QUEENS UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA

Possibilities for Indigenous Feminism in
Cathie Dunsford’s The Journey Home

Sarah Sahagian, Queen’s University

In my experience as a Women’s Studies student, we talk a lot about what feminism is or means in our classes.  What is feminism, we debate? What does it mean when we claim to be feminists, we wonder? How should we express what our feminism is, we ask?  Recently, I found a potential answer in Dunsford’s book, The Journey Home.
In her indigenous feminist manifesto, The Fourth World, Grace Ouellette laments that ‘the situation of Aboriginal women is sadly lacking in feminist discussions of Women’s oppression.’  Dunsford’s book serves as a sort of exemplar for how we can create space for such discussions.  Ouellette’s book tells that many indigenous women have been alienated by the feminist movement because they do not feel there is a place for the view that women have a natural, spiritual role as nurturers and bearers of life.  How can we reconcile the belief I have always been exposed to in feminism that femininity is socially constructed with an indigenous belief that there is a spiritual significance to female roles?  We must engage in a process of both talking and listening.
Feminism and feminist scholarship are major themes in Cowrie’s story. Dunsford’s novel illustrates how indigenous feminist principles can be a unifying force for the indigenous women in her novel against stifling colonial forces when they come together to discuss and solve each other’s problems.  Women of different indigenous backgrounds unite to help each other using these commonalities that transcend cultures.  Bonds are created using the different resources these women have.  For example, Nanduye is indigenous from North America but helps Ela and Koana keep their children in the custody battle.  After they win the court battle, Ela tells them, ‘…missionaries, throughout the world, have played a key role in duping indigenous cultures who by nature believed in spiritual forces.  They knew it was the strongest way to get their land and resources, and unfortunately, it’s worked.  From our reservations to your Pacific Islands.’  She goes on to explain, ‘Koana, your issues are not so different from ours as Native Americans. That the United States has colonized both our cultures binds us together in many ways.  But I also recognize you share other issues with colonized Pacific Islands…It’s important we recognize our differences but work together where we can against the forces of colonization.’  In feminism, we can avoid alienating each other by doing just this: we must pool our resources to help each other while appreciating that we are allowed to come from different cultures and belief systems. 
This transcendent bond can also be seen when Cowrie and Peta first meet. They discuss and bond over their shared understanding of indigenous experience, despite speaking different languages and being from different parts of the world.  They discuss mutual experiences of being raised without one’s language and continue to explore each other’s cultures throughout their relationship, through activities like watching documentaries on Hawaiian nationalism and their trip to get in touch with Peta’s heritage at the scenic Yosemite.  Their bond is a cultural exchange based on cultural sensitivity and appreciation.
This philosophy of indigenous feminism (accepting differences but uniting to resist colonial oppression) ultimately transcends the different indigenous communities who come together in this book and unites Cowrie’s students.  Only Uretsete is aboriginal in Cowrie’s class, but whether they are Jewish like Ruth or DK, or simply against an academic environment that demands they use confusing, post-modern language and focus on theory instead of on primary texts, these young women take to the concept of Talk-Story.  Initially, their class is a series of divisive arguments over issues like S and M; however, Cowrie’s students become activist academics when, in response to Uretsete’s suggestion, they form a story-telling group to listen to each other’s voices outside of class which eventually becomes professional.
Through the indigenous concept of Talk-Story they learn to express their own individual experiences. Talk-Story, a process whereby one must listen to someone else’s stories for similarities and link it, facilitates teamwork and appreciating commonalities that can unite us. It forces oneself both to talk and describe experiences and to LISTEN to others. Cowrie’s students learn to relate to each other’s experiences through listening to and respecting their differences — evidenced by the final performance:  ‘Uretsete tells the story of her birth – being sung into existence and Ruth weaves this with a Yiddish tale of naming…’  Talking and listening to stories about each other’s similarities and differences is a trope in The Journey Home.  Rita explains to Cowrie that she cannot have an academic career if she wishes to focus on work that is different from the standard Western Canon; however, Cowrie’s students show us with Siliyik that indigenous traditions can be relevant — and even inspiring — to the West if we take the time to listen. Ultimately, Cowrie’s commitment to indigenous female voices and refusal to abandon them in order to earn a PhD is arguably a manifestation of indigenous feminism.  Cowrie’s journey home requires her to fight for the primacy of her people’s culture to her research.  Cowrie, her students, Peta, Ela, Nanduye and Koana all achieve their happy resolutions by communicating and listening to one another. Cowrie leaves feminist studies at Berkeley to focus on sharing her culture’s voices. She is committed to creating a space for indigenous women’s discourse, just like Ouellette says we need.
In my class, we were inspired by Cowrie’s students use of Talk-Story.  We performed Talk-Stories in class as a way of making our own knowledge through our own voices.  I was able to connect my Talk-Story of my grandmother’s escape from the Armenian Genocide in Turkey to stories of fathers embarrassing their daughters at school, the tale of an aboriginal daughter mourning her mother and the assassination of an innocent man in North Ireland. Talk-Story made me realize we are all knowers and can all produce knowledge worthy of being analysed and explored. Aboriginal feminists like those presented in Dunsford’s book have inspired me to find new ways of knowing and learning.  I have been inspired to value the personal histories of others as I define and fight for feminism. Activist Knowledge can be as simple as actually listening to the people in one’s classes, understanding their lives and beginning to know where their opinions come from.  I have learned along with Cowrie’s students that feminism is about talking and listening in order to accept other people’s views and gain acceptance for one’s own.  We can change the world around us by listening to other people and giving them the opportunity to listen to us in return.  Perhaps we can stop alienating indigenous women from feminism by listening and relating to them.

Drumming / Connects me to Grandmother Moon
Ashley Maracle, Queen’s University

Drumming

Connects me to Grandmother Moon

She watches over her people
And cries

I have watched her cry for years
When she is full

“You are a moon child”
Someone once told me
And I laughed
“But I have a photo to prove it”
Me when I was 14… 15?
This person had taken a picture of me outside
Pretending to hold the moon
In the palm of my hand

The same time I started listening
To the women
And the drum
…

I have always watched my sister drum
The first drum she made, is now mine
Our traditions say that your first drum you make
You have to give to the person who has a twin soul
You never keep your first drum
Except on the rare occasion, I did not drum with her and the other women
If they did not ask me to jump in, I would not

For most of the songs
I have the tune memorized,
The words are etched on the tip of my tongue
My mouth would ache with the desire to join
But most of the time I was too shy to let the song escape my mouth
I felt it was not my time

As a student
I have decided to learn my history
Or my herstory?
As a Mohawk woman in a mainly white school
Mistaken as one of my colonizers,
A disgrace — yet also truth

I began drumming

I began to release those songs that have laid in waiting for years
I let them fly
They soared above the academia
Above the essays
Above the ever depressing essay topics of my choice-
Each essay discussed different factors that aided in the oppression of my ancestors
Each conversation held outside of the “safe zones” held endless misunderstanding by my (non-Native) friends
Discussing my “status” as an Aboriginal person
Lead to the conversation into my financial situation…
My tuition…
Books, rent, health care, taxes, skin colour?
The depression of realizing how my voice goes into white noise when I “go off” on Aboriginal issues again — after being told I am a free-loading “Indian”
The poster that I have placed on the communal fridge — asking for attention for the stolen (Aboriginal) sisters… that I know has only been glanced at
Before reading it — an opinion had already been made

For this I began to drum
To let go of all my anger and frustration

To connect with our women again, the creators
To feel the strength and power of us
Even with the anger and frustration…
We have learned to let go…

Being Aboriginal women is not show and tell…
It is who we are,
Drumming
For the strength of Aboriginal women and men
For the courage to stand up
And take pride in something that few will acknowledge
That even fewer believe is something that could be a source of pride
And some how it has always been my source

With a drum in my hand
And women on either side of my body/mind/spirit/ being

I feel strong

I feel like my people could say of me…
Ye’shátste
A Non-Indigenous Journey to Listen:
Reflections on Cathie Dunsford’s Novel
The Journey Home
Darcel Bullen, Queen’s University

This space, the Women’s Studies classroom, is one of the most dangerous places I’ve been in.  A supposed paradise, a definite privilege, and a constant battle ground; it requires intense mental preparation for its most wounded.
It is on this battlefield, in ‘Aboriginal Women’ at Queen’s University that I read The Journey Home by Cathie Dunsford.  Truthfully, it took me months to finish reading the book. I didn’t know why, but the story was so painful for me. As a young person who is perceived as woman (always), black (mostly), queer (sometimes) and white (rarely), I have been moving in and out of ‘progressive’ classrooms for 4 years.  Like Cowrie, the main character of Dunsford’s novel, I question every day whether the separate world of academia is really a site intelligent enough to value non-white knowledge.  More importantly, Cowrie’s journey to and beyond Berkeley is one that every ‘Othered’ person is forced to navigate on their own.  The thing is, I know there isn’t a fixed academia box, because every now and again we transform it, and wonder how it got so boring in the first place. Sometimes though, the Journey to make yourself a part of academia will crush the very thing about you that is you, I guess that’s why Cowrie had to get out.  I learned from Cowrie’s journey that we are always creating and sharing our own truths, and that these truths are knowledge.  Our personal histories and experiences are enough!  We all have knowledge to share, and we must work to share it in its powerful form, when it is true.
I was introduced to talk story in Dunsford’s novel and it was one of those things that completely destroyed all academic rules.  It’s a continual conversation where stories are connected through similarities and people are connected through listening.  To me, in the unsafe women’s studies classroom, talk story felt like an uneasy balance between love and fuck yous.  I’m not going to lie, it was like welcoming that one who has hurt me a thousand times and never even knew it, into my heart.  However, after the class did this painful removal of our shields, I felt like we were learning together, instead of reproducing the kind of load and fire dialogue that made up the classroom warfare before.  The process wasn’t painless, but it was powerful in bringing a divided and wounded group together, to value each other as producers of knowledge. 
As someone who is working to be an ally to the Indigenous communities around me, I know that we potential allies need to embrace more of the lessons that talk story teaches us.  Indigenous communities are way ahead of us; they’ve been waiting for us to join the discussion about our earth, and our family for centuries.  If we listen up, we will be told what our role can be as equal beings in the same struggle, as well as contributors to the silence surrounding the genocide of our brothers and sisters.  It is us non-Indigenous people who need to listen first and always, because listening is the most powerful tool we have.

The Role of Talk Story in the Effort to Educate
Melissa Bell, Queen’s University

For me, the notion of talk story is one of the most intriguing aspects of Cathie Dunsford’s novel The Journey Home.  By virtue of its academic setting, The Journey Home is necessarily a novel about learning, even if the concept of formal education is continually undercut. In the novel, the characters who engage with talk story are afforded a unique and invaluable education: it is through talking, sharing, and relating personal experience that these women achieve greater understanding of the women’s issues that they theorize about in school.
In addition to placing The Journey Home on the syllabus for our women’s studies class, Dr. McKittrick decided to incorporate the talk story into our course. In one of our seminars, each member of the class shared a deeply personal story. As those who were present can attest, this exercise proved to be moving, emotionally difficult, revelatory, and, above all, educational. We learned things about our classmates that we could never have learned in a more formal educational setting, and I think I may safely say that each student left the classroom a little bit more enlightened than when he or she entered it.
By transposing the talk story into our classroom, Dr. McKittrick carried out one of the aims of talk story as outlined by Uretsete within the novel. Uretsete suggests that they ‘get other yanks telling their tales, finding out about their roots instead of clutching their breasts in guilt or remorse that they are white and privileged.’  As someone who is both white and privileged, this notion truly resonated with me. The notion of talk story powerfully suggests that learning occurs through mutual sharing when people approach each other on the same level, and not when particular groups are alternatively elevated and diminished.
A primary issue in The Journey Home is the practice of learning theory at the expense of literature itself. At one point in the novel, when she is speaking with Kuini, ‘Cowrie explains why the [talk story] group began and how it has come to mean as much as, if not more than, the literature classes themselves. How the students have relished it because of the predominance of secondary theory in all their other courses, leaving them feeling isolated and distanced from the women’s lives they are studying.’  The talk story serves to further mitigate this distance from women’s lives: if theory removes the students from women’s literature, the talk story brings them closer to it.
The talk story exercise in our class functioned much as it did within the novel: it simultaneously brought us closer to the course material and to each other. By sharing our own talk stories, we were brought closer to a significant message from The Journey Home: that book learning must be supported by real interactions with various types of people whose experience has been different from our own, and who are affected in real ways by the issues that we theorize about in the classroom. It is only when we approach each other with the intention of sharing and understanding that real learning can ensue.
To incorporate a talk story of my own, I will say that both the experience of reading The Journey Home as well as the talk story exercise that took place in our course reminded me very much of an experience in my own life. Last summer, I worked with an organization that facilitated literacy camps for children on First Nations reserves in Northern Ontario. In groups of three, we were sent to remote fly-in communities, where life was incalculably different from what most of us had previously experienced.
Once I was settled in Bearskin Lake, the first of the two reserves that I would visit that summer, I quickly became close with one of the members of my team, whose name was Jake. As we continued to talk and get to know one another, it became clear how different our lives had been. Jake was Aboriginal, he had grown up in poverty in an abusive household, he had spent time in foster care and in prison, and he had more than once found himself without home and without food. He lived in Winnipeg, a city that, from what he has told me, is extremely segregated and rife with racism. He talked to me often about his experiences in childhood, as well as his more recent experience with police brutality in Winnipeg. He is currently a student at the University of Winnipeg, and, like the characters in The Journey Home, he would often express frustration about the Eurocentric nature of academia.
The environment in which we came to know each other was both isolated and highly politicized. Because of this combination, Jake and I virtually spent the summer in conversation. I cannot conceive of a more appropriate or valuable partner with whom to experience life on a First Nations reserve than someone like Jake, and I feel enormously lucky to have been given the opportunity to do so. Our summer was tantamount to a neverending talk story, and I learned more from the discussions that I had with him than I will ever be able to express.
Because of the nature of our relationship and the amount of time that we spent together, we left very few topics of discussion unexplored. When Jake asked me questions about my experiences and my interests, a subject that we frequently returned to, in addition to the more obvious subject of my background, was my interest in literature. I am an English major at Queen’s, and next year I will be a graduate student in English at the University of Toronto. For as long as I can remember, I have entertained hopes of becoming a professor of English literature.
Jake was initially critical of my propensity to escape into novels, as he saw it, and he connected my habit of constantly reading with my sheltered and privileged upbringing. He argued that reading about experience can never stand in for experiencing life itself. Much of what Jake said to me in the summer was echoed by Claudia’s speech in The Journey Home. She says: ‘There you are discussing university politics and I’m working with the homeless in Oakland, not far from your doorstep at UC. None of your theories and writers are gonna affect my lot. Not even Alice Walker. Ain’t no books in these houses, ain’t no money to buy dem even if they could read dem. It’s estimated a third of the local population’s illiterate.’  Like Claudia, Jake asserted that reading literature is futile if we do not also address larger issues that are informed by poverty, such as illiteracy.
Both my conversations with Jake as well as my reading of The Journey Home have emphasized that literature by itself cannot solve the troubling issues in our world. Rather, literature must be approached in conjunction with action and experience. Literature on its own can never solve issues of racism, poverty, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and bigotry, but it can enhance our understanding of all these things. Reading The Journey Home, for example, offered me a significant perspective that I could not have accessed in any other way. Not only did it teach me about various cultures that I have not personally encountered, but it resonated with me because I was able, however indirectly, to relate it to my own experience.
Through literature, as through talk story, people who are staggeringly dissimilar can come closer to one another. As readers, we are allowed to approach the experience of people who we could never personally encounter, and we gain insights that we might not come by through our necessarily limited personal experience. By reading Tomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen, I have come that much closer to learning about the experience of Canadian residential schools. By reading Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, I have gained perspective on mid-Twentieth century race relations in the United States and the African-American experience that, as a white woman in the twenty-first century, I could never access directly.
I am more than willing to acknowledge that literary experiences are not enough, and that personal experience and interaction are as integral to real learning as reading can ever be. For all this, no one will ever convince me that reading novels which offer the insights of people utterly unlike ourselves is not infinitely precious. I have been fortunate enough to spend time and revel in dialogue with Jake. I am honoured by the opportunity to exchange thoughts with Cathie Dunsford. Yet I will never be privileged to meet Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf or Isaac Bashevis Singer. My consolation is that I am able to read their words on the page.
The idea that sharing facilitates education permeates The Journey Home. Whether it is students sharing their experiences with one another through talk story, or novelists who, through the act of creative writing, generously share their perspectives with countless unknown readers, the sharing of personal thoughts and experience is vital to mutual understanding, resolving conflict, and, with enormous hope and phenomenal effort, perhaps even decolonizing.
“Think about whether you’d rather lie down next to a blade of grass”:
An Examination of the Importance of Food and Culture
Trevin David, Queen’s University

One of the most dominant themes evident in Cathie Dunsford’s The Journey Home, is the prevalence and importance that Dunsford places on food. Whether it is the feast during the ritual opening of the new marae or Cowrie’s farewell dinner for Benny, Dunsford uses food and the visual imagery of food as a device to supplement the main themes evident in The Journey Home.  The emphasis and importance that Dunsford places on the kitchen is even more significant when one considers the placement of the kitchen in most academic discourse. Much academic work places the kitchen as “the center of oppression” viewing the kitchen as a prison, stifling women’s aspirations and ensuring that their contributions to the household remains informal and their presence stays invisible.  However this is a flawed notion — scholars such as Maria Elia Christie criticize this understanding of the kitchen as overly narrow and ethnocentric. Such a description of the kitchen essentially takes the experience of a predominantly white, Anglo, urban middle class woman and uses this narrow scope as a benchmark from which statements are made about women as a whole.  What many scholars also fail to realize is that many cultures in the world do not subscribe to this modernist definition of the kitchen as invisible. Instead the kitchen and the preparation of food can become an area where women proclaim their visibility, affirm their kinship and showcase their power as producers and creators. Such an example of the power and culture available in a gendered space is evident in the actions of main character Cowrie and the women as a whole in The Journey Home. Through a gendered lens this essay will examine the importance of food as culture in subaltern/nonwhite societies, specifically in relation to women, and how the onset of globalization and the crossing of cultures impact these deeply held societal values. 
The preparation and celebration of food as a cultural value benefits indigenous societies in two distinct but complementary ways. The difference between these two ways of examining the benefits of “food as culture” can best be described as a difference of scope. While one method examines the benefits of food as culture in the gender relations within a community, the other method of analysis examines the cultural implications of food as culture in an increasingly globalized society. 
The celebration of food as culture enables the gendered kitchenspace to be constituted as the foundation of cultural celebrations. One of the opening events in Dunsford’s novel The Journey Home is the sight of females making food for the ritual opening of the new marae, an opening that emphasizes the importance of food in cultural celebrations. What is even more significant in the opening pages of The Journey Home is not only the sight of the women unpeeling layers of food but the sight of the rest of the community working in unison to ensure the celebration’s success. It is through this image of community involvement that a vital aspect of “food as culture” is realized. The kitchenspace, a term used by Maria Elia Christie, becomes an area where cultural values are upheld and affirmed, and becomes a platform in which the neighbourhood comes together.  In her study of kitchenspace as a gendered territory Christie examines the importance of the kitchenspace during fiestas and communal festivals. Both regions that Christie analyzes in her research, Xochimilco and Ocotopec, share a tradition of elaborate festivals that serve to maintain regional reciprocity networks as well as perform the role of social redistribution, much like Aboriginal potlatch celebrations.  These celebrations are dependent on the women’s gendered contributions in order to maintain the redistributive networks and integrate various sections of the populance.
The celebration of food as culture also allows for generational transmission of cultural knowledge between females of various generations, bringing them closer together. In these communal celebrations women pass on to their children the cultural dishes and practices that are specific to their region so that in Cowrie’s case she can use it to transfer knowledge and influence a wider group of people. It is important to note that this flow of information goes both ways as the elders also allow the children to take the forefront and lead the community. This connectivity between the people is evident in The Journey Home with the opening of the new marae, a cultural event that provides an example of a transfer of leadership to the youth, as the elders allow the tamariki to lead the women for the ceremonial ending of the writer’s circle. 
This transmission of empowerment and continuation of cultural roles creates a different interpretation of empowerment, one that people in Western cultures might not be familiar with. Unlike the definition of empowerment in Western society, which too often views power and status through a genderless lens, basing success on the ability to enter pre-existing formal structures, these cultural practices act in contrast. Women in these outdoor communal kitchens engage in gendered, power enhancing, creative and reproductive work. The kitchen is normally an area that is situated outside of sight, and the gendered contributions of the female to the home are often dismissed as secondary. However the celebration of food as culture in cultures such as Central Mexico allows women to gain and maintain relationships and prestige through their ability to support the community in these communal kitchens and fiestas.  As Christie explores in her study of fiestas and communal kitchens in Central Mexico, during many of the elaborate community celebrations and festivals the reputation of the host family and community is literally in women’s hands.  Consequently, the community holds older women with the knowledge of cultural and culinary traditions in particular esteem.  This demonstrates how women’s participation in food preparation can be transformed from exclusion to empowerment, where status and prestige in the community is gained through these roles.
More importantly, by continuing to uphold traditional ways of life and cultural practices, food as culture sets the stage for collective politics and resistance. Through the onset of globalization and the reduction of barriers between cultures, many local cultures risk losing their diversity by getting co-opted or assimilated into other cultures. With the spread of modernity and neo-liberalism, the idea that women can only gain power through formal, salary earning enterprises is reinforced so as to extend the capitalist economy.  While this initiative is by no means a negative one (one needs only look at micro-credit schemes such as the Grameen Bank for proof of this) it is important to understand that there are other ways in which women can, and have achieved status and empowerment in their communities, and it is in this regard that the celebration of food and its importance culturally is so important. The communal kitchens and group preparations allow for a reaffirming of values and intergenerational transmissions of knowledge as well as creating an area where members of the community interact with each other.  By placing women in visible positions of power and status in the community and affirming kinship networks in opposition to the forces of urbanization and globalization the real power of food as culture is realized. 
While many cultures try to maintain their distinctiveness through cultural practices like rituals and festivals, the increasing interconnectivity of cultures through a distortion of time and space calls into question the purity of cultural traditions.  While globalization’s ability to assimilate local and distinct cultures cannot be denied, globalization cannot be viewed from this purely assimilative scope. Instead the increasing deterritorialization of people through travel and immigration has yielded a hybrid culture of food, where culturally specific foods are created and mixed in new and different locales.  While allowing cultural foods to be removed from their traditional locales it has also allowed cultural offerings from various cultures to be mixed and melded together, creating a fusion of simultaneous cultural offerings creating new styles and dishes.  This ability to experience the “global as local” is evident in Cowrie’s preparation of tea. Cowrie analyzes the origins of the tea she is drinking, an Indian Darjeeling purchased from a Chinese store in working-class Oakland, and prepared using the same colonial methods taught by her Maori mother.  This example shows that even something as innocuous and mundane as the preparation of tea shows the immobility brought about by globalization, a fact that is not lost on Cowrie.
The positive effects of this hybridization of cultures is showcased in Cowrie’s farewell dinner to Benny, a culinary offering that combines “real New Zealand green-lipped mussels”  with Latin American and Maori offerings, topped off with a faux American accent when serving the delicacies. While eating the dinner, the women at the table discuss the food traditions that they all grew up with, discovering commonalities amongst their various upbringings.  This creation of bonds cutting across different cultures and divisions is one of the central themes in Dunsford’s The Journey Home, and Dunsford commonly uses food as a foundation for these bonds.  It is through this interconnectivity with other cultures that Cowrie and the others unearth commonalities, as well as varieties regarding their cultural traditions.
However not all encounters with different cultures yield positive results or a deeper cultural understanding. The cultural celebration of food in many subaltern and indigenous cultures contrasts with Western society’s popular notion of body image and the “ideal type.” The dominant media exerts pressure on all individuals, but disproportionately women, to fit into a narrow and ethnocentric image of what it conceives to be attractive. While this yields great pressure for women in the country, I argue that this poses an even greater danger to women arriving from other cultures where their perceptions of their body are attacked by popular culture.  Women who embody this colonial notion of attractiveness are so dominant in mass media that when women that do not fit this mold are represented, their very representation becomes the central issue. As Melinda Young points out in her criticism of popular magazines, women such as Queen Latifah, who do not fit the Western definition of attractiveness, become solely defined by their body image.  The simple fact that they are represented in magazines is seen as a triumph by different sized women and their deviance from the “norm” becomes the central focus of the issue at the expense of other more prevalent issues.
A disturbing trend in Western media is its framing of the large body with notions of excess and loss of control. The large body is often conflated with the obese body, and all issues of weight gain in women’s magazines are seen as problematic, and this is especially true when viewing coverage of Hollywood celebrities.  While there are notable success stories such as actress Camryn Manheim these are exceptions to the majority of media coverage, which still pressures females to conform. Sadly, the attitudes of some daytime talk shows which invite audiences to view large women’s bodies as “grotesque” and “in need of help” would seem to be a more accurate depiction of popular media.  While one must concede that dieting and weight loss does have positive health benefits, it is important not to conflate large women with an unhealthy image. As Natalie Wilson points out in her article on weight loss surgery, genetics plays a significant role in determining the shape of a body, and often the case is that many thin people eat as much or even more than their larger counterparts.  This coupled with the fact that thin people sometimes suffer from as many health problems as larger people further problematizes the assumption that thin is healthy. This flawed assumption is evident in DK’s treatment of Cowrie in The Journey Home, mistakenly attributing Cowrie’s size to a lack of exercise, an aspect which will be discussed later in this essay. 
The pressure to conform by popular Western media is especially problematic when it confronts individuals whose culture does not subscribe to the same gender expectations as the West. As immigrants begin to integrate into Western culture they undergo a cultural transition in which many of their customs, beliefs and traditions are called into question by cultural practices of their new home country. For individuals that come from a culture that celebrates food this potentially creates a serious cultural crisis, as individuals are pressured into denying themselves food, an important cornerstone of their culture in order to be viewed as “attractive.”  Cowrie encounters this clash of cultures when she meets DK, one of her students, at a local cafe. DK mistakenly assumes that Cowrie is an actor for Fat Lip Readers Theatre, a theatre group that is, we are led to believe, predominantly made up of large women. When Cowrie asks her why she made this assumption DK tells her that it’s because she is “rather chubby” and that she “really oughta get more exercise.”  As was the case with many symbols of Western popular culture, a failure to fit into the “ideal” image of females was automatically seen as a loss of self-control and a proof of an inactive lifestyle. The fact that an intelligent, media-literate young lesbian with all the available resources around her can fall into the same thought pattern as popular media depicts its power in shaping and influencing attitudes. While Cowrie manages to give a strong reply telling DK to imagine the beauty and power of seeing whales make love or to immerse herself in a Georgia O’Keefe flower painting, and then decide if she would rather lie down next to a blade of grass,  this is not necessarily indicative of the experiences of all women (large or not) new to — or visiting — a Western region. Cowrie is a strong, self-assured woman who is more than comfortable with her body image; and for many women struggling to fit into a brand new culture (especially one as powerful as Western culture) this is sadly not the case. And this is where the true danger lies. While women descended from countries with different perceptions of body image have a lesser risk of eating pathology,  I would argue that social networks and support structures play a great role in reinforcing an alternative body image. Without these support structures and with a pressure to conform, women that distance themselves from food will, importantly, distance themselves from their cultural practices that celebrate food. As a harmful by-product of the steps taken to conform to Western ideals of attractiveness some women deny themselves their culture as well. 
So where does that leave us now? The celebration of food as culture allows for a different gendered definition of empowerment that bolsters esteem and status while preserving cultural values and traditions, and in many instances creating new hybrid cultures. However this celebration operates in direct conflict with an increasingly global definition of attractiveness and normality. Considering the power of influence that Western media holds, the question arises as to what can possibly be done to alleviate this pressure to conform. As Jack Shaheen stated in his book Reel Bad Arabs the problem with minority representation in the media is the lack of a suitable foil to counteract stereotypes, and this is especially true concerning larger women in the media.  While there are academic works and books such as Cathie Dunsford’s The Journey Home that discuss large women in a positive light without making their weight the central issue, these works exist on the periphery of popular culture. However it must be noticed that there have been noticeable steps forward in popular culture as well as a backlash against the dangerously thin women that have long been popular culture’s staple. It seems that while change has been slow in its progression, attitudes regarding large women have become far more accepting in society compared to recent memory. Considering the practical and cultural importance that celebrating food as culture can have on women, society must evaluate whether or not they would prefer this healthy image or, as Cowrie states, “rather lie down next to a blade of grass.”