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Some girls >> Feminists take different strokes in Lynn Crosbie's Click by JULIET WATERS
Not long before the Rolling Stones released Some Girls, Gloria Steinem came up with the term "click" to describe a woman's first moment of feminist consciousness. Needless to say, these two historical events did not dovetail into a classic rock 'n' roll line like "Some girls just have to address certain issues all night." But three decades later, for self-confessed "Keith Junkie" Elizabeth Renzetti, an important click moment was when she managed to get Richards to say pretty much the above quote. Some girls might hear the click in Renzetti's essay, "He's My Little Rock 'n' Roll" as the sound of one feminist shamelessly lowering the bar enough to allow even Richards to step over it. But others will be relieved that their ambivalent struggle between rock star worship and feminism has at least one intelligent voice. Renzetti's essay is one of my favorites in Click. Edited by Lynn Crosbie (recently controversial for Paul's Case, her book of poetry about Paul Bernardo), the aim of Click was to collect short personal essays from a wide range of feminists about their most memorable shifts in consciousness. Also, as Crosbie explains in her introduction, part of the project was to make younger women more comfortable with the reality that feminism can't have a stable definition, since much of its agenda has been to destroy "stable" definitions of women. Like Keith, feminism risks meaninglessness. Its built-in contradiction means its creed can never be more complex than an instinctive belief in its compulsion toward "certain issues." The strength of Click as an anthology is how simple, lucid and fun feminism is to read when it's rooted in something this basic. The vast spectrum of philosophies is another redeeming factor in this book. On the surface, a leather dyke like Pat Califa might have little in common with Rabbi Deborah Orenstein, other than their strict fundamentalist upbringing. But the urge to break down the narrow ideologies is the same, even if it expresses itself in different paths. Crosbie mixes intellectuals, activists and poets (Nawal El-Saadawi, Lorna Crozier, Nikki Giovani) with sexploitation queens, shock pop artists and cartoonists (Mamie Van Doren, Kembra Pfahler, Aline Kominsky-Crumb); a lesbian who decided to go back to men (Trish Thomas) with a dissident daughter of a feminist who decided to go back to feminism (Naomi Klein, daughter of Not a Love Story director Bonnie Klein); established middle-aged feminists (Marge Piercy, June Caldwood) with a teenage 'zine contributor (Jessica Stevenson) who perhaps offers one of the best attempts at defining feminism (next to Keith): "There aren't degrees of femininity, I'm a girl and that's that. Nothing that I do could possibly render me 'less female'...being a feminist means being myself in spite of society's claims about what girls should be." Click: Becoming Feminists, Ed. Lynn Crosbie. MacFarlane Walter & Ross, pb, 240 pp, $24.95 Book Talk: VERY HOT STORIES FOR GIRLS!!! SEX IN PUBLIC WASHROOMS AND STORES!!! This plug for the launch of Hot & Bothered: Short Short Fiction on Lesbian Desire (Arsenal Press) and Love Ruins Everything (Press Gang Publishers) takes no responsibility for any clicking (of handcuffs, let's say) that may result from activity at L'Androgyne bookstore, this Saturday, April 25, 8 p.m. (842-4765). For the more sensitive crowd, today, Thursday, April 23, is Canada Book Day. Two hundred bookstores across the province will be giving away 15,000 roses and 200 floral shops will be selling books. Call up your favorite bookstore or library to find out what's happening. Readings, events and stuff will be going on at Chapters, Paragraph, Double Hook, Nicholas Hoare, the National Library and Westmount Public Library. For events coming up the upcoming weeks visit www.sites.sympatico.ca/bookday
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"I am [a feminist], in a way. The best feminists are guys--chicks have got to wave banners. They've always got buckteeth, look like they've never been laid in their lives, which is what they're complaining about. At the same time, there are certain issues that have to be addressed."--Keith Richards