Shrewed

by Elizabeth Renzetti

  No, I lie. I didn’t think I would make myself happier. I thought I’d make the people around me happier. If only I were less lippy. If only my laugh were quieter. If only my boobs were smaller, perhaps men would stop talking to them. It would shrink the target, at least. If I had no opinions, no one could criticize me. Shrinking and hiding is an excellent defence strategy, as every prey animal knows.

  As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said, “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.”

  I did try, for a little while, to be smaller and quieter. It never lasted, though. I was too lazy. No one tells you the effort that is required in diminishment; it takes an enormous amount of energy to constrict yourself. Sometimes I like to think of those women in history and what they could have accomplished if their lungs weren’t compressed by corsets, their feet mangled to fit into tiny doll’s shoes. How they could have shouted. How they could have run.

  So what I would like to say to you young women out there is: Be large. Be as large as you’d like to be. Take up the room that is yours. Spread into every crack and corner and wide plain of this magnificent world. Sit with your legs apart on the subway until a man is forced, politely, to ask you to slide over so he can have a seat. Get the dressing on the salad. Get two dressings. Order the ribs on a first date.

  Throw away your scale. Stop weighing yourself. Is there ever a reason to know your precise weight? Are you mailing yourself to China? Are you a bag of cocaine? Enjoy your mass, for one day you will be old and as shrivelled as an apple doll, and you will wonder where the rest of you went. Wear a tiny bathing suit, even if the sales clerk raises her eyebrow when you try it on. Especially if she raises her eyebrow. Wear a small dress on your large self.

  Be loud, in your head and in public. In meetings, speak first and resist the temptation to preface every statement with “This may have already been brought up . . .” When a colleague tries to interrupt, hold up a hand and say, “I’ll be finished making my point shortly, Bob,” and try not to picture what he’d look like with a stapler embedded in his forehead.

  Laugh as loudly as you’d like during movies and live performances. Do not put your hand over your mouth. You aren’t vomiting or letting the devil in. You’re laughing. It is a sign of approval, like undoing your pants after a particularly fine meal.

  Take up all the space. It is your space. There will be people who try to drive you from it, with catcalls or derision, with mockery and disapproval. These things diminish them, not you. Do not allow yourself to be diminished. Expand like a flower, like a heated gas, like a beautiful rising loaf. Expand into yourself, and never apologize for it.

  And for the young men in the crowd, who already know by some strange alchemy how to be large and expansive, I would say this: Let your sisters in this world grow, too, and do not consider their growth to be a diminishment of yours. The world is not a zero-sum game, and there is cake enough for everyone. Be the bigger man, and welcome the bigger woman.

  That’s all I have to say today. I want to wish you all a large and happy future.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION: TALES FOR YOUNG WITCHES

  Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. London: Corsair, 2014.

  de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. London: Vintage Classics, 2015.

  Zeisler, Andi. We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, The Buying & Selling of a Political Movement. New York: Public Affairs, 2016.

  Grant, Tavia. “Who Is Minding the Gap?” Globe and Mail, March 6, 2017.

  Reich, Robert, and Heather McCulloch. “Wealth, Not Just Wages, Is the Way to Measure Women’s Equality.” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2017.

  Boesveld, Sarah. “68% of Canadian Women Don’t Call Themselves a Feminist.” Chatelaine, December 17, 2015. www.chatelaine.com.

  Cai, Weiyi, and Scott Clement. “What Americans Think About Feminism Today.” Washington Post, January 27, 2016.

  THE WAY OF THE HARASSER

  Eltahawy, Mona. Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2015.

  UN Women. “Safe Cities Global Initiative Report.” Report, 2015. doi: www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/9/proceedings-report-un-womens-safe-cities-global-leaders-forum-2015.

  Stop Street Harassment. “Unsafe and Harassed in Public Spaces: A National Street Harassment Report.” Report, 2014. doi: http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2014-National-SSH-Street-Harassment-Report.pdf.

  Livingston, Beth, Maria Grillo, and Rebecca Paluch, “Cornell University International Study on Street Harassment.” Report, May 2015. doi: https://www.ihollaback.org/cornell-international-survey-on-street-harassment.

  Foster, Dawn. “If I Ever See You in the Street, I Hope You Get Shot.” London Review of Books, May 27, 2016.

  West, Lindy. Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman. New York: Hachette, 2016.

  Moran, Caitlin. Moranifesto. London: Ebury Press, 2016.

  Phillips, Jess. Everywoman: One Woman’s Truth About Speaking Out. London: Hutchinson, 2017.

  Amnesty International UK. “Black and Asian Women MPs Abused More Online.” Report, September 2017. doi: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/online-violence-women-mps.

  Quinn, Zoe. Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate. New York: PublicAffairs, 2017.

  FEARLESSNESS

  Bellafante, Ginia. “The False Feminism of ‘Fearless Girl.’” New York Times, March 16, 2017.

  Bourke, Joanna. Fear: A Cultural History. London: Virago, 2005.

  AMBITION: THREE LIFE LESSONS

  Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career. London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1901. (Adapted for film by Gillian Armstrong; released 1979.)

  Coontz, Stephanie. “Do Millennial Men Want Stay-at-Home Wives?” New York Times, March 31, 2017.

  Bursztyn, Leonardo, Thomas Fujiwara, and Amanda Pallais, “‘Acting Wife’: Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments.’” American Economic Review, 2017.

  Smith, Vivian. Outsiders Still: Why Women Journalists Love and Leave Their Newspaper Careers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

  Abouzahr, Katie, Matt Krentz, Frances Brooks Taplett, Claire Tracey, and Miki Tsusaka. “Dispelling the Myths of the Gender ‘Ambition Gap,’” April 5, 2017. Boston Consulting Group. https://www.bcg.com/en-ca/publications/2017/people-organization-leadership-change-dispelling-the-myths-of-the-gender-ambition-gap.aspx.

  Slaughter, Anne-Marie. Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family. New York: Random House, 2015.

  YOU’LL PAY FOR THOSE BREASTS, OR THE COST OF BEING A LADY

  Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. London: Vintage Classics, 2015.

  Mistry, Meenal. “The High Price of Beauty: 4 Women Reveal Their Annual Costs.” Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2016.

  Morrissey, Tracie Egan. “This Is How Much It Costs to Own a Vagina: An Itemized List,” Jezebel, April 6, 2012. https://jezebel.com/5890058/this-is-how-much-it-costs-to-own-a-vagina-an-itemized-list.

  New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. “From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of Being a Female Consumer.” Study, December 2015. http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.page.

  NEVER ENOUGH: WOMEN, POLITICS, AND THE UPHILL BATTLE

  Coletto, David. “Finding Parity: Canadian Opinions About Women in Politics.” Abacus Data, March 6, 2017. http://abacusdata.ca/finding-parity-canadian-opinions-about-women-in-politics.

  Carstairs, Sharon, and Tim Higgins. Dancing Backwards: A Social History of Canadian Women in Politics. Winnipeg: Heartland Associates, 2004.

  UN News Centre. “UN Reports Slow Women’s Political Parity,” UN News Centre, March 15, 2017. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56357#.Wg8dwLQ-cQ8.

  Int
er-Parliamentary Union. “Women in Politics: 2017.” Report, March 2017. https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/infographics/2017-03/women-in-politics-2017.

  Oxfam Canada. “Feminist Scorecard 2017.” Report, March 2017. https://www.oxfam.ca/our-work/publications/time-to-turn-feminist-words-into-action.

  Rosenbluth, Frances, Joshua Kalla, and Dawn Teele. “The Female Political Career,” Women in Parliaments and The World Bank, January 2015. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/01/27/e-female-political-career-women-members-of-parliament-still-face-obstacles-to-elected-office.

  Gillard, Julia. “Julia Gillard Speaks in London in Memory of Jo Cox MP.” Blog, October 11, 2016. http://juliagillard.com.au/articles/julia-gillard-speaks-in-memory-of-jo-cox-mp/.

  Beard, Mary. “Women in Power,” London Review of Books, March 16, 2017.

  IF THE WORLD WERE MADE OF LEGO: A LETTER TO MY SON

  hooks, bell. Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. New York: Routledge, 2015.

  UNBALANCED

  Duxbury, Linda, and Chris Higgins. “Work–Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium: A Status Report,” October 2003, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/H72-21-186-2003E.pdf.

  Schulte, Brigid. Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2014.

  Cansever, Edip. “Table.” Translated by Robert Tillinghast. The Stonecutter’s Hand. Boston: David R. Godine, Inc., 1995.

  Phillips, Adam. On Balance. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

  THE STORY OF MY MOTHER

  Gordon, Charlotte. Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley. New York: Random House, 2015.

  Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie. New York: Harper Trophy, 2004.

  Fisher, Carrie. Wishful Drinking. London: Pocket Books, 2009.

  FOUR LIONS

  Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare’s Wife. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008.

  ­—­. The Female Eunuch. London: Harper Perennial, 2006.

  James, P. D. The Lighthouse. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2005.

  —. Time to Be in Earnest. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2001.

  —. The Private Patient. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2008.

  —. Death Comes to Pemberley. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2011.

  Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall. London: Fourth Estate, 2009.

  —. Bring Up the Bodies. London: Fourth Estate, 2012.

  —. Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoir. London: Harper Perennial, 2004.

  A VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE: A LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF

  Gay, Roxane. Hunger. New York: HarperCollins, 2017.

  McKeon, Lauren. F-Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2017.

  THE LONG CRAWL TO DEFEAT, THE SLOW MARCH TO VICTORY

  Wayne, Carly, Marzia Oceno, and Nicholas Valentino. “How Sexism Drives Support for Donald Trump,” Washington Post, October 23, 2016.

  Clinton, Hillary. What Happened. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

  KILLER ROBOTS, AMAZON PLANETS, AND THE FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE

  Atkinson, Kate. A God in Ruins. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2015.

  Sandel, Michael. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. London: Allen Lane, 2012.

  Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2014.

  Edelman. “2017 Edelman Trust Barometer.” Global Annual Study, January 15, 2017. www.edelman.com.

  Piercy, Marge. Woman on the Edge of Time. New York: Ballantine, 2016.

  Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. London: Vintage 2017.

  Ehrenfreund, Max. “A Majority of Millennials Now Reject Capitalism, Poll Shows,” Washington Post, April 26, 2016.

  Franklin, Ursula M. The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006.

  SIZE MATTERS: A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

  George Saunders delivered the commencement address at Syracuse University in 2013; J. K. Rowling at Harvard University in 2008; Steve Jobs at Stanford University in 2005; Nora Ephron at Wellesley College in 1996; and my speech was delivered at no university, ever, which is why it’s included here.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  On the night after the U.S. presidential election in November 2016, I went to dinner at my publisher Sarah MacLachlan’s house. If you imagine that the mood was dire, you would be erring on the side of optimism. Sarah, wise and resilient, was determined that we should not roll over and be crushed by the moment. I’d written a column for the Globe and Mail that day, wondering what we could possibly tell our daughters that would explain the rise of a toxic misogynist to the most powerful position in the world.

  “You should write that book,” Sarah said. A book about women’s lives, and contemporary feminism, told through the lens of my own life and experience. Maybe with some laughs thrown in so that we didn’t drown in tears. I sat down with my marvellous editor Janie Yoon to shape the course of this book. Sarah and Janie are my navigators; I bow down before them.

  Every journalist’s life is made up of stories. No stories, no life — no professional life, anyway. In this book I’ve combined my own stories with those that have been shared with me, so generously, by people over the years. My calcified heart melts a bit when I think of all those who have shared their experiences, thoughts, and dreams with me, without asking anything in return. I extend my deepest and most profound gratitude to anyone who’s ever given me an interview, and especially to the women whose words are included in this book.

  To all the friends whose stories I have also included in this book — sorry. But also, thanks! Those were good times.

  I’ve been blessed, over the years, to have the dull metal of my prose improved through some alchemy by a host of wonderful newspaper and magazine editors, many of them women. At the start of my career were two mentors, Katherine Ashenburg and Cathrin Bradbury, whom I am lucky to count as friends today. I cannot tell you how much their wisdom and support has meant to me. As well, I think of the female editors I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years (though they may have a different view of things as they toil in the dark salt mines of my writing). A brief list would include: Natasha Hassan, Noreen Rasbach, Carol Toller, Sue Grimbly, Kim Izzo, Suzanne Boyd, Christina Vardanis, Stevie Cameron, Leanne Delap, Lisan Jutras, Denise Balkissoon, Shawna Richer, Sheree-Lee Olson, Amberly McAteer, Sherrill Sutherland, and many others too numerous to name. I apologize to those I’ve somehow overlooked. There have been many wonderful and supportive male editors over the years, too, but I’m running out of room.

  Dear friends who have provided invaluable comfort, in addition to the above, include Sarah, Kim, Stephanie, Karen, Johanna, Ellen, Martha, Jane, my friend and mentee Hannah, the witchy genius writers of the Coven, the women who play Man in the Hat, the boss ladies from London, and my darling Karen from Los Angeles. I owe you all a cocktail or three.

  My colleagues and friends at the Globe and Mail have been an inspiration over the many years I’ve worked with them. I am equally lucky when it comes to my book publisher, and I extend my gratitude to every hard-working, cheery, inventive person at House of Anansi who helped bring this book baby into the world, including copy editor Tracy Bordian, managing editor Maria Golikova, designer Alysia Shewchuk, and publicist Holley Corfield. I’m grateful also for the encouragement and support of my agent, John Pearce.

  Whatever sanity I retain is thanks to my extraordinary family. I could not have chosen a better group than the one genetics randomly selected for me. Thanks above all to my splendid mother, Mildred, whose zest, vivacity, and sheer appetite for knowledge have been a constant inspiration. Without her these essays wouldn’t exist. My mother-in-law, Pat, and father-in-law, Lu, are a source of joy and support always. My sisters and brothers, as well as my nieces and nephews, provi
de a network of warmth and happiness.

  While I was writing this book, I lost one of the most important people in my life: My older brother Steven became ill as I began the project and died not long after. He was, in the words of his friend, “such a good man.” His presence — as a scholar, friend, person of integrity, teller of off-colour jokes — will remain with me always.

  Finally, right at the centre of my life are the three people who give it meaning: my husband, Doug, who is reader, partner, dispenser of Scotch, and awesome man in one package; and our children, Griff and Maud, the winning tickets in the lottery of my life.

  Author photograph: Jessica Blaine Smith

  ELIZABETH RENZETTI is a columnist for the Globe and Mail. She has also been the newspaper’s Arts and Books editor, and reported for several years from London and Los Angeles. She is the author of the novel Based on a True Story, which was a finalist for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and a Canadian bestseller. She lives in Toronto with her husband, author and Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders, their two children, and a cat named Perdu who keeps getting lost.

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi’s commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada’s pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”