The View from a Drawbridge

Can I just say that I love Vancouver, Canada? It’s quirky. It’s diverse. The food is good, the people are friendly, and there is much to do and see. One of my favorite things about this city is that people aren’t afraid to be controversial and/or cutting edge.

What better place to start a women’s library? This library is run by women, for women, and it’s about women. All the books therein are written by women. It also hosts lots of interesting community events, such as an open mic night where you can display your talents, writing workshops, holistic hormonal health workshops, and a summer film series. If I lived up there, I’d be hanging out in this library all the time.

But even in Vancouver, this library sparks controversy. At their grand opening, protesters claimed that the library founders were feminists so radical that they were excluding Transgenders and sex workers. (For what it’s worth, I don’t get that sense from their catalog at all.) These protesters were aggressive and tried to block access to the library. That seems kind of self-defeating to me. In a world that’s as misogynistic as ours, any pro-women effort, whether it’s flawed or not, needs to be celebrated.

What I love most about this library is that it’s not “just” about feminism. It even goes beyond women in history. It also has a wide variety of women-authored fiction, poetry, and different points of view. It’s a safe place for women to have a voice in a world that so often seems to discount what we say. I’ve yet to visit this place, but it makes me very happy to know that it exists in the world.

Next time I go to Vancouver, I plan to stop by and donate a copy of my book. It’s not radical. It’s not controversial. But it was written by a woman who holds a non-traditional job, and the photographer was a woman, and the editor/designer/catalyst was a woman. And that, too, makes me proud.