At one point the reviewer, Maggie Mortimer, tells us that a book will rarely make her cry, but this one did; anger sometimes forced her to put the book down and do other things for a bit. The review alone made me cry, and Demerson's story has left me seething with fury.

Some of you may remember Demerson. In 2002, the attorney-general of Ontario was forced to make a formal apology to her on behalf of the province for her "unjustifiable incarceration," and to settle her $11 million suit against the government for an undisclosed amount.

Velma Demerson is now eighty-four, and -- miraculously -- well.

Obviously, also, she is a dogged and talented researcher. And sadly, this is not just her story: it is a horror story of uncounted numbers of women who were arrested and incarcerated in Ontario between 1896 and 1964 -- did you note that last date? 1964? I was nineteen years old in 1964 -- for being "incorrigible," by which was meant they were considered promiscuous and/or had had a child "out of wedlock." (Men could only be deemed incorrigible for theft.)

Velma was arrested in May 1939, at the age of 18, while she was having breakfast with her fiance, Harry Yip (to whom, and to her relations with whom, the Chinese Exclusion Act applied). She had been turned into the police by her father, a man who had abandoned his family when Velma was a child but who still considered that her private life was a disgrace to him. (Stop me from swearing ...)

She was sentenced to a year in "the Belmont Home." During that year, she would also come to know "the Mercer Reformatory." The stories of what was done to these young women at the latter are the part that will make you cry, or vomit, or rip up the paper. Sadistic medical experiments were obviously performed upon them. Demerson has been able to find her name in a list from an experimental drugs study; beyond that, she can only recount the procedures as she experienced them, and then guess that "the months in surgery, injections, and chemical applications" were carried out on behalf of the eugenics movement and endorsed by the Female Refuges Act, under which she had been apprehended and convicted.

After Velma's baby was born and her year was up, she married Harry Yip -- and was thereby deprived of her Canadian citizenship.

There is much more to the review; I urge everyone to read it.

Why am I raising this story here? Elsewhere on this board, posters are chiding some of us for not recognizing the need to adjust our attitudes towards women's equality according to cultural context, and I do not deny that we must always know, in the greatest detail possible, the reality of the lives of those we presume to advocate for.

But Velma's story reminded me of how recent it was, how very recent, within my adult memory, that a patriarchal system in my own culture could treat women as rag-dolls, or possessions, or ornaments, or pieces of meat. Could deprive them of their freedom, their citizenship, invade their bodies and their minds with impunity -- and steal their children.

Did we stop this through some sort of gradualism, patiently overseen by kindly superior men who wanted to protect us as we emerged from the shadows? Did kindly superior men just hand us our full humanity because it finally occurred to them that they could maybe afford to do that? And it would look good on them?

NO.

It is every bit as easy still for any woman to be "tricked" or oppressed in private life by a pompous, patriarchal man. That that still goes on does not mean that we should surrender the immensely liberating legal advances that we have won -- WE have won -- in forcing Canadian courts and governments to recognize that women are fully human, autonomous, and full citizens of this country.

When we speak of women's equality, we are speaking of women's humanity. When we speak of equality generally, we are speaking of humanity. A story like Velma's is the best way of teaching that lesson that I know.

Here's to Velma. And here's to all those anonymous, tormented sisters she represents.

I did not know about the eugenically-inspired experiments.

I'm a regular reader of babble but never post. I was so excited to see this thread, I thought I'd jump in just to let you know Velma Demerson will be interviewed sometime in the next few days on The Current on CBC. She's an amazing woman.

Still, as the little bro always says: stay tuned.

03/29/2005

The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario

A celebration to mark the publication of Incorrigible, by Velma Demerson

After decades of suffering in silence, Velma Demerson decided to tell the world her heart-rending story of being persecuted and jailed in 1939. Her crime was to love and live with a Chinese man whom she later married.

Incorrigible tells a story of a shameful episode in Canadian history and Velma's successful struggle to survive and prevail. Joining Velma, who will read a selection from her well-received book, will be several speakers including:

Michele Landsberg, journalist
Judy Rebick, author
Marjorie Chan, playwright
Harry Kopyto, legal advisor
Frank Saptel, labour and social activist

Starts at 7 p.m.
free admission
all welcome

for more information
call 416.907.5128

Sponsored by:
Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Web Site:
http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/~wwwpress/Catalog/demerson.shtml

(info from coolwomen.ca)

[ 24 March 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

Much 'ppreciated.

D'oh! Never mind... I just the the WLU Press website info. there now. Thx.

(And 'dadl that was an awesome post at the top. You should try your hand at writing something one day... )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the by, athena_dreaming...?

What does "FGM-for-hire" mean, please?

[ 24 March 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

We're so used to hearing speakers who have suffered grave injustice speak with high emotion, or with rhetorical flourishes.

I guess perhaps time has drained that from Demerson, because she seemed rather collected and matter of fact about her ordeal.

It's true that what was done to Harry Yip was outrageous as well, and clearly his ethnicity was considered by the bigoted courts of the time an aggravation in Velma's case, although what happened to her was done to many other women simply because they had engaged in (gasp!) sex extramaritally, or they could not be moulded to the will of a tyrannical daddy.