Undisciplined Women: Tradition and Culture in Canada

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Undisciplined Women explores the variety of Canadian women’s
experiences, cultures, and traditions, along with the misleading
stereotypes of women that continue to impact negatively on their lives.
The book consists of 20 essays by women from a variety of disciplines
and professions, along with four short essays by the editors.

The essays in Part 1 deal with the collection and interpretation of
women’s folklore. The editors introduce the section by deploring the
failure to recognize women’s work as collectors and disseminators of
popular culture. Edith Fowke’s essay, “A Personal Odyssey and
Personal Prejudices,” is refreshingly feisty and down-to-earth; she
dismisses feminist jargon as “high falutin’ overblown language,” a
criticism that could be aimed at many so-called postmodernist
methodologies. Part 2 examines images of women in Canadian traditional
and pop culture, while the third section focuses on individual women,
from Inuit and Mennonite women to taxi drivers, who are transforming
their own lives as well as their traditions.

Many of the essays in this collection make a solid contribution to
gender studies.