In response to the current political climate, and because there are only so many snapshots of a cup of tea that a person can put on Instagram, one afternoon I posted an old black-and-white news photograph. It was a striking image of women protesting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The women are angry, fists in the air, caught open-mouthed in a defiant chant, their heads covered with black scarves as a symbol of their oppression and mourning.
?Who are they"? my eight-year-old daughter asked me later that day, as she scrolled through my feed. At that moment I didn?t panic or try to change the subject. Here was an opportunity to have an important conversation and have it be inspired by an empowering image of feminist strength. As a parent, I relish the difficult questions, the chance to help define the world for my daughters, to equip them for it rather than have the world drop its brutal definitions on them, unaware. So I explained to my eldest that in 1970, nearly a decade before I was born, the women in the photo had been part of the Abortion Caravan, a protest movement that travelled from Vancouver to Ottawa in response to laws making it difficult for Canadian women to be in charge of their bodies. I explained that abortion is a medical procedure that means a woman doesn?t have to be pregnant if she doesn?t want to be, but some people don?t like that a woman gets to make that choice. Even today, I told her, there are people working fervently to restrict a woman?s right ...