mission statement

What are we about?

We record ourselves while sitting nestled under the eaves of Sheena's Place in downtown Toronto. We met each other for the first time only last week and now we must struggle to define the purpose of our presence here. The small recording device in our midst makes us nervous but we forge ahead, desperate for some starting point.

Later, when we read the transcript, we exclaim over our incoherance, scrambling to fix this too-honest reflection of our discussion. The ramblings, the "mmhmm's" and "yeah's" that were comforting at the time have become awkward, uncomfortable, stupid. The "umm's and "like's" make us wince. Laid out before us in bold black print, the conversation that was interesting at the time has turned into nightmarish proof of our bumbling idiocy!

But then we stop, we each take a deep breath, and decide to lay ourselves on the line, to trust that you will refrain from judging us too harshly.

Maeve: Okay. Um, scary. (pause) Can I start?

Ann: Yes!

M: I'm going to start with personal ownership because this is a big thing for me. I do think that personal ownership is very important. But I also think that when I entered therapy, I had basically been told all my life that I was to blame for everything. So there's this big guilt around personal ownership, like, you're messed up because you chose to be messed up, which I think is a big issue. So I have big issues around the sensitivity that we offer to personal ownership. Do you know what I mean? That we have to be careful of it. That it's not a blaming thing, it's an empowering thing.

S: Mmmhmm. One thing... something that happened today, I realised how important it is to give, um, the women associated with this place a sense of, like, a platform from which they can speak and one from which they don't feel like they're jumping off a cliff in order to be assertive.

M: Yeah, it's difficult to find a safe space to talk in.

S: And for people to receive, and for us, too, to receive, like, letters - negative letters. I mean, everyone's gunna be up with their arms, like, sort of in combat, trying to protect themselves.

A: So there'll be a responsibility. Knowing that people are, um, so desperate.

M: Like we want... I do feel that it's important that this be a, sort of, safe magazine to look at, like you're not going to feel guilty looking at it, you're not going to feel judged looking at it, you know?

S: What images or thoughts make you feel, like, when you're looking at a magazine, you feel that you're going to be judged or what...?

M: Um, for me - this is a personal thing - often when I'm reading magazines that have, you know, "these are women that we're really proud of and that we think are great women" and they're all, like, they've dedicated their lives to changing things. And, yeah, I do think these are great women, but I think a mother who takes great care of her kids is also a great woman, do you know what I mean? I think someone who's fighting with anorexia and really changing her life and her outlook is a great woman. I think someone who's battling depression and learning to not hate herself and not want to commit suicide constantly is a great woman, you know?

S: It's really interesting that, like, women's magazines...this Canadian women's magazine had, uh, they take women who are somewhat successful in their careers and they do absolute make-overs of them and make them into models for a day or something. (laughs) I mean, all those women did all those great things but at the end of the day, they're models.

M: And I think in a lot of feminist magazines, like "Ms" magazine or, you know, "Herizons" it's "you should be dedicating your life to activism in a very open and public way" and I think in, you know, "Oprah" or "Cosmo" or whatever it's about you must, uh, look right, essentially. And there isn't really a lot of in-between. Like there are only certain ways that women should feel good about themselves. If they don't meet those molds, forget it. For some of us, just to stay alive is a huge battle and wow - good for us for winning!

S: Oprah was very self-help right? And now she's sort of branched out into community, right? But what if, you know, you missed the boat? There's all this anxiety if you go "but I'm just thinking about myself right now, I can't think about building, like, being part of a community to build a house - I can't even leave my house!"

M: I'm not a part of this, where does that leave me? Like, wanting to be part of a certain group, possibly a positive group for you but you not being in a space to be able to do that right now?

S: So, just being lost, right? Yeah. Or just, sort of, never really fitting - like the ones that don't really fit in, they're not that sick, and they're not that great, they're not that healthy.

M: They don't deserve the help, kind of? You're not "bad" enough for us to help you out.

S: And you're not healthy enough to be able to...

M: Function "normally" in our society.

M: You don't need to be someone "special", someone specific to read this and be part of this community. The fact that you're reaching out and reading this magazine? Kudos to you, like, wow, you know?

Conversation by Samantha, Maeve and Ann.
Transcript by Maeve, introduction by Maeve.