Driving up Highway 40 in Alberta, Canada, a couple summers ago, my eyes were glued to the expanse of harsh, red dead-standing forest climbing the mountains. This would turn out to be one of the most significant forest disturbance episodes recorded in North America. hese dying red pine trees were due to the ongoing outbreak of the Mountain Pine Beetle (dendroctonus ponderosae, or MPB).
In the 1930s, many key things were happening; women had just won the right to vote, and the Great Depression had just hit, for example. Despite the achievements of women and the opportunities they had created, it didn’t largely change the way they were viewed. In Of Mice and Men, the language the characters use to describe women is very oppressive. Women are only seen as possessions, seductresses, or caretakers of men. They often talk about how they go to the whorehouse for pleasure and a break from reality.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a border as “the line separating two countries, administrative divisions or areas”. However, borders have come to mean different things to different people; for some, they offer protection; to others, they separate. For a border to be relevant, it needs to be viewed as legitimate by all parties involved – some borders are agreed and negotiated, others are imposed.
Vanesa Kisuule’s powerful poem Take Up Space is a celebration of women, particularly those of colour, and an ode to what it means to be female in the 21st century. Kisuule grapples with themes of oppression, the duplicitous role of women in society, and the corrosive impact of the patriarchy.
‘Owning your space’ can be interpreted in many different metaphorical ways, but it is also interesting to examine this concept in its literal sense. Having one’s own space is often deemed to be empowering, but can be limiting if one is not respected outside this space. Women in ancient Greece and Rome were largely confined to the domestic sphere in terms of both power and in day to day life. This has a particular impact on the stories of Psyche and Medea.
