Sharon Fraser
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description: Writer Editor Broadcaster
date: 2022-04-24T18:03:45Z
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update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
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items: Muriel, in her own words
items: Child care: an essential service
items: Framing the news
items: Remembering Topshee
items: That elusive perfect rock
items: Our 50th reunion
items: The Church: symbolism rules
items: Pornography: traced to its source
items: A legacy worth honouring
items: https://www.sharonfraser.ca/2012/10/1261/

Muriel, in her own words
type: item
date: 2016-03-03T03:56:27Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: This piece was first published in The Women’s Almanac in 1993. Muriel passed away in 2009. MURIEL DUCKWORTH was born in 1908 on a farm in Quebec near the town of Austin. She graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 1929. She and her husband lived in Montreal and in New York before moving to [...]
encoded: This piece was first published in The Women’s Almanac in 1993. Muriel passed away in 2009. MURIEL DUCKWORTH was born in 1908 on a farm in Quebec near the town of Austin. She graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 1929. She and her husband lived in Montreal and in New York before moving to Nova Scotia in 1949. Much of her work has been in adult education but she is best known as one of Canada’s most distinguished feminists and pacifists. She was a founding member of the Voice of Women (Nova Scotia) and served as national president from 1967-1971. She is also a founding member of 17 other national and provincial organizations, including the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), the Canadian Conference on the Family (out of which came the Vanier Institute on the Family), and the Nova Scotia Women’s Action Coalition. She has run for public office (with the federal New Democratic Party) and has attended women’s conferences for peace around the world. She is a member of the Order of Canada, and has been awarded six honourary degrees. In 1991, she was the recipient of the Lester B. Pearson Peace Medal. She has three children, eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. This story is told in Muriel’s own words. ================================================================= My mother was a very independent person with ideas that she always expressed. I remember a lot of arguments in the family because my mother had her point of view and it was always taken for granted that she would have. I suppose I’ve become like that. She always earned money, by turning the farmhouse into a summer boarding house – she was a very good cook – and then when they moved from the farm into the village, she always boarded the teachers or young men working in the bank. Then she opened what she called a tearoom – it was a really attractive little place and we all worked there in the summers. She also became a representative of the Travellers’s Aid, b…

Child care: an essential service
type: item
date: 2015-12-04T06:07:58Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: (This column was published in The Sunday Daily News, July 23, 1989.) There was a recent news story about a Dartmouth day care centre that plans to hand children over to the police if their parents are late picking them up. When I first heard about the memo the parents had received to that effect, [...]
encoded: (This column was published in The Sunday Daily News, July 23, 1989.) There was a recent news story about a Dartmouth day care centre that plans to hand children over to the police if their parents are late picking them up. When I first heard about the memo the parents had received to that effect, I thought there were two very obvious observations to be made on this subject. The first one is that our society still doesn’t see child care as an essential service. The second is that the people in power don’t recognize the true nature of most women’s work and the lack of control that most working women have over their work lives. The day care centre in question is government funded. Many of the clients who use the service are single mothers trying their best to make a go of it, perhaps having managed to get off social assistance and work toward some financial independence. It surely won’t come as a surprise if I point out that most of these women are not bosses; indeed, most of them are at the mercy of bosses, many of whom have little understanding of the other lives that so many women lead. Imagine the predicament of a woman who works as a waitress, or a secretary, or a nurse when a situation arises that is going to keep her late. What if a party of eight arrives at the restaurant just as her shift ends and her replacement hasn’t shown up? What if a new client arrives at the office while the boss is still involved in a previous appointment? What if there’s been a fire and a number of victims are being carried into emergency just as the nursing teams are changing? In cases like these, women would be risking their jobs to walk out and say “well, excuse me, I have to pick up my child before she’s placed in the custody of the police.” But there are also more subtle instances where workers are placed in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between staying late or losing favor which may ultimately lead to losing the job. If there’s a special project going on at work…

Framing the news
type: item
date: 2015-05-25T02:20:53Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: The Topshee Conference was held at St. Francis Xavier University, sponsored by the Coady Institute, every second year through parts of the 1980s and 1990s. Each conference’s aim was to present facts relating to critical social and economic issues of the Atlantic Region; to enable people from all walks of life in the region to [...]
encoded: The Topshee Conference was held at St. Francis Xavier University, sponsored by the Coady Institute, every second year through parts of the 1980s and 1990s. Each conference’s aim was to present facts relating to critical social and economic issues of the Atlantic Region; to enable people from all walks of life in the region to discuss those facts in terms of their own experience; to encourage follow-up action on the issues by a range of organizations. In 1997, the theme of the conference was the media. I gave the keynote address that year and these are some excerpts from my speech. The mainstream media is not a monolith. And yet, the mainstream media covers the news within a very narrow framework. Any attempt to cover the news outside that frame is immediately suspect and the person pushing the boundaries of the frame is marginalized and isolated. I’ll give you two examples – which reach different conclusions: I was once taken off a story because the producer thought my background and my beliefs weren’t suited to the subject matter. It was about the feminization of poverty; I had done a lot of research on this, knew a lot of sources, felt I could throw some light on a complex subject. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think a story like this coming from your point of view would lose some credibility. I’m going to give it to Bernie.” “And whose point of view will Bernie do it from?” I asked ingenuously. But my ingenuousness was lost on him because he looked at me strangely and said, “Well, from nobody’s point of view. He’ll just do a straight objective story.” Those of you who have worked in radio or television will be familiar with those machines whose job it is to erase tapes. You just take all your full tapes, line them up, run them through and they come out clean as a whistle, with no pre conceived ideas on them, no background, no history. I suddenly imagined the producer running Bernie through that machine every morning, making him much more qualified than I to do …

Remembering Topshee
type: item
date: 2015-04-27T22:01:32Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: (This column was published in The Daily News in Halifax, July 10, 1990) We spent a recent weekend in Antigonish, attending the annual Topshee Conference. This year, the theme was Underdevelopment in Atlantic Canada; the format was, as usual, a keynote address, a panel discussion, plenary sessions interspersed with workshop groups, and a few social [...]
encoded: (This column was published in The Daily News in Halifax, July 10, 1990) We spent a recent weekend in Antigonish, attending the annual Topshee Conference. This year, the theme was Underdevelopment in Atlantic Canada; the format was, as usual, a keynote address, a panel discussion, plenary sessions interspersed with workshop groups, and a few social events. “That sounds so interesting,” a friend of mine said, when I described it to her. “Why do they call it the Top Sheet Conference?” I suppose she thought I was leaving out the more risque parts in my description. For others who might not know, the conference is named after Father George Topshee, a director for many years of the Coady International Institute. He is remembered as a simple, practical man who preferred working with people at the community level and the theme that runs through the conferences that bear his name is that ordinary people can make a difference – by understanding the issues, by working together, by learning methods of political action. The official aims of the conferences are: to present facts relating to critical social and economic issues of the Atlantic Region; to enable people from all walks of life in the region to discuss those facts in terms of their own experience; to encourage follow-up action on the issues by a range of organizations. Each conference is, according to the founding brochure, a place where difficult problems will be examined; a place where people of diverse economic and social backgrounds will confront problems together; a place where answers will be discovered through group study; a place where leaders will develop; and a place from which new directions for development will emerge. I found it to be as good as its word. It was an extraordinarily stimulating weekend, attended by a great variety of people from many different backgrounds, all of whom seem to maintain the belief that it is possible to effect change from the bottom up. Only a cynic or a person who’s lost all …

That elusive perfect rock
type: item
date: 2015-03-08T18:58:40Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: (This is how I introduced this column on social media – Facebook and Twitter – and to my email list: I’ve always believed that the work – and the play and the art – of girls and women are valuable in their own right and are not more valuable if they resemble the work, play [...]
encoded: (This is how I introduced this column on social media – Facebook and Twitter – and to my email list: I’ve always believed that the work – and the play and the art – of girls and women are valuable in their own right and are not more valuable if they resemble the work, play or art of boys and men. I’ve never enjoyed the observation, “She’ll get ahead. She thinks like a man.” I don’t like the fact that people are called “girly” and it’s supposed to be insulting. I had to stop going to my son’s baseball games when he was little because there were always parents who yelled – at their own sons! in front of their own daughters! – “I can’t watch you! You run like a girl!” I’ve never believed that being a welder is somehow intrinsically better than being a nurse and I believe that an intricate hand-made quilt is a work of highest art. That was my frame of mind when I wrote this column. This is about hopscotch and the athletic little girls who play it. It was written in 1990.) When the weather starts to improve, I know I will find that I have retained a childhood custom of walking with my eyes resolutely cast downward. Old habits die hard and I am, of course, still looking for the perfect hopscotch rock. Hopscotch, a female ritual of my youth, seems to be one of those sub-cultural activities of childhood that travels from generation to generation almost intact. To this day, I see the familiar patterns drawn out on sidewalks and schoolyards and I fondly imagine little girls with their favorite rocks tucked safely into jacket pockets, awaiting the recess or after-school bell. I played two kinds of hopscotch – this kind: and this kind: The second was, I think, a little more difficult because it required the player not only to hop on one foot, but to kick the rock from square to square. Naturally, the two kinds of hopscotch required different kinds of rocks – and that’s something I’m still considering as I conduct my rock-search today. The first kind, which involves simply tossi…

Our 50th reunion
type: item
date: 2014-12-03T22:28:34Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
subject: Montreal
subject: nursing profession
subject: reunion
subject: sisterhood
description: (May 1-3, 2014, was reunion weekend for graduates of the Montreal General Hospital School of Nursing. Our class, the Class of 1964, celebrated the 50th anniversary of our graduation. Please click on the photos for a larger version. The quality of the photos is not consistent.) Friday morning: The Livingston Hall Coffee Party There was [...]
encoded: (May 1-3, 2014, was reunion weekend for graduates of the Montreal General Hospital School of Nursing. Our class, the Class of 1964, celebrated the 50th anniversary of our graduation. Please click on the photos for a larger version. The quality of the photos is not consistent.) Friday morning: The Livingston Hall Coffee Party There was a glass case just outside the lounge in Livingston Hall. I was waiting for my classmates and I was looking at our class’s memorabilia which was on display. “Who are they?” I heard someone ask. “They’re nurses who used to work here. They came back for a reunion,” said another voice. “They used to wear proper uniforms and a cap.” After a few disparaging remarks about how nurses have changed, he went on. “They were real nurses,” he said fondly. The questioner was a young man in uniform – probably a porter – and the middle-aged man answering the questions was from housekeeping. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” he said to me. I assured him I was and we had a lively conversation about what Livingston Hall used to be like. They were interested to hear that it was our home as well as our school – I pointed out the nearby elevators and told them about our rooms and some of the fun we had there, as well as the more difficult times. There are many highlights of our reunion weekends but the visit to Livingston Hall always stands out because it takes us back to a more familiar place than some of the other events. It’s there that our memories are waiting. So many of us, for example, remembered Miss Herman, ever-vigilant, with her tape measure to make sure we didn’t have too much leg showing on our way to work. I was an expert at turning my waistband so my apron was a good two and half inches shorter than it was supposed to be. I wasn’t nearly as good at avoiding Blanche but on the days I did, I always had a better day. When a few classmates and I walked along the corridor between Livingston Hall and the hospital lobby – with a stop at the Hop Shop,…

The Church: symbolism rules
type: item
date: 2014-11-12T22:24:59Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
subject: Catholic Church
subject: feminism
subject: marriage
description: (I wrote this piece in October of 2005 for the now-defunct Catholic New Times, a newspaper for progressive Catholics.) I had two recent experiences that bookended my summer and also presented me with a graphic picture of the range of views in today’s Catholic Church. At the beginning of the summer, I went to Mass [...]
encoded: (I wrote this piece in October of 2005 for the now-defunct Catholic New Times, a newspaper for progressive Catholics.) I had two recent experiences that bookended my summer and also presented me with a graphic picture of the range of views in today’s Catholic Church. At the beginning of the summer, I went to Mass in a big beautiful church in another city. I was enthralled by my surroundings but unfortunately, as the Mass progressed, I became grateful for the beauty, grateful for something other than the words of the homily to put my mind to. The homily was spoken by the deacon and early on he asked us to consider the evil that surrounds all of us, every day. Yes, indeed, I thought – and considered racism, domestic violence, illegal wars, child abuse. “Birth control,” he intoned solemnly. Oh dear Lord, I thought. He’s opening with birth control. He went from birth control to divorce to abortion to – his real destination – same-sex marriage. He was followed by the priest who asked us to pray that the politicians in Ottawa would not pass the marriage bill. I dragged myself out of church that day, feeling rotten, and said to my husband, “This is not how a person should feel, leaving the Mass.” I have never been subjected to this style of preaching. I am fortunate – blessed, even – to be in a parish where the priest is a scholar and historian, who uses his homily to interpret the day’s readings and to give us a greater understanding of the teachings of Jesus. In our church, we don’t pray for politicians to close their eyes and ears – and their minds. We pray for them to work for peace in the world and to put policies into place that would reduce the gap between rich and poor. At the end of the summer, I took part in a conference for recipients of the Canada Millennium Scholarship in Ottawa. One of the workshops I attended was called The Catholic Church: A Call for Internal Reform. I couldn’t resist it. It featured Father Raymond Gravel, a parish priest in Joliette, Que. …

Pornography: traced to its source
type: item
date: 2014-03-08T18:02:07Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
description: (This essay was first published in The Globe and Mail in 1993. It was written in response to previous articles on the subject of pornography and censorship, by lawyer Clayton Ruby and feminist/professor Thelma McCormack. Some of the material here is dated and I appreciate that. I don’t just acknowledge it – I appreciate it, [...]
encoded: (This essay was first published in The Globe and Mail in 1993. It was written in response to previous articles on the subject of pornography and censorship, by lawyer Clayton Ruby and feminist/professor Thelma McCormack. Some of the material here is dated and I appreciate that. I don’t just acknowledge it – I appreciate it, because it confirms my belief that there is still so much to do.) Pornography and censorship are bitter issues for feminists. They’re issues that have turned sister against sister, friend against friend. One feminist tells how she counsels 15-year old girls who are being coerced into uncomfortable sexual activities by boyfriends who have read Hustler. Others point out that if censorship is seen to be a solution, feminist thought and writing will be among the first to be censored because they so blatantly challenge the political and social status quo. Feminists in women’s shelters see women every day who are victims of men who are consumers of pornography. The women are frustrated when their testimony is not considered in the search for empirical evidence of the harm done by pornography. Clayton Ruby is swept away by Thelma McCormack’s speech given at a recent forum on censorship (December 1, 1992). Much of what he quotes challenges the views of the Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and other feminists that pornography does indeed harm women, that by its very nature pornography constitutes a form of inequality. I am anti-pornography. I am also anti-censorship – although not because of any particular reverence for the freedom of expression of pornographers. But I would like now to see the discussion about pornography move beyond hurtful words used by feminists against each other (or by those who enjoy seeing this feminist split) and ask this question: could pornography, in its ever-escalating forms and in its horrifying proliferation, exist without the more socially acceptable objectification of women as presented in mass media? <centre>* * *<…

A legacy worth honouring
type: item
date: 2013-12-20T02:08:07Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized
subject: election
subject: NDP
subject: Nova Scotia
subject: politics
description: On the first anniversary of the defeat of Nova Scotia’s first NDP government, this is a look back and a look ahead. (This article first appeared in rabble.ca following the Nova Scotia provincial election on October 8, 2013.) Over the years, I have watched many nights of election returns under a cloud of doom and [...]
encoded: On the first anniversary of the defeat of Nova Scotia’s first NDP government, this is a look back and a look ahead. (This article first appeared in rabble.ca following the Nova Scotia provincial election on October 8, 2013.) Over the years, I have watched many nights of election returns under a cloud of doom and gloom. I’m almost never on the winning side. It’s usually the winner who’s the cause of my despair – think Mulroney and Harper – but every so often, it’s the losing person/party/government that causes my plunge into despondency. I well remember the night that Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter – it was 1980 – and I have often wondered since how different the world might be if that result had been different. Imagine if the world had never been subjected to the Reagan-Thatcher partnership – with Mulroney tagging along later, trying to keep up with the big kids. Carter didn’t come close to being a perfect president. He acknowledged mistakes and admits to poor judgment on certain issues. But he also said said that, “allowing Ronald Reagan to become president was by far my biggest failure in office.” Years later, his wife, Rosalynn Carter said, “It was impossible for me to believe that anybody could have looked at the facts and voted for Reagan.” When voters were asked why they chose Reagan, most said it was “time for a change.” Nova Scotia in October 2013 is a long way from Washington DC in 1980 but once again, Nova Scotia’s election was one in which I mourned the loss of a government and I expect there will be many who will try to evaluate the innumerable ways Nova Scotia will change as its government changes. The Nova Scotia NDP came to power in 2009 after a campaign in which voters announced they were ready for a change. And change is what they got. It has been well-documented that the province’s finances were not in good shape but that wasn’t all. Whole departments were in chaos; the bureaucracy was directionless. One former cabinet minister from an earlier…

https://www.sharonfraser.ca/2012/10/1261/
type: item
date: 2012-10-07T16:55:45Z
creator: Sharon Fraser
subject: Uncategorized