Raised partially by the system, I believed, for too long, that I needed to struggle. That who I was wouldn’t matter if I did not show my scars. It was hard to appreciate what one English teacher, who wouldn’t show an ounce of interest in my broken personal life, was offering me. So what if I was a runaway? I could still read, write, and get out of bed. My mentor at the time, Amy, had recently helped me transfer to Subway Academy One, a Danforth alternative school that was small, full of misfits just like me, and run by a close-knit group of teachers who seemed immune to my general sense of depression that had failed me in regular school. In my first year, I probably missed more days than I attended. In my second year, I avoided academic-level courses like the plague. In my third year, I was clever enough to enroll in Literature and Film courses with John Laufer. In those three years, I began to appreciate the patience of teachers who so easily believed in their student, even when their student wouldn’t believe in herself. Some facts about John Laufer are that, at some point, he was up to two double-espressos in the morning, his unusually structured undergraduate education operated entirely in the Socratic Method, and he would get crazy eyes whenever his mind wandered, making him seem to grasp at reality, every time. He was incredibly engaging. When I told our only connection, Mr. Sean Newton, that I was writing a piece on the school’s alternative approach to teaching, he quite understood. In our phone call, I explained, “John Laufer’s kind of perfect for it, eccentric—” “No, I totally get it—John’s—yeah…” He knows John. Back then, John wasn’t the mushy type. He was able to make you feel like you’d emerged from under a rock, for talking without knowing what you were saying. It was the silence that he wouldn’t fill, aided by those glazed-over eyes and the emptiness of your dumb question, that taught you that your contributions had to be informed—intentional—or you would just look stupid. He would try his best at connecting the dead end of your contribution to a recalibrated asking—a new question for further thought. And the topics! He would connect his lessons to world events. He’d hand us freshly printed articles about perspectives that were new to us distracted, apathetic youth. He’d have us acknowledge the state of the world with him, all the while connecting it, easily or not, to our lesson of the day. Sometimes the articles were in direct reference to what we were learning, like when he shared reviews of the movies that we were studying that year (among which were La La Land (2016) and Moonlight (2016)), and it would give us contemporary, real-world perspectives to consider while preparing essays and reflections of our own nascent understanding. Other times, they seemed less directly related to the course. He cared very deeply about how people were represented (and not represented) in art. He resisted the urge to feed us his opinion, always leaving it up to our brains, the work of sifting through the nonsense to find the meaning in everything. To this day, I still don’t know if he was upset about some of the controversial discourses he brought into class or not. Even as a great mentor, he was too much, sometimes. Like when I received a call to my cellphone. It woke me up. “Are you coming to do your exam?” Or when I walked out of that exam, frustrated with myself, and he said that not doing the exam was not an option—my impressionable, institutionalized brain believing this lie to make or break my survival. Or when I dragged that exam over to my safe place, the top-floor staircase, with its floor-to-ceiling parking lot view, tasked with completing it there, instead of quitting. I succeeded, eventually. I earned a couple of awards in my last year at that school. Amy was there to celebrate our graduation ceremony, and she got to meet John and shake hands with him. I will never forget what I experienced when I went in for a handshake with him. “Ah—it’s okay, come on,” he said, before I received a hug from who remains to this day, my favourite teacher ever. In that short time, I knew what it felt like for those who were lucky enough to have a true parent—a source of guidance, unconditional belief, and a prime example of caffeine addiction, from which to learn—and have that person say thanks. Thanks for trying your best. That’s all I wanted. Originally published as a web-exclusive for On the Danforth, 2024. https://onthedanforth.ca/2024/02/unlikely-guidance/

Okay, basically everthing, and everything else will eventually be so as well, once I sell it. That’s the funnest part—is selling it—because of the looks on their faces when they make the jump from I’m—not—so—sure—about—this to will—it—fit—in—my—car? The money’s just a necessity, and I usually go lower because I’m just so eager to make space (and money) for my next big find. My craziest find has got one of those stories behind it that you’ll need to put the food down for, or else that food might go to waste. There may or may not be a mouse involved. The mouse was dead. It couldn’t look any more flattened by the stack of heavy panels of fluff-covered plywood. I was aware of an out-of-the-ordinary figure of such a small being, given my history with hamsters and gerbils, one of which was also thrifted (RIP, we think, Luci). When we saw the ripped up fabric, another telltale sign of rodent mischief, we took the box it was handed to us in, and all of its contents at arm’s length, in a bag, and dumped it outside. On the concrete, at night, with a flashlight and gloves, we rooted through the rest of the contents, looking for the suspected rodent, and dreading it. I was so scared of rabies that I sat in the trunk of his car and watched in horror as my Aberfoyle boyfriend at the time squinted at the 2-dimensional corpse among the similarly-coloured clumps of fluff. The wave of relief upon finding it dead was not as great as our refund, nor as lasting as when the rabies instructor on the phone told me that this was not likely going to become a case of rabies. Of all of my thrifted pieces to be potentially rubbed with rodent death at some point, I would only have this one done so again, as our rodent—death cat tower was a huge success with our month-old kittens at the time. It’s a furry plywood jungle gym, with a missing cushion that was once a happy, warm, little guy’s home. Sometimes I look at the body-fluid splatter on the plywood, and I miss our little friend, even if he came with a healthy dose of rabies paranoia. Deep down, I know there are some things you shouldn’t thrift, or some red flags you should probably pay attention to, like a box with a hole and chew marks on it (we thought that maybe, just maybe, it was nothing but a good deal). But if I have to be honest, I miss that experience and would do it all over again, and would do all of the thrifted-find adventures all over again—yes, even the one we had to carry up some glarly scary basement cellar stairs. We were basically charging nothing to move a rich White lady’s furniture out of her house, only to find that the vintage piece wasn’t going to fit in the hatchback, no matter which way we tried, and therefore having to leave it out in the rain, on her street’s corner, where she and all of her neighbours were sure to see it, and shooting her a shame-filled apology message, and getting none back. We even had to momerily kick all of our thrifting efforts to the curb by getting an emergency screwdriver, only to find, after two screws were removed, that these mid-century modern staples weren’t going to budge. I deeply regretted our whole day, for a little while. I came to terms with it, by thinking better of it. I knew that someone was going to come across this free vintage piece, and see no bedbugs on it if they were early enough, and have their own strenuous, rainy adventure with it. Just yesterday, on my way home from saying goodbye to two of my favourite instructors for the year, on a rainy Tuesday evening, I noticed the yellowing, leaf-filled ground of our late November, and with it, a tea cup. It was just an ordinary tea cup, but it had little blue flowers on it, and in the rain it had filled, like a neglected pool, with leaves and rainwater. It was exactly how I was feeling, that day. I picked it up. It’s my new tea cup. I love it, maybe because it was too late to love it, which is how I felt about my instructors, suddenly gone. I have had to say goodbye to some thrifted pieces. I loved my kitchen table hand-me-down from my grandmother, and was willing to sit on it to prevent it from being taken in a nasty roommate split-up situation. Luckily, the roommate was actually my brother, and we’re on okay terms now, and I get to see the table once in a while. I do not regret giving him this table, anymore. I do regret giving some things away, however. I think that naturally, when you’re a very sensitive publishing student, you’re prone to feeling quite high and quite low. Sometimes I connect with things when I’m low, and other times, I sell things when I’m high. One such item is a coffee table, completely covered in laminated stickers that a friend had worked on and kept for years. Her band was on it, as well as other tokens of her identity. This friend was someone that I cried to, smoked, drank, and snorted lines with, shared a vibrator with when she needed one, and ultimately, had to say goodbye to. She was one of my best friends, and my family, when I had none. Sometimes I wonder if I like thrifting so much because giving away that piece that had so many stories attached to it, became such a regretful act that I’ve been trying to overwrite it with more positive ones ever since. Everything I have is thrifted. Originally written for PB 701 at Centennial College, 2023

upside-down in my belly the food will be yummy upside-down some food in my tummy

When you think of the terms ‘male gamer’ and ‘gender psychology’, key research terms that come to mind probably include violence, sexism, and hypermasculinity. One area of gender psychology research explores whether playing videogames reinforces male-centric worldviews in the male gamer. The framing of the research in this area often implies that male heroism, overly-sexualized women, a valuing of physical strength, a lack of emotionality, and the prizing of aggression, elitism, and competition, all constitute male-centric worldviews. Let us look at some of the latest research on different ways in which male gamers are affected by the male-dominant competitive gaming industry, analyze for gender bias in the research processes presented, and consider some potential changes in approach to this area of research. When we talk about masculinity in videogames, we refer to the prominence of a male player base, a great majority of male characters in the games’ stories, and a rewarding of stereotypically male-dominant skills in the videogames. In 2016 and 2017, Paaßen et al find that the male gamer stereotype of a true, hard-core, or more skilled gamer compared to the female gamer, is only an accurate stereotype depending on how the gamer is defined, that it is perpetuated by the prominence of male icons in the gaming communities, and that it renders female gamers invisible. In running with the definition of gamers as hard-core ones who play games that are represented mostly by males, this study’s conceptual framework shows a bias for the outdated notion of masculinity that includes high competitiveness, rather than potentially newer forms of masculinity that may include other play styles (Ribbens and Malliet, 2015). Paaßen et al do not dismantle the term ‘gamer’ in order to show that the definition logically includes players of diverse game types, but rather it associates an exclusive criterion to the stereotyped term that it attempts to explore. This inhibits the research from considering how the male gamer of less-competitive genres (open-world, simulators, story-rich games, etc.), may still be considered a skilled, competitive, or otherwise masculine gamer. The use of exaggerated male bodies in videogames was researched by Gilbert et al in 2021, who conducted a thorough historical and cultural analysis. They found that the use of formidability in videogame characters predicted the game’s inclusion of violent behaviour and use of weapons (Gilbert et al, 2021), showing a clear association between exaggerated masculinity and violence within videogames. Ideally, they would also have studied whether the use of formidable videogame characters predicated the game’s use of multiple play styles that allow for more or less violence (e.g., in the Halo videogame series, which characteristically features a more formidable-than-realistic male protagonist, social game types such as ‘infection’ or fan-created types such as ‘fat kid’ include moving through obstacles undetected, with the focus being on avoiding becoming the shooter). In using the less-common word, formidability, to describe strength and massiveness, Gilbert et al de-sensationalize the buzzwords that contribute to the stereotype of a massive, strong male as the iconic videogame character, in the research area. Masculinity in videogames has been associated primarily with excessive violence, and with the finding that gamers who partake in that excessive violence in-game, go on to partake in it in real life. In 2021 and 2019, Allen and Anderson found that the extent to which a player identifies with his in-game avatar, affects the extent to which that player expresses a violent worldview after playing violent portions of the game. This study effectively disentangles violence in videogames from its real-life effects, showing a moderator variable (i.e., the extent of connection between the in-game avatar and real-life player) in the cause-and-effect relationship. This finding is important, because it disproves the stigmatizing idea that being a gamer necessarily makes one violent. Alternatively, it could have explored whether gamers tend to choose avatars that they identify with, or instead choose to disconnect themselves from the game by playing with an avatar they do not relate to (e.g., alter ego, escapism, etc.,) so as to more freely engage in violent acts. This research could have explored a possible divide, wherein some gamers tend toward identification and others toward disengaging, researching whether players who choose to disengage show high levels of violent worldviews to begin with, possibly reversing the directional arrow in the cause-and-effect relationship. Masculinity in videogames has been associated with the oversexualization of female characters. In 2021, Sarda et al found that males gamers who identified with their in-game avatars before playing a sexist scene, later identified more strongly with masculinity but not with the objectification of women. This shows, similarly to how playing violent videogames do not necessarily make one more violent, that playing sexist videogames do not necessarily make one more sexist. These results successfully counteract the association of male gamers with the perpetuation of sexism through their choice of videogames, and yet, it could have explored whether using less stereotypically masculine in-game avatars produced the same redirection of identity to masculinity (e.g., if male gamers were given the chance to play a videogame with a gender-neutral character that they identified with the most, and who nonetheless committed a sexist act in-game, would they later show the same redirection of their identity, from the sexist character, to masculinity, or would they have a different way to redirect their destabilized engagement with the videogame?). Further research could explore how sexist content in videogames influences male gamers’ self-perception generally, rather than their explicit identification of self with masculinity alone (e.g., maybe there is an unexplored counter-effect, whereby after a sexist scene, male gamers identify more strongly with anti-sexism). Some male gamers play with female avatars, which allows them experimentation with non-masculinity. Chou et al ran a qualitative study in 2014, in which they interviewed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) players, and identified their main reasons for gender swapping (ranging from obtaining free gifts and playing superior avatars, to seeking fantasy experiences), and generally concluded that gender swapping provided male gamers with fun gaming experiences. It would have been informative for this study to evaluate self-reported levels of identification with masculinity, so as to provide a basis for the idea that a version of masculinity involves fantasy experiences of playing as a female, so as to dismantle implicit ideas of masculinity by default avoiding exploring or identifying with femininity (i.e., the binary and heteronormativity). If a sizable amount of the interviewed players self-identified as masculine, while providing the reason of enjoying the fantasy experiences of role-playing as female, then the research could conclude that masculine selfhood has space for femininity. Gamers have different play styles that allow them diverse points of identity expression. In 2015, Ribbens and Malliet found that young male gamers interact with violence in videogames through a few different play styles (narration or action, discovery or mission-based, and reaction or strategic play), and that these styles suggest that there is some individuality in the amount and representation of virtual violence that these young male gamers find. This study suggests that videogame violence can be conceptually redefined to include the idea of an individuality to each player’s in-game-violence-footprint. This research further dismantles the idea that male gamers must play competitive shooter games, instead broadening the stereotype of the gamer guy to include different types of play, through which lesser-sensationalized traits of masculinity are given space (e.g., strategy and mission-based games are a smaller subcategory of game types that are culturally associated with masculinity, yet less problematically tied to the ideas of sexism, violence, and hypermasculine characters). Overall, research finds that many male gamers play videogames that ultimately throw an ongoing celebration of outdated notions of masculinity; that these players do not necessarily identify with sexism as a result of identifying with sexist characters; that while they associate themselves with masculinity, they do not necessarily find unjustified violence in the videogames morally right; that some highly competitive videogames, especially MMORPGs, allow for males to gender swap and experience a variety of different gender experiences in gameplay; and that there are different play styles that gamers use, which allow them self-expression through their in-game problem-solving, essentially allowing them to explore different aspects of their masculine/other identities. Thus, there is overall research supporting the idea that the hypermasculine, sexist, violent, competitive gamer may simply be a stereotype that has increasing room to be deconstructed. Yet there is room for improvement in the research area of masculinity in gaming, such as lessening the use of sensationalism in associating hypermasculinity to videogames, or male gamer to competitive gamer, or gamer to sexism, or gamer to violence, in framing the relevant research findings; starting research that questions the directional arrow within the common findings of increased videogame violence leading to increased real-life violence, or increased videogame sexist attitudes leading to increased real-life sexist attitudes; and starting more research into the different videogame types and genres, which show a wide variation in male gamers’ expression of their masculinity within the wider videogame industry. References Allen, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2021;2019;). Does avatar identification make unjustified videogame violence more morally consequential? Media Psychology, 24(2), 236-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2019.1683030 Chou, Y., Lo, S., & Teng, C. (2014). Reasons for avatar gender swapping by online game players: A qualitative interview-based study. International Journal of e-Business Research, 10(4), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijebr.2014100101 Gilbert, M., Lynch, T., Burridge, S., & Archipley, L. (2021). Formidability of male videogame characters over 45 years. Information, Communication & Society, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.2013921 Paaßen, B., Morgenroth, T., & Stratemeyer, M. (2016;2017;). What is a true gamer? the male gamer stereotype and the marginalization of women in videogame culture. Sex Roles, 76(7-8), 421-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0678-y Ribbens, W., & Malliet, S. (2015). How male young adults construe their playing style in violent videogames. New Media & Society, 17(10), 1624-1642. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530821 Sarda, E., Zerhouni, O., Gentile, D. A., Bry, C., & Bègue, L. (2021). Some effects of sexist videogames on self-masculinity associations. Information, Communication & Society, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1877770 Originally written for PSY 535 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Prof. Gurevich, 2022.

https://jewells.itch.io/empty-bottles

The unrealistic cultural representation of working mothers, termed supermoms, is a symptom of the looming intensive mothering ideology and its continued hold on society’s perception of parenthood. Catherine Reitman’s Workin’ Moms offers a portrayal of a working mother who balances home and work in an equal way that represents a sustainable approach to working motherhood. By comparison, Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother offers a portrayal of a supermom who juggles home and work in an isolated way that perpetuates the unrealistic expectations placed on mothers. Intensive mothering is an approach to mothering that places a mother’s children as her priority over her own needs. Working mothers who expend what society considers an acceptably self-sacrificing amount of time, energy, and money on their children are named supermoms. This is a rather coveted position for mothers to find themselves in, and popular culture, including film and literature, has made space for a genre of mommy lit which captures success stories of working, yet intensive, mothers – supermoms. In their 2021 study, “Working Mothers’ Experiences in an Intensive Mothering Culture: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study”, Forbes, Lamar, and Bornstein argue that there are restrictions on what mothers can achieve as workers, due to historical and cultural gender norms that expect mothers to prioritize childcare above work. The article points out that, due to the higher expectations placed on them as parents, working mothers tend to fulfill more parental duties than working fathers, which perpetuates the ongoing presence of gender inequality in the larger cultural discussion about parenting. The interview questions that Forbes et al use in their research design, are phrased so as to avoid key terms that might bias the participants’ answers to confirm the study’s assumptions. These research participants use pseudonyms, which allows for their higher freedom of disclosure. According to Forbes et al, the most commonly cited problems for working mothers in an intensive mothering culture are coping with the perceived gap between real and ideal mothering, the overwhelm of the juggling act, the gender-based double standard, and the consequences of deferring self-care. Forbes et al asked their participants to describe ideal mothering for themselves. The interviewees described the ideal mother as readily available to meet the needs of those around them. “Gabriella, a mother of two, indicated [that] an ideal mom is a supermom who is ‘everything to everybody… a rock star at work… a rock star at home, your house is clean, your kids are in 15 activities, [and] you’re put together all the time physically and emotionally’”, (Forbes et al 278). These criteria echo intensive mothering ideologies, whereby mothers are expected to expend an exhausting amount of time and energy on their caring after their children and managing their homes. Forbes et al found that while they exhibit some self-consciousness, working mothers tend to differentiate themselves from intensive mothering ideologies. In reality, among the rest who claim in various ways that they “just don’t fit that persona”, one mother admits that “It sounds awful, but I don’t want to be around my kids all day long. I don’t find that fulfilling” (Forbes et al 278). The intensive mothering ideology is echoed in Pearson’s novel, in which Kate Reddy explains her internalized worldview that “the world of women was divided in two: there were proper mothers, self-sacrificing bakers of apple pies and well-scrubbed invigilators of the washtub, and there were the other sort”, (Pearson 8-9) referring to her earlier concept of, “Women Who Cut Corners”, (Pearson 8-9). Given this binary, Kate Reddy classifies herself as the latter, in her efforts to distress ready-made mince pies, indicating a desire to fit into the ideal mother role, yet being unable to. There seems to be a guilt-fuelled discrepancy between Reddy’s ideal and real mothering strategies. For Reddy, this discrepancy leads her to attempt to appear to other mothers around her as an ideal mother would, bringing what seem to be homemade mince pies to her daughter’s school. Reitman’s show portrays a gap between ideal and real motherhood. In the first episode, Kate Foster stays late at work when a male co-worker jokes “Hey – shouldn’t you be at home right now putting your baby to bed or something?… Nice priorities” (Workin’ Moms). It is indeed taxing on Foster to miss out on spending time with her child, as she soon after, breaks down and admits that she has missed her baby’s first word that day. The interaction shows that sometimes working mothers choose to prioritize their work over their mother roles, despite that such a choice leads to their feeling that they are not doing their best at mothering, given the intensive mothering culture that is omnipresent. A difference between Reddy and Foster’s management of the discrepancy shows that Reddy attempts to hide her reality from others, while Foster communicates hers. “I want to work”, Foster asserts to her manager, after having shared her grief to a team of male co-workers. This difference becomes increasingly apparent through an exploration of the other ways in which Pearson and Reitman’s working mothers interact with the intensive mothering culture. Forbes et al explore the ways in which mothers are overwhelmed by the juggling act – that is, a working mother’s balancing of her career, home, childcare, marital, and extra responsibilities in her life. Many interviewees point out that time management is difficult, saying that it is “probably the biggest challenge, [as well as] energy, and knowing [that there will be] things that aren’t going to get done”, and that “it’s literally just the challenge of finding the time in a week, or the day to do everything that needs to be done”, (Forbes et al 279). This juggling act forms the basis of many plots in motherhood literature, that center around a working mother’s ability to succeed in balancing all of her different roles. The juggling act is central in Pearson’s novel, as most evidenced by Kate Reddy’s to-do lists throughout the story. “MUST REMEMBER: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS / Adjust work–life balance for healthier, happier existence. / Get up an hour earlier to maximize time available. / Spend more time with your children… Learn Italian…”, (Pearson 62). The length and variety of Reddy’s to-do list, shows a prevalent optimism about the number of goals that are achievable for a working mother. Indeed, Reddy boasts of her abilities to multitask, as she reflects, for instance on that “[she] can get [her]self and two children washed… dressed and out of the house in half an hour, [she] can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones… [And she] can prepare and eat a stand-up supper while on the phone to the West Coast”, (Pearson 39). In full self-awareness, Pearson’s novel portrays a version of motherhood that is not so sustainable after all. Indeed, at the end of the novel, the protagonist resigns herself to quit her lucrative career in managing hedge funds, and focus more centrally on her mother role, after a moment of shame over not knowing some medically required information about her sick son at the doctor’s office, (Pearson 288-289). It seems that a sense of shame forces this working mother into giving up one of her roles, in order to fit the ideal mother archetype that intensive mothering ideologies endorse. Reitman’s show also portrays overachievement within the juggling act. Regarding her own to-do list, Kate Foster says that because she couldn’t go running as planned, she would “take nothing but the stairs today – boom! Check!” (Workin’ Moms). Foster’s to-do list includes a “Performance Review” at work, to which she arrives out of breath due to having taken those stairs; a pink-coloured “DATE NIGHT!” with her husband, which she is later absent from; and among other items, “PUMP Like Crazy!”, referring to her breast milk (Workin’ Moms). As the list of tasks continues so does its increasing use of capital letters, and yet as the episode progresses, it becomes clear that most of Kate’s tasks go uncompleted. This overload of tasks to complete in such little time is an example of what is described by Forbes et al’s interviewees, and captured in Pearson’s novel. Yet, like Kate Reddy, Reitman’s Kate Foster holds an optimistic attitude about following through on her schedule. When Nathan, her husband, suggests that “maybe it’s time for formula”, Kate shoots him a disapproving look, (Workin’ Moms), which suggests that Kate is determined to fulfill her ideals of motherhood within her already-tight schedule, such as the commonly argued ideal of breast milk over formula for many mothers. Indeed, in the season finale, an idolized manager, who is herself a mother, pulls Kate aside in a meeting, to criticize Kate for disclosing to a client that her son is in the hospital, urging her to “Think about what is important to you”, suggesting that Kate’s client is more important than her hospitalized child, (Workin’ Moms). As compared to Pearson’s Kate Reddy, who experiences shame from an intensive mothering culture, Reitman’s Kate Foster is experiencing the opposite – shame from the counter-culture by which working mothers commit to prioritizing their careers over their children. In essence, neither protagonist truly executes the juggling act to perfection – each eventually prioritizes her children over her career, and the ongoing difficulty of choosing one over the other is what Forbes et al’s interviewees note. Forbes et al also noted a common theme among participants as that of socialized gender roles dictating how much more responsibility the mothers held, relative to their male partners. Referring to her partner’s sense of responsibility over household and childcare chores, one mother says that “He’s not in a place where he picks up on it on his own… if I were to get really analytical about that it probably goes back to socialized gender norms – it’s not at his forefront because it doesn’t have to be” (Forbes et al 281). These socialized gender norms, by which women are expected to care more about household chores, fall in line with the intensive mothering ideology targetting mothers, and not particularly fathers, putting their effort into raising their children and running their homes. While women seemed to be aware of this gender-based limitation, they shared a sense of guilt over not putting enough time in, despite some of them being in equal partnerships. Reflecting on her own efforts, as a woman in her generation, particularly her career at a firm in downtown London, Reddy says that “women in the City [sic]… are the foundation stones. The females who come after us will scarcely give us a second thought, but they will walk on our bones”, (Pearson 71), referring to laying the groundwork for other women, such as Momo, to believe in their capabilities in male-dominated workplaces. While Kate Reddy pushes for gender equality in terms of career opportunities and success, she lacks in pushing for it in terms of household responsibilities. Reflecting, later, on the unequal distribution of those responsibilities between her husband Richard and herself, Reddy feels that “Women are… great at [multitasking]… if you ask Rich to hold more than three things in his head at once you can see smoke start to come out… I’ve heard… that guys play up how useless they are in order to avoid doing stuff. Unfortunately… It’s not laziness, it’s biology”, (Pearson 123-124). Reddy continues to allude to her perceived general uselessness of husbands throughout the story, (Pearson 52, 179, 282). This resignation to sex differences dictating one’s ability to multitask as the basis for Kate doing more parental work than her husband, plays a key role in her eventually quitting her career in order to be a full-time mother. After sharing with her mommy-and-me groupmates that she will work in Montreal for three months, Reitman’s Kate Foster is confronted by a fellow mother named Alicia, who recurs in the series as a flat character that embodies the intensive mothering ideology, such as avoiding the use of the word ‘can’t’ with her children (Workin’ Moms), due to her fear that they may internalize negativity. In response to the scrutiny, Kate’s best friend Anne asks Alicia “Doesn’t your husband work in Alaska half the year?”, to which Alicia replies “So?… it’s different because he’s a–” (Workin’ Moms). Kate smilingly shakes her head in disapproval, and Anne erratically celebrates the opportunity to shame Alicia (Workin’ Moms), for her internalization of self-limiting gender roles. This interaction shows that Reitman’s Kate Foster pushes not only the boundaries of gender in her career, as Kate Reddy does, but also, by extension and unlike Reddy, pushes those boundaries in her marriage. Still, when Foster is in Montreal in the season finale, her husband Nathan consults her help in dealing with their son’s diaper rash (Workin’ Moms), showing that ultimately, Reitman’s Kate, too, tends toward dealing with her child’s diaper rashes more often than her husband must, a symptom of the looming intensive mothering ideology. Forbes et al noted a final theme as the emotional and physical consequences of working mothers placing their own needs below all of their responsibilities towards others, a similar theme to the overwhelm of participating in the juggling act. One mother says “our needs generally come last, under our employers, our spouses, our children, our households, our volunteering, and our parents” (Forbes et al 283), with others pointing out their lack of time to exercise or maintain friendships. This is an interesting point at which it is evident that Pearson’s novel documents a more realistic working mother’s struggle, as Kate Reddy, for instance, points out often that she does not have time to exercise (Pearson 67, 68, 208, etc.). Reitman’s Kate Foster, on the other hand, manages to fit her self-care into her schedule, as evident in the beginning and end of the first episode wherein she runs while pushing her baby in a stroller. The difference is stark, wherein Pearson’s novel essentially sends the message that mothers simply cannot both work and be proper mothers, while Reitman’s show sends the message that mothers can indeed work, exercise, and be supermoms altogether. This message is exaggerated in the last shot of that first episode, wherein Kate Foster scares off a large, wandering Grizzly bear, protecting herself and her child, (Workin’ Moms). While screaming at a bear to scare it off is unlikely to work in real life, the sustainability of working motherhood is what Reitman’s show attempts to capture – sustainability that Pearson’s novel rejects, and that Forbes et al’s interview participants warn against the culturally glorified easiness of. Allison Pearson’s Kate Reddy captures the struggles of being a working mother under an intensive mothering culture, yet Catherine Reitman’s Kate Foster represents new ways of conceptualizing the supermom so as to grant her not only the possibility of a fulfilling life of motherhood, but rather also the freedom that is possible within that life. Works Cited Forbes, Lisa K., Margaret R. Lamar, and Rachel S. Bornstein. “Working Mothers’ Experiences in an Intensive Mothering Culture: A Phenomenological Qualitative Study”. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, vol. 33, no. 3, 2021, pp. 270-294. Pearson, Allison. I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother. Knopf, 2002. Reitman, Catherine. Workin’ Moms, season 1, episodes 1-13, CBC Television, 2017. Originally written for ENG 548 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Prof. Podnieks, April 2022.

There was once a man who cut trees for a living. He was short and well-built, yet boney from a childhood, an adolescence, and now, an adulthood ever-full of hard work. This man would attempt everything he could think of, to earn money. As long as the day was bright, he would always hum and talk to himself, wherever he went. His eyes would always be eerily wide, even when looking down in thought, and his body would never stop moving him forward. On one windy day, he felt like going out with his friends to the school. One of his friends had a girlfriend at that school, and in their group, the man would frequently take the opportunity to check the girls out there. Because he was at least ten years older, he would be seen as a pedophile lurking on school grounds for no reason, so he took advantage of knowing people around him, to connect himself to these newer people. He saw, from his red old Toyota Camry, a young student with a long flowy skirt, a stack of books in her arms, and long, black, curly hair. She wore no glasses, no makeup, and she looked calmly at the street, waiting for something, never shifting. She never looked at the other students. The man decided to ask his friends about her, and by chance, one of the girls knew her well, so, the girl walked to the still woman, and told her how beautifully she had just been described by a friend of hers, that man in the Camry. The student, shy and unaware, surprised herself by smiling over at the man, and soon, they were friends. In a matter of five years, the still woman had three kids. The first was a girl. “He left,” she said to her three children, “He’s already found some other woman over there, and he is not coming back. Understand that if he cared about you a single bit, he wouldn’t have left you. Understand that you don’t matter to him. He’s not coming back.” “He’s a bad father”, said the youngest of the group. “Exactly,” said the woman, tilting a can of beer over her mouth. The man, far away, had not been seen for those five years. He had indeed gone back home to his country, where he had grown up alongside his twelve siblings, in a forest with guns and machetes. He now went back to visit his family, and indeed found a new woman there. She was different from the first one. Tougher, wilder, and she wore a great big smile on her face and, although she spoke plenty for a woman in that country, and held more experience in her life than any woman should, she easily fell into the man’s embrace, when she saw that he was a hard worker who came from a wonderful land where women were free and safe. In the span of ten years, that woman had three children, and they lived humbly in an apartment building in one of the Toronto neighbourhoods you hear about in the news every week. Her three children looked up to their father, whom the woman had married. She felt as though a dream of hers had come true. She could say and do as she pleased, and she relied on nobody. Of the three children, there were two boys and one girl. The girl was left to the mother’s care, entirely. Of the two boys, the older one would frequently be chastised, insulted, and beaten by his strong, hard-working father, who had always wanted a strong little boy. This first boy was weak, lazy, and almost never smiled up at his father, which insulted his father to his very core. His second boy, like his mother, wore a great big smile as one of his first garments, each day. This younger one spent a great deal of his time speaking, and when things were needed of anyone, he was the first to respond. He was always the first to get up, and work to gain the acceptance of his heroic father, from whom he learned everything. The man raised his younger children well. He taught them lessons about taking advantage, being independent, brave, and strong, all of which he learned from his father, back home. Back home, the man had lived in a forest, with no running water. He learned to shoot his first gun as a young boy, and growing up, he would help his father grow his business, even if it involved getting beaten into fear. He now accepted some of his own children s shortcomings, and merely ridiculed them on good days. The man grew to have many children and frequently he appreciated them with good words and smiles, yet more frequently, he punished them for not knowing how to act. The first time that someone stood up to him, it was one of his first-born daughters. She said, “I see how you treat your favourite. You’re perfectly capable of supporting a family, and you decided that I wasn’t ever worth supporting, so no, I actually don’t care.” A tone sounded and he sat in his car a while, thinking about his first-borns, and how stuck up they had become from the distance. Had he been around more, he would have showed them how to act towards a father. The favourite child of his, the younger boy, acted very well, especially in the presence of his dad. The older he grew, the wider he smiled, with his little white teeth. He played with the others, he carried whatever needed to be brought in, and most remarkably, he could talk all day and all night, about anything, with anyone. Everywhere he went, he made people smile. “Where’s dad?” he asked once, to his mother. “Son, your father went to visit his family. You know that when you grow up and become a great man, you need to go and see your family, son. You wouldn’t forget about your family, would you? You have to visit them, son, to see your grandmother and to see me when I am all old and wrinkly. And hopefully god blesses us and everything goes well and you can buy a house, both of my kids, I say, will grow up to be great men with a good little fortune for yourselves, yes? Just like your father, and you’ll buy us a house and you’ll visit us, yes? My good boys.” “Yes mam, I know.” “Okay.” A new woman became pregnant with the man, and when his favourite son wanted to see the newborn, not knowing that the newborn lived in another country, the father said to the boy, “I will see you soon, son, very, very soon, and you will meet him.” Back home, years later, the man was laying down in a bed with a young woman of twenty, about the same age as his first-born daughter. “Look at all of this money. Look at it. I’ll buy you a house, and you can stay here and live. You don’t even have to work a day in your life, just stay and take care of our little girl, and you’ll live comfortably and I’ll be here with you very soon.” “Yes.” “I’ll visit you very soon, you’ll see” “And you’ll only be away for a month?” “Yes, one or two months, max, and I’ll send you some money too, in a month.” The man left home, and he returned to the free land, where he started working hard once again, cutting trees. In fact, he attained a legal tree cutting license, and started cutting trees for anyone and everyone he could convince of a need to have their tree cut. He did his labour, and every day he brought cash home, enough to fatten an envelope, yet humble enough to run your fingers through in one swift flip, in his car, as he showed you how well he could take care of things. At fifty years old, he knew this was the last good decade of youthful, hardworking life, and it took him a while, but he eventually got around to reflecting on his life ahead of it. He sat and he wondered to himself, one evening, if he would ever buy himself his own house. He worked very hard to make money to give to others. He cared very much about his family back home. He cared very much about his children, at least about the ones who appreciated him enough to call him dad. He gave his hard-earned money to anyone who needed it, but about himself, now, he wondered. He felt as though he could make it. he was convinced that he would make himself a reflected respectable, retired man of a man, one who worked hard his whole life, with his children grown up all around him, loving and praising him for the life he had endowed upon them, and he would die happily because he made all of life possible for all of them. What more could anyone ask for? He suddenly felt a new ease to his life and future. he knew that he had worked hard enough, that all of his efforts were not for nothing, and that soon, someday or another, he would receive what he had given to others. He bought plane tickets back home, as he was informed of the birth of a new baby boy. Originally written for ENG 517 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Prof. Kirshner, April 2020.

But in an ideal world, I’m braver and I’m gracious with the intimacies I am gifted. I am built, on the inside, like water. I can entertain any form yet I can never break, as it is in my nature to have broken myself a million times, already, and still be one.

In his essay, “The Meaning of Life”, Daniel Hill argues that if there is no God, then life cannot be meaningful, by arguing that if life has any meaning, it must have been given by the creator of this life. This argument depends on his premise that the creator of life must be an all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally-good one, such as God; a being well equipped for meaning-endowing. It seems, however, that for such a creator to act out all three traits to each one’s infinite nature, is logically impossible. The logical possibilities of God are that he is morally good and all-powerful, but not all-knowing; that he is all-knowing and morally good, but not all-powerful; or that he is all-powerful and all-knowing, but not morally good. I will take as a starting point that a creator of life has an infinite capacity for at least one of these traits at a time, as no isolated one of these traits can logically deny itself. Let us begin by asking what it means for a creator to be any one of these traits, alone. If a creator is all-knowing, then he knows everything that happens and will happen, on top of knowing everything that his creation can know. If a creator is all-powerful, then he has control over everything that he creates, and so he enacts his will upon it. If a creator is morally good, then beyond understanding what is good, he wills for it. Hill believes that God is both morally good and all-powerful. He says that “God necessarily brings about good things for God and all others” and in the same essay, he assumes a belief in an “allpowerful [sic] God [rather] than in one who is not quite all-powerful…” (Hill, “The Meaning of Life”). The discrepancy arises then, when we consider that, if a creator is morally good and all-powerful, then his morally good will should be reflected in his creation. There being much evidence of evil in our world, however, means that our creator is limited in either power or moral goodness. I reason that a creator that is capable of endowing meaning, has a will. As mentioned, if a creator is morally good, and has a will, then the creator wills for what is good. If a creator has a good will and is all-powerful, then he is able to use his infinite power to enact his good will. It is therefore easy enough to conclude that if a creator is able to use his power to enact his good will, then only goodness happens in the world, and that if only goodness happens in the world, then undue suffering does not. Of course, if there is only goodness in the world, then there is no evil, and if there is no evil then goodness is no longer contrasted with evil, and so to say that only goodness happens in the world is to say that neither goodness nor evil happen in that world. In such a scenario, however, it is clear that evil, including undue suffering, does not happen. Undue suffering is apparent in our real world, however, as noted by the tragic things that occur on Earth, and need not be mentioned here. It is not the case that a creator’s good morality is enacted in our world, and therefore, it is false that either an all-powerful creator has good morals or that a morally good creator is all-powerful. My argument would end there, if omniscience were not a trait for consideration. Perhaps one logical explanation for a creator being all-powerful and morally good, yet allowing undue suffering, is that he not only lacks infinite knowledge, but is largely unaware of what happens to his creation. In this scenario, the blind creator cannot know that there is undue suffering, or where in our world to enact his good will, despite his power and good intentions. This hypothesis seems unlikely when we wonder whether such a powerful creator, regardless of his intentions, would not want to be able to observe his creation in order to confirm that it exists in the way he intended. Assuming that he would see the benefit of, and therefore want, this observation, would he not be able to attain it by using his powers to simply put himself in the position to observe? Perhaps a good-willing creator of a failed world is unaware that it is possible for his creation to fail. Perhaps only through the act of observation would he recognize the need to track his faulty creation. A line may be drawn here, between a creator being all-powerful and him being all-knowing. Can a creator of life be infinitely powerful, yet blind? If so, then what is the use for his infinite power? Without regard to its mysterious use, in this discussion, it is logically possible that a creator of life is morally good and all-powerful, if and only if he is lacking in infinite knowledge. Inversely, can a morally good creator be all-knowing, yet powerless? A similarly good-willing-yet-helpless-god hypothesis is that a creator does indeed have good morals and is aware of the need to fix his creation, but is not powerful enough to even interact with it. It seems unlikely that something with the power to create lacks the power to interact with it. If we think of it, however, as the creation becoming more powerful that the creator, such as through free will, then this loss of power can make more sense. Take for example, a child growing up and, one day, leaving home. A highly knowledgeable and good-willing parent will always know what is best for their child, and yet, this parent will also have no option other than to let the child go and be free, soon enough. The control that the parent once had over their child, is eventually completely replaced by the growing child’s free action. As it applies to a non-omnipotent creator, his power is seemingly enough to create life, yet limited to that end, leaving the world with a compassionate, but helpless God. The only problem with this good, all-knowing but not all-powerful creator, is that he willingly creates, completely aware of whether or not his creation will helplessly suffer. His decision to create such life, nonetheless, poses a challenge to his good morals, if his creation does suffer. If we suppose, however, that this creator knows that his creation will suffer, but he also sees that, eventually, it will stop suffering, through the creation’s own will to end it (rather than the creator’s forced will upon the creation) then we might ask ourselves if our free will is worth our suffering. If it seems worth it, then it is fair to conclude that this creator has good morality after all. This good morality means that it is logically possible for a creator of life to be all-knowing and morally good, if and only if he lacks omnipotence. It might be a challenge for some of us to believe that free will, as the tool for sentient beings, on a journey to certain peace, through ages of suffering, is worth the creation of these beings, at the hands of a morally good creator. One might find it easier to believe that in such a scenario, the creator is either not morally good, or lacking infinite knowledge. We have considered the possibility of a blindly hopeful, good creator. We have yet to discuss the possibility of an all-knowing and all-powerful, morally limited creator. In the case of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally limited creator of life, the fact of a creator not being as morally good as possible, could mean that any moral goodness he does have, simply does not extend to his creation. Perhaps this creator sees a need to fix his creation, and is powerful enough to fix it, yet is insensitive to the pain caused to his creation. An example of this would be the drive for some people to commit suicide when their lives feel unbearably painful. This could be an all-powerful, all-knowing creator’s working solution to the problem of suffering. This possibility is defeated, however, if we consider that the omniscience of such a creator would have warned him of the necessary fixing in his upcoming creation. In fact, if an all-powerful creator were truly omniscient, would he not have decided to avoid his creation as it were, so as to spare it any pain from the start? He might instead have opted for a creation that was either insensitive to pain, or not able to hurt itself, somehow. Considering the unlimited nature of omnipotence, these options would have been available to a good-willing creator, and yet, as noted, there is suffering in our world. On the other hand, we may assume that any pain to the creation of unlimited power and knowledge, is for a purpose, or, at the very least, the pain is a negative side effect of the given purpose. Perhaps whatever purpose this creator intends is beneficial for something other than his creation. One possibility is that the creation benefits the creator, as would be the case in a simulation. However, if a simulation must be run, it could mean that the creator of it is not all-knowing after all, as he is seeking knowledge through this simulation. However, it is not the case that if a simulation is run, it is because it must be run. Perhaps a creator of a simulation is simply amusing himself with what he already knows will happen. This seems unlikely of an, at least, moderately well-meaning creator, considering the simulation’s negative effects on its subjects. We must consider the possibility that a creator of an existence such as ours, is devoid of morality. We may understand a creator’s lack of moral sensitivity if we imagine such an infinitely powerful and knowing creator as the endlessly skilled programmer of a highly advanced artificially intelligent computer. Artificial intelligence is programmed to mimic human emotions to an oddly realistic extent, as we may have noticed. The programmer, in our example, knows that emotions are a thing only truly experienced by himself (let us say that our sample programmer is human), and that the emotions displayed, recreated, and otherwise understood by his coded creation, are not truly painful for the creation. This is easy enough for us to believe of our own artificially-intelligent systems. Through this reasoning, then, the programmer continues to let the program express pain, perhaps desensitizing himself to his creation’s realistic suffering. Similarly, an all-knowing and all-powerful creator of life could, and in fact must, lack moral goodness, if it is true that moral goodness applies to artificial sentience. He not only can, but must, lack moral goodness, if we consider the pain that the human species causes itself at the hands of an all-knowing, infinitely capable creator. One might challenge that, if a creator is all-knowing, then that creator is aware of any form of sentience. If we see reason and empathy as things that stand on their own, however, and then consider infinite reason and infinite empathy as the equivalents, omniscience and moral goodness, respectively, then we might see that moral goodness is not a necessary component of infinite knowledge, just as empathy is not a necessary component of reason. One might understand moral goodness, but for one to choose moral goodness, is to use understanding for the sake of empathy, compassion, or what we might call ‘goodness’. In other words, an omniscient creator could know good morals, but this knowledge does not imply that he is drawn to any of these morals. There is also no reason to believe he would not be able to stop his creation’s suffering if he wanted to. In this scenario, our hypothetical creator is all-knowing, all-powerful, and not morally great. Therefore, it is logically possible for a creator to be omniscient and omnipotent, if and only if he is not infinitely, morally good. Hill’s premise is of an infinitely good, infinitely knowing, and infinitely powerful being, to endow meaning unto our existence. It is not possible for a creator to be all three things at once, as he must be either blind to our suffering, unable to help us, or benefitting himself rather than us. I agree with Hill only when he tells us that one cannot benefit something by bringing it into existence. Work Cited Hill, Daniel. “The Meaning of Life.” Philosophy Now, 2002. philosophynow.org/issues/35/The_Meaning_of_Life. Originally written for PHL 333 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Prof. Beillard, March 2019.

When everything is going wrong, remember that you must stay strong. You have not found yet what you seek. And keep in mind we’ve all been weak. You look for what you hope to find, so, hopefully, some peace of mind. But know that peace will go away, ’cause where you go you’ll never stay. So take a look at how you’ve grown. You are what you look for: unknown. originally published in The Continuist, 2019 https://issuu.com/thecontinuist/docs/self-love-liana_final_-_04-24-19__1