eleventh.transmission
Article
Holding Ink to Light: a Decade of Mutability in Forum Magazine
A Journal of the Calgary Women’s Writing Project Society
by Vivian Hansen
In the Fall of 1987, a group of women united to respond fiercely to an old tradition on the University of Calgary
Campus: The Lady Godiva Ride. Each year, a young woman was persuaded to ride naked, on horseback,
through the center of Campus. Small protests had occurred previously but they were scattered and often
overshadowed by the young woman’s own protest: “It’s my choice. I don’t feel exploited.” Of course, some of
us didn’t believe that Voice.
“We’ve got to do something!” demanded some of our Woman Warriors. “This tradition is part of the dark ages
for women.” We protested at a Students’ Union Council Meeting. We lobbied. We were strident, radical, and
unpopular. It was the last year that Lady Godiva dared to bare. Event organizers, we have reason to believe,
faded into the woodwork and may have resurfaced years later as mumbling critical relics of the “politically
correct.”
Our efforts successfully eradicated the unfortunate tradition that challenged women to rethink this elusive-
something called ‘choice’. Our lobby was the first thrust of activism that formed what most of us now
remember as the Calgary Women’s Writing Project Society, publishers of Forum magazine for more than ten
years.
Selected Covers:
Within a few weeks, Elaine Eason, Christine Hutchinson, Ling Tan, Sharron Lackner, Ella Kalcounis and
myself established Forum ’87, the prototype collective of what would later become the Society. We were
thrilled with the heady empowerment of activism; we thought we had potential. “We need to write stuff”, we
declared, “any stuff. Even if it’s a mimeographed underground newsletter!” The energy behind those words
carved out the first issue of Forum in 1988.
Since the Project’s first issue, we covered more than ten years of activism for women through our publication.
We were originally based on the U of C campus and focused on women’s issues pertinent to the campus:
the Blair Report on the Status of Women, the Sexual Harassment Committee, day care on campus, the
President’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, and the newly formed Women in Science and
Engineering. The first issue featured Janice Mucalov’s “Contraceptives Still Plague Women”, and a journal
piece on surviving sexual abuse, by Penelope Ash. Almost all issues of Forum featured front cover glossy
artistry that honoured women.
We didn’t know it then, but we were liberal feminists with a lot of privilege, and that status would soon be
challenged. For the next few years, feminist movement claimed new and surprising directions through radical
social practices that began to inform our culture. We sometimes felt overwhelmed by the voices that
emerged, the challenges to our ‘safe’ ways of thinking. The Society began by publishing work that dealt with
equal pay for work of equal value, access to day care, white appropriation of First Nations art and literature,
homophobia, racism, ableism, and ageism. We questioned our personal and political locations, and grew
uncomfortable with our embedded ways of thinking. We learned to anticipate and welcome the unexpected.
We learned that internal tensions were a microcosm of our culture, and that these tensions were useful and
necessary to change and growth.
We moved from campus to the Old Y building in Calgary in 1993. Through Forum we continued to grapple
with issues about women. In those years, we featured articles like Kari Belanger’s “Nature vs. Culture: The
Human Breast on Trial”. We sponsored the Winnie Tomm Memorial Scholarship, with recipients S. Leigh
Matthews, Melanie Kolbeins and BJ Wray, among others. We held a short story contest on our tenth
anniversary, won by Shirlee Smith-Matheson.
Helen Buss’ research into the private texts of women as expressed in “Private Voices/Public Words” renewed
our commitment to reproducing the text of women writers. Buss engages in a great effort “to bring to the
surface the traces of female experience I find shadowed in these women’s writings. Sometimes it is as if
something has been written on the page in invisible ink and if I hold it to the right light, I will find the lives that
public language cannot express.” (21) Forum Vol. #1, Winter 1996.
This shadow-life of public vs. private tension is something we have always known about ourselves. We have
a future that sounds from a tenacious legacy, a dynamic culture of feminist movement, and like all women, we
survived. At least stridently until the very last issue in 2002, when the voices moved on.
Ten issues of Forum concentrated on Women’s Herstory, book reviews, creative writing, poetry, journaling,
and diary excerpts. We saw articles from women of colour, lesbians, and disabled women whose voices
emerged in wonderful ways. The late Marion Arthur, who was severely disabled all her adult life with the after-
effects of Polio, found Forum a perfect place to publish her sensitive poetry. In 2001 we sponsored prolific
Cecelia Frey as Writer-In-Residence.
And just what did happen to Lady Godiva? Well, some of us remember when she went public. She jumped
off the horse, wrapped a robe around her Personhood, carved a path through the male crowd and never
looked back. The choice was implicit, the public act louder than any language that had kept her private, and
sealed her silence.
Bio
Vivian Hansen is a Calgary poet and freelance writer. She has served as VP Publishing and Editor of Forum
Magazine (a journal of the Calgary Women's Writing Project), and editor of FreeFall Magazine. She has been
a judge for the Calgary Writers Association and contest coordinator. She has also judged for the Hamilton
Region Arts Council. Her poetry has appeared in many Canadian journals, including Descant, Jones Av, and
Room of One's Own. Her nonfiction has been published recently with Legacy Magazine and The Fieldstone
Review. Her books include: Never Call it Bird - the Melodies of Aids, Angel Alley - the Victims of Jack the
Ripper' and Leylines of My Flesh. She is a reviewer for the Eleventh Transmission fiction contest.
Holding Ink to Light: a Decade of Mutability in Forum Magazine
A Journal of the Calgary Women’s Writing Project Society
by Vivian Hansen
In the Fall of 1987, a group of women united to respond fiercely to an old tradition on the University of Calgary
Campus: The Lady Godiva Ride. Each year, a young woman was persuaded to ride naked, on horseback,
through the center of Campus. Small protests had occurred previously but they were scattered and often
overshadowed by the young woman’s own protest: “It’s my choice. I don’t feel exploited.” Of course, some of
us didn’t believe that Voice.
“We’ve got to do something!” demanded some of our Woman Warriors. “This tradition is part of the dark ages
for women.” We protested at a Students’ Union Council Meeting. We lobbied. We were strident, radical, and
unpopular. It was the last year that Lady Godiva dared to bare. Event organizers, we have reason to believe,
faded into the woodwork and may have resurfaced years later as mumbling critical relics of the “politically
correct.”
Our efforts successfully eradicated the unfortunate tradition that challenged women to rethink this elusive-
something called ‘choice’. Our lobby was the first thrust of activism that formed what most of us now
remember as the Calgary Women’s Writing Project Society, publishers of Forum magazine for more than ten
years.
Selected Covers:
Within a few weeks, Elaine Eason, Christine Hutchinson, Ling Tan, Sharron Lackner, Ella Kalcounis and
myself established Forum ’87, the prototype collective of what would later become the Society. We were
thrilled with the heady empowerment of activism; we thought we had potential. “We need to write stuff”, we
declared, “any stuff. Even if it’s a mimeographed underground newsletter!” The energy behind those words
carved out the first issue of Forum in 1988.
Since the Project’s first issue, we covered more than ten years of activism for women through our publication.
We were originally based on the U of C campus and focused on women’s issues pertinent to the campus:
the Blair Report on the Status of Women, the Sexual Harassment Committee, day care on campus, the
President’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, and the newly formed Women in Science and
Engineering. The first issue featured Janice Mucalov’s “Contraceptives Still Plague Women”, and a journal
piece on surviving sexual abuse, by Penelope Ash. Almost all issues of Forum featured front cover glossy
artistry that honoured women.
We didn’t know it then, but we were liberal feminists with a lot of privilege, and that status would soon be
challenged. For the next few years, feminist movement claimed new and surprising directions through radical
social practices that began to inform our culture. We sometimes felt overwhelmed by the voices that
emerged, the challenges to our ‘safe’ ways of thinking. The Society began by publishing work that dealt with
equal pay for work of equal value, access to day care, white appropriation of First Nations art and literature,
homophobia, racism, ableism, and ageism. We questioned our personal and political locations, and grew
uncomfortable with our embedded ways of thinking. We learned to anticipate and welcome the unexpected.
We learned that internal tensions were a microcosm of our culture, and that these tensions were useful and
necessary to change and growth.
We moved from campus to the Old Y building in Calgary in 1993. Through Forum we continued to grapple
with issues about women. In those years, we featured articles like Kari Belanger’s “Nature vs. Culture: The
Human Breast on Trial”. We sponsored the Winnie Tomm Memorial Scholarship, with recipients S. Leigh
Matthews, Melanie Kolbeins and BJ Wray, among others. We held a short story contest on our tenth
anniversary, won by Shirlee Smith-Matheson.
Helen Buss’ research into the private texts of women as expressed in “Private Voices/Public Words” renewed
our commitment to reproducing the text of women writers. Buss engages in a great effort “to bring to the
surface the traces of female experience I find shadowed in these women’s writings. Sometimes it is as if
something has been written on the page in invisible ink and if I hold it to the right light, I will find the lives that
public language cannot express.” (21) Forum Vol. #1, Winter 1996.
This shadow-life of public vs. private tension is something we have always known about ourselves. We have
a future that sounds from a tenacious legacy, a dynamic culture of feminist movement, and like all women, we
survived. At least stridently until the very last issue in 2002, when the voices moved on.
Ten issues of Forum concentrated on Women’s Herstory, book reviews, creative writing, poetry, journaling,
and diary excerpts. We saw articles from women of colour, lesbians, and disabled women whose voices
emerged in wonderful ways. The late Marion Arthur, who was severely disabled all her adult life with the after-
effects of Polio, found Forum a perfect place to publish her sensitive poetry. In 2001 we sponsored prolific
Cecelia Frey as Writer-In-Residence.
And just what did happen to Lady Godiva? Well, some of us remember when she went public. She jumped
off the horse, wrapped a robe around her Personhood, carved a path through the male crowd and never
looked back. The choice was implicit, the public act louder than any language that had kept her private, and
sealed her silence.
Bio
Vivian Hansen is a Calgary poet and freelance writer. She has served as VP Publishing and Editor of Forum
Magazine (a journal of the Calgary Women's Writing Project), and editor of FreeFall Magazine. She has been
a judge for the Calgary Writers Association and contest coordinator. She has also judged for the Hamilton
Region Arts Council. Her poetry has appeared in many Canadian journals, including Descant, Jones Av, and
Room of One's Own. Her nonfiction has been published recently with Legacy Magazine and The Fieldstone
Review. Her books include: Never Call it Bird - the Melodies of Aids, Angel Alley - the Victims of Jack the
Ripper' and Leylines of My Flesh. She is a reviewer for the Eleventh Transmission fiction contest.
Arts, Culture, Media, Activism
| November 2006 - Issue 8 |
| Summer 1991 |
| Spring 2000 |
| Spring 2001 |
| Winter 2001-2002 |