain, and Ibuprofen. The pills made a small difference.

But in 1999, Abigail collapsed from excruciating menstrual cramps during her first day on a new job in Toronto. The emergency room doctor she saw said it was a common ailment. “This is part of being a woman,” he said. He prescribed Ponstan, a muscle relaxant, which Abigail would use religiously for the next decade.

It would take almost two decades before Abigail was diagnosed with endometriosis. Like Lisa, she found herself turned away by doctors who dismissed her pain, or pumped her full of pills and antibiotics that failed to relieve her. In 2005, she was hopeful when a gynecologist in Montreal discovered a dermoid cyst on her ovary and scheduled surgery to remove it; but during the procedure, the doctor was unable to do so without also removing her ovary. Without Abigail’s consent, the cyst was left alone.

Her pain never subsided. Following the surgery, she emailed the gynecologist a succinct list of detailed dates and pain recurrence since the surgery, along with a rational fear it could be symptoms of ovarian cancer. He wrote back: “Blah, blah, blah. Contact the receptionist for an appointment.” Abigail descended into a depression. “I thought I was going mad because no doctor could explain what was causing the pain,” she says.

Abigail and Lisa aren’t alone. Writer Olivia Goldhill from New York had to self-diagnose endometriosis after her primary care doctor “waved his hands dismissively” when she asked if her pelvic pain could be connected to her menstrual cycle. And Sarah Barmak, in her 2016 book Closer: Notes from the Orgasmic Frontier of Female Sexuality, cites a similar story from Vanessa, a woman who went from having multiple orgasms to experiencing intense pain during sex. She was told by doctors, who were unable to successfully treat Vanessa, to “just not have sex” as a means to cure troubling uterine pain. Barmak doubts a man would be offered similar advice.

***

Are doctors dismissing pain in women because they themselves cannot find an answer?

A majority of those suffering from chronic pain are women, and often, their disorders are not easily understood by the medical establishment. This is due in part to a lack of funding and research available.

An editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine explains menstruating women are “being excluded from clinical trials, and that when they are included, they’re tested early in their menstrual cycles, when their hormone levels are closest to men’s.” And according to Julie Palmer, a researcher at Boston University, it’s still easier to recruit male test patients for some disorders, leaving women behind.

Meanwhile, some studies lay the blame on women and their inability to communicate efficiently with doctors. The University of California, Davis’s Michael Moskowitz says men are better able to voice their pain symptoms in ways doctors can respond to. Sweden’s Hamberg echoes this, noting that “men describe their symptoms in a straightforward and demanding way, while women often… give vague symptom descriptions and hesitate to accept potentially dangerous measures such as surgery.”

And even though female chronic pain patients outnumber male chronic pain patients, there are more male pain physicians than female pain physicians in North America. Because women experience pain more intensely, more frequently, and respond differently to pain medication and pain management therapies, male doctors may have trouble understanding their symptoms.

Abigail, like many, is still at odds with how little her doctors could assist her. When asked how the doctors came to diagnose her in 2013, she said there was “always a lack of information”—all of her doctors would consult a massive tome of pharmacology to diagnose the symptoms, but none of the medications they prescribed helped completely. Despite the numerous conferences, newsletters, and medical journals available to keep doctors in the loop surrounding diagnoses and available treatments, there is no guarantee specialists are always up-to-date.

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada says a subspecialty of Pain Medicine was approved in October 2010 and new national standards were implemented effective July 2013—meaning more research and treatment for chronic pain sufferers could be imminent. Senior communications specialist Melissa Nisbett, however, can’t confirm that there is a central database or online forum for doctors to consult for puzzling and seemingly incurable symptoms.

Desperate for answers, many, like Benshabat, turn to the internet, joining forums for support and searching for more understanding specialists abroad. Others simply linger in pain. As Carolyn Reilly, a reproductive justice advocate who suffers from endometriosis, writes in an article for Bitch magazine, something must change. “Female pain exists in a crossroad of stigma, disbelief, and misogyny. Female pain must be regarded as legitimate,” she says. “Because disbelieving and delegitimizing female pain is a form of oppression.”

***

When Lisa gave up her fight against IC, Benshabat felt responsible to keep searching for answers. More than a year since Lisa’s death, she is carrying on her daughter’s legacy by creating more awareness surrounding IC and those suffering with chronic pain, participating in talks at Canadian universities about the emotional impact of IC. She is also attending international conferences in the U.S. to share Lisa’s story with others.

“There is a moral responsibility by our medical system to turn their sights toward people who are giving up on life,” Benshabat adds. “I don’t want anyone to have to suffer like my daughter had to.”

These days, Benshabat often thinks back to the letter Lisa left for her. She is reminded of her daughter’s loss of hope, of the years in doctors’ offices that left her feeling defeated.

In the end, Benshabat’s efforts are calls for restored hope—that someday, Canadian women suffering with chronic pain, just like Lisa, will be treated with more respect and dignity by the health care providers intended to help them feel better.

Now 65, she has been active in making a difference for women in the territory as both co-chair of the Yukon AntiPoverty Coalition (YAPC) and coordinator of the Yukon Status of Women Council (YSWC), two non-governmental organizations in Whitehorse.

Hrenchuk has long been interested in justice. She studied fine art and anthropology in university, trained in the theatre, and worked as a costume designer and puppeteer. It was in this field she learned about the Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form used to discuss and encourage social and political change, and ways to tell stories that were informative and educational, not just entertaining. “My parents had a strong sense of social justice, which they instilled in me,” Hrenchuk says. “I always believed that I had a privileged life and that all women did not have the luxury of the choices I have had. So I did feel it was important to make a difference in whatever field I was working in.” That’s why she started working for the YSWC and YAPC.

She and her husband adopted three young children from Sierra Leone—twin girls and a boy—and Hrenchuk took a few years off to stay home with them. Once they started school, she began working part-time for the YSWC.

One of her first projects was organizing a reproductive health conference. At the time, counselors and nurses in the territory had little training in how to talk to pregnant women about their options. “A lot of people felt really uncomfortable talking about the issue of abortion,” Hrenchuk says. A woman from the Planned Parenthood Association of B.C. flew up to speak at the conference about how to provide support before and after such a procedure. About 60 people attended, including social workers, nurses, doctors, First Nations health workers, and women from rural Yukon communities, to whom subsidies were offered to cover the costs of travelling to Whitehorse for the event.

As her kids grew up, Hrenchuk wanted to work more. She continued to apply for grants, developing her position at the YSWC as she was able to get more funding. Then, about 10 years ago, she joined the YAPC. It seemed like a natural fit.

“The issues that I’ve been working on a lot over the past number of years with [the YSWC] have been issues around women’s poverty and homelessness, and applying a gender lens to that. Because women’s homelessness looks different than men’s homelessness,” she says. For one, many women have children, and if they don’t have an adequate place to live, their kids are taken away. Some women also stay in abusive relationships so they have a place to live, or return to abusive relationships because they can’t afford a place to live.

This is one area of intersection in Hrenchuk’s work. Whitehorse is an expensive city to live in, and for years, the YAPC has been pushing for more affordable housing. In 2011, the coalition released a report called A Home For Everyone: A Housing Action Plan for Whitehorse, which took stock of housing options, and found that supportive homes for vulnerable people were “insufficient or non-existent.”

There have been some positive changes since then: a long-term home for people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder has opened, as well as a transition home for people with mental health issues.

Several years ago, Hrenchuk worked with advocates in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to produce a report on women’s homelessness in the North. They released it on Parliament Hill in 2007. “Nothing had ever been done on it before,” she says. “I’m proud of bringing the issue forward. And also raising the consciousness of people in the south about issues women in the North face.” The issues are the same ones women in southern cities face, only exacerbated in the territories—higher rates of violence against women, sexual assault, domestic violence, and addiction.

An initiative borne out of another pan-territorial study Hrenchuk worked on is A Safe Place, an after-hours program offered Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights at the Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre in Whitehorse. It’s low-barrier, meaning women can drop in when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, provided they aren’t a danger to themselves or others. They can have a hot meal, or curl up on a couch and sleep. In the three years since it began, the number of women who attend has grown. “I think that was a big success,” says Hrenchuk.

Now, she’s researching the sex trade in the Yukon, something she says hasn’t been studied before. “I haven’t finished the interviews or the data gathering or analysis, but at first glance, many, many women are trading sex for a place to live or for money for a place to live,” she says.

The work she does can be discouraging. Hrenchuk gets frustrated by political indifference and bogged-down bureaucracy. But she’s motivated by the women she talks to. “I feel a real strong sense of responsibility that if women are entrusting me with their stories, it is my duty to do something about it, to the best of my ability.”

Women are still forced to ask Daddy Patriarchy for permission when it comes to reproductive rights. Being denied access to a safe abortion because a doctor is Catholic, for example, seems absurd in 2016. Yet here we are. The bright side is progress is being made, at a snail’s pace perhaps, but made nonetheless. This year a new medical abortion option will become available to women: RU-486 (marketed in Canada as Mifegymiso).

Medical abortions provide more choices to women as well, putting more control in women’s hands, “As usual with medical decisions, there are a variety of factors at play,” writes Planned Parenthood Toronto in response to my questions, “including many personal ones, and the important thing is that there is a choice at all.”

Mifegymiso has been available for women in France for over two decades. In Canada it usually takes nine months for a drug to be approved. Mifegymiso was reviewed by Health Canada for two and-a-half years. It’s now hoped this option will become available in the spring. Mifegymiso is a combination of two drugs. The first drug will prevent the production of progesterone, which prepares the uterine lining for pregnancy. The second drug, misoprostol, will cause contractions, eventually leading to an abortion. The process is similar to a miscarriage, and can even be used to aid in such situations. Only doctors will be able to give women a prescription for Mifegymiso, at least to begin with.

The current medical option is similar, using a mixture of methotrexate and, again, misoprostol. Methotrexate blocks cell growth; in the case of abortions it prevents the placenta from growing. This same drug is used to treat cancer and arthritis, as well as ectopic pregnancies. Misoprostol is taken at home, 3 to 7 days after the methotrexate is injected. A woman may choose a time that best suits her needs within this time frame. Misoprostol comes in tablets to be inserted vaginally. Like with Mifegymiso, the methotrexate misoprostol combo creates an abortion similar to a miscarriage.

While a trained pharmacist can fill the prescription, they must deliver it directly to a physician, who will have to administer the medication. It is never in the hands of a patient. So, as a Toronto Star article points out, “But if you’re in a remote or rural community, you don’t have a family doctor or your primary care provider doesn’t want to prescribe an abortifacent pill, you could be in the same boat, access-wise, you are now.”

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Companies, like Procter and Gamble (P&G), use this time of year to push cause marketing: a for-profit business using a not-for-profit’s cause to market their product. So even though cyclopentasiloxane—an ingredient shown to cause cancerous tumours in test animals—is the first ingredient in P&G’s Secret Scent Expressions deodorant, people can feel good buying their products because they have plans to donate US$100,000 to the American Cancer Society. This is pinkwashing, where companies mask the bad (sometimes cancerous) parts of their products by exploiting women’s vulnerability to breast cancer.

“Raising money has become the priority,” says Dr. Samantha King in Pink Ribbons, Inc. “Regardless of the consequences.” Distributed by the National Film Board, and directed by Lea Pool, the 2011 Canadian documentary is based off of King’s book of the same title. In it people such as Barbara Ehrenreich, a writer and breast cancer survivor, talk about how the capitalism of breast cancer awareness is serving as a distraction from how the movement originally started, with a sisterhood critically looking at the health care system.

“To expect you to add social purpose to your business just because it’s a good thing to do, is foolish,” writes Olivia Khalili of Cause Capitalism.  “You have a bottom-line and other obligations to meet.  You don’t have extra resources to allocate to ‘doing good.’”

Obviously businesses have a bottom line that doesn’t include helping others for the goodness of it. But where is this money really going? Walks and parties are fun—I’ve done fundraising for cancer research efforts myself—but after the high of solidarity wears off, and the hype dies down, we must ask: what progress health care wise has been made?

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

For years, women in horror have been the terrorized damsels. We are, more than often, the main characters of horror films, hence the creation the scream queen—actresses who became iconic for their presence in horror films, and, of course, their shrill shrieks. Yet despite the popularity of women in horror, for decades, women were there not to fight back against the antagonist, but to simply, it seemed, flail in blouses that were falling apart.

In more recent times, ’80s horror and onward, women in horror have survived and even defeated the monster or killer that is after them—but only after showing some skin and, of course, also providing excellent scream queen fodder. While the scream queen tradition is positive in a lot of ways, showing that we can be both strong and rightfully fearful at the same time, many scream queens make terrible decisions. Every horror movie watcher has, likely more than once, screamed at the TV: “Lock the goddamn doors! Why are you going up the stairs? Just shoot him in the head already.”

On one hand, this hesitance to just shoot the killer a second time, just in case, (because they’re always magically alive), or going the absolute wrong way, is a key part of building horror suspense. If characters made all the right decisions, there would be little room for fear and tension. Still, seeing women fight in their underwear at their friend’s sleepover is ridiculous. As a woman, I’d just like to say: I don’t sleep in a little lace nightie and I don’t hang out with my friends topless. And if a man I didn’t know called my phone and started breathing on the other line, I probably wouldn’t talk to him let alone be charming and flirty. Us women go through a lot; our survival instincts are top notch and horror needs to recognize that.

One good thing about women in horror? They always sense an evil presence in the house, and it’s usually the boyfriend/husband/father that insists that this house is a wonderful new place to start fresh. So a note to all the guys out there with a woman in their life: if she says there’s an evil presence in the house, there is most definitely an evil presence in the house. One could argue that the idea of the woman in the movie always being able to sense ghosts lends itself to the stereotypes of “female intuition” and women’s “emotional sensitivity”—there is merit to that. Though, I have to admit I get a certain satisfaction about seeing women in horror usually being right when it comes to ghosts and ghouls.

It can go the other way, too: the creation of a “strong” woman character who is utterly fearless, brazen, angry, and abrasive. But all this does is create one-dimensional character whose supposed strength is really her only character trait. If a depraved weirdo is chasing you with a chainsaw, it’s human nature to be afraid and screaming at the top of your lungs. However, we need to see women in horror who get afraid, panicked, and flustered at times, yet still have the capacity to be brave, tactical, and display some obvious common sense. The strong angry woman vs. weak emotional scream queen just puts women into polar opposite categories, making unrealistic sexist tropes, rather than well thought-out and insightful characters.

And if mainstream horror directors seriously find that too hard, the least they could do is quit the lace nightie stuff. Believe it or not, women like to be comfortable when they sleep. Surprising, right?

Next week, in honour of the spookiest time of year, I give you my top horror movies that are sure to scare you silly, while also being progressive and diverse films.

Google doodle for International Women's Day 2013, Photo: Google

Yesterday was Pi day (3.14), April 12th is National Grilled Cheese Day, and May 4th is Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you). But joke holidays were put on hold last week for International Women’s Day. Every spring since 1911, women worldwide have campaigned for solidarity. This definitely isn’t a redundant “holiday,” and unlike The Star’s columnist Margaret Wente argued two March 8th’s ago, the war for women’s rights isn’t over.

In the past, women have taken this opportunity to campaign against wars and to protest for better wages and the right to vote—all in the early 1900s. International Women’s Day extended its celebration to many countries in the Middle East beginning in 2000. This included Afghanistan, where 87 percent of women admitted to experiencing domestic abuse in 2008.

This year, Canadians hosted a total of 160 women’s day events as advertised online, many of which raised money for women’s charities. Among these was the first ever Feminist Art Conference which covered topics like “Fertile ground: Body Politics and Sexuality” and “Creating Our Own Narrative: Responding to Gendered Violence.”

Among other exhibits at the conference was the Missing Women Project. As the title suggests, the exhibit featured paintings of the faces of Ontario women who went missing and were never found. Events like this can have a lasting impact on all who attend, but what about those who don’t?

As one reviewer said, “It felt as though the people who were really passionate about these issues were already there.” And that’s the thing. Discussions and events centered around women’s issues are frequented and supported by those already of open mind. While these may be beautiful opportunities to rendezvous with like-minded women, those who are ignorant to these topics are being ignored.

International Women’s Day enables the same discourse to reach a much greater population. There was an “International Women’s Day Youth Art Show” held in Belleville, Ont. An Edmonton sorority, Alpha Psi, collected donations of household necessities for a women’s shelter. Students and staff from a B.C. college posted notes in the hallways about women who influenced their lives. Canada’s theme this year was “Working Together: Engaging Men to End Violence against Women.”

The UK went all out, with 429 events uploaded online. A women’s rights group hosted a discussion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo about eradicating violence on women. In Pakistan, the CARE foundation hosted a conversation titled, “Educate a girl, empower a woman.” These are just a few examples, but the amount is innumerable.

Organizers are already asking on the Facebook page: what would you like to see for International Women’s Day 2014? One commenter proposed a panel of women discussing “how they see the world and the priorities for improving it. Many of us believe that women have a more society-centric outlook, as opposed to a business-centric point of view. ”

For more feedback, an International Women’s Day poll asked “Which world leader achieves most for women?” I scoffed at the first option I saw, Stephen Harper. Remember when the Harper government reduced the Status of Women budget by almost half? Between him, Barack Obama, and the leaders of the U.K., France, Germany, and Australia, the U.S. came out on top.

International Women’s Day raises awareness, which is also a term of which I’m often wary. Like, what does that actually mean? Well it here means that it creates a starting point. When something is wrong, we need to talk about it. Where things go from there depends on how motivated we feel to change.

What would you like to see for International Women’s Day 2014?

Canadian women have fewer options than their counterparts abroad when it comes to birth control choices. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user vociferous.

Sitting up on the examination table, I can hear my sterile paper gown crinkling with every movement. The gynecologist sits a few feet away, looking up at me, and I feel like a stage performer as I explain the reason for my visit. “I’ve tried and hated almost every type of hormonal birth control,” I tell her. “I want to know about non-hormonal options.” She nods when I reveal I’m in a long-term, monogamous relationship; she tenses up when I say I’m interested in an IUD or a diaphragm.

My request was uncommon. Hormonal contraception is the unequivocal norm for most young Canadian women, and research for other options is virtually non-existent in this country. Birth control is low on the health agenda, and this oversight is putting Canadian women at risk.

In the last decade, I’ve sampled nearly ten kinds of hormonal contraception. By the age of 19, I had tried five different types of oral contraceptive. Puberty came with a prescription for the pill to help control heavy periods. In university, hormonal contraception threw me into an emotional frenzy. Going from the pill to the Depo-Provera injection to the Nuva Ring, I experienced symptoms that included an obsession with my weight, loss of my sex drive and intense mood swings. As a responsible young adult in long-term relationship, I was a good candidate for a vaginal barrier method or an intrauterine device (IUD), but I was unaware of those options and they were never mentioned. Campus physicians continued to advocate hormonal methods, convinced they could find “the right match.” Still, my body was completely uncooperative. I assumed I was the problem.

My latest attempt, a consultation with a gyno, earned me a prescription for a diaphragm. After trying more than a dozen pharmacies, I discovered that diaphragms are nearly non-existent in Canada. A call to the manufacturer revealed that in 2010, less than 100 devices were distributed across the country.

Finally turning online, research led me to the FemCap, a highly recommended new version of the cervical cap. An American product, it’s said to be comfortable, reusable, purchasable online and most importantly, hormone-free. I included the recommended organic spermicide with my order, because it’s not available in Canadian pharmacies.

When my gadget came in the mail, my boyfriend and I watched the unintentionally hilarious instructional video, which features a real vagina and animated sperm whose mission to fertilize is thwarted by the FemCap. To be sure, I ran the device by my family doctor. She’d never even heard of it, but she was enthusiastic. After giving it her seal of approval, she asked to keep the instructional pamphlets I brought in.

Advancement in non-hormonal birth control is not a popular field of research and statistics show Canadians are particularly unaware. The United Nations’ 2009 report on contraceptive use says the world’s most popular form of reversible birth control is the IUD. This is the method of choice for 14 per cent of the world’s women. While the report shows the pill is the most popular option for most developed countries, on the global scale only nine per cent of women rely on it. In Canada, one in every five women uses oral contraceptives. The condom is second in popularity with 15 per cent, followed by traditional techniques like the rhythm method at nine per cent. The IUD and vaginal barrier methods (including the diaphragm and the FemCap) are each used by only one per cent of women. In contrast, a whopping 13.5 per cent of European women report using an IUD and 14 per cent rely on natural family planning.

So why are Canadian women so dependent on hormones?

Cindy Weeds, the coordinator of women’s programming at Planned Parenthood Toronto, explains that North American women have normalized the consumption of hormonal birth control. “Often we see women who come in and all they know about is the pill,” she says. Whether this is the cause or the effect of the current contraceptive landscape is difficult to say. Proliferation of hormonal methods is cyclical: as these contraceptives become more accepted, the industry becomes more profitable and advertising increases. This ensures the products stay on the radar and gain approval, re-launching the cycle. “Certain kinds of pills are really heavily marketed, particularly to young women,” says Weeds.

One of the consequences of this consumption cycle is a decrease in demand for non-hormonal products, reducing their supply and leading to a dearth of available information.

Fear of pregnancy is also a consideration. The pill boasts a 99.9 per cent rate of effectiveness, while the diaphragm has a failure rate between four and eight per cent, a margin of error too risky for many.

In Canada, advancements in the study of contraception are not a priority: little research is done to develop any new methods of birth control, let alone non-hormonal alternatives. Since 2008, the Canadian Institute of Health Research has spent $916,226 on birth control-related research, none devoted to new developments. In contrast, research devoted to pregnancy and conception received more than $20 million in funding, 22 times the amount allocated to birth control. And for example, while $14,000 was given to a British Columbia conference focused on sexual health education, $20,000 was allocated to finance events honouring the oral contraceptive’s 50th anniversary.

Women will often accept the side-effects of hormonal birth control because their fear of conceiving is so great. But, as Amy Sedgwick, owner of Toronto sex and health store the Red Tent Sisters, says, “there’s really no other comparable situation where millions of healthy people are taking a daily drug.” Numerous studies warn of the effects of hormonal contraception. The pill is said to impair muscle gain and increase women’s risk of heart attack, stroke and cervical cancer. Studies have also shown that women who use hormonal contraception are more susceptible to mood disorders and sexual dysfunction, and prolonged use of Depo-Provera, the hormonal injection, has been linked to bone-density loss.

Birth control has been lauded as a bastion of feminist liberation and empowerment, but our dependence on hormonal methods is worrisome. As women wait longer than ever to have children, they are relying on these drugs and devices for increasing periods of time, sometimes decades. Considering the volume of research revealing frightening long-term effects, hormonal birth control should be dispensed with a plan and a well-thought-out exit strategy. Most importantly, non-hormonal alternatives should be discussed, and used, in Canada.

Hormonal birth control disconnected me from my body and made me feel uncertain about my wellbeing. Using the FemCap has kept my health and sanity intact, and disturbing instructional video aside, my partner is a big fan. Just don’t make him watch it again.

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Other entries are little more than Livejournalling, diary declarations about the Self, or laced with academic speak. Swinging from one end of the narrative spectrum to the other can feel confusing, but the message as a whole is that butch and femme are not two identities, but the work of many individuals who have created themselves in their own images.

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