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STRONG WOMEN STORIES: Native Vision and Community Survival Kim Anderson and Bonita Lawrence, eds. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2003; 264 pp.
In contrast to an earlier generation of Aboriginal women writers who often argued that feminist analyses and activism were not relevant to Aboriginal people, Strong Women Stories provides a refreshing alternative to discussions about gender relations, feminism and tradition in Aboriginal communities. Kim Anderson and Bonita Lawrence, as editors, have done a commendable job in providing an opportunity for a variety of socially positioned Aboriginal women to describe and theorize about conditions of and challenges to the effects of colonialism, patriarchy and inequality in their lives and communities. The book has three parts: the first, titled "Coming Home," profiles women who, once removed from their community's struggles, return to those communities; the second, titled "Asking Questions," containing some of the most interesting and important chapters, addresses a variety of challenges that have arisen as Aboriginal communities engage in practices and processes of cultural revitalization; and the third, titled "Rebuilding Our Communities," provides an opportunity to begin community discussions on the politics of family planning, local control of education, fetal alcohol syndrome, and community and family divisions.
The strength of this book is that, without explicitly describing itself as doing so, it challenges dogmas that have become pervasive in discussing and describing the conditions of Aboriginal people. Many of the contributors identify and engage with thought-provoking contradictions that have become evident as Aboriginal communities and people become involved with processes of cultural revitalization. Challenging doctrinaire notions of tradition as unchanging phenomenon, these Aboriginal women describe ways in which western and Christian ideologies of gender and gender relations are often invoked as "Aboriginal tradition." They challenge notions of traditions that contribute to the continuing victimization of Aboriginal women and girls and the normalization of those processes of victimization. They openly...