GIRLS TOWN
INTERSECTIONALITY AND VIOLENCE
I’d like to thank everyone at Between the Lines Books and in particular my editor Amanda Crocker, for enthusiastically saying “yes” to this book and supporting me throughout the publication process. The team included Chelene Knight, Renée Knapp, David Molenhuis, and Devin Clancy.
I tend to keep my projects pretty close to my chest until they’re nearly done (it’s a Scorpio thing), but I want to thank those folks who gave me early encouragement and advice as I let the news trickle out: Erin Wunker, Dave Thomas, James McNevin, Caroline Kovesi, and Pamela Moss.
The fierce, creative, rigorous, and engaged community of feminist geographers has been my intellectual home for many years now and I could never do this work without their work. Our gatherings, conferences, and book parties are so meaningful to me. I’ve been especially lucky to have Heather McLean, Winifred Curran, Brenda Parker, Roberta Hawkins, Oona Morrow, Karen Falconer Al Hindi, Tiffany Muller Myrdahl, Vannina Sztainbok, and Beverley Mullings as friends, co-authors, and collaborators.
My mentors and advisors from graduate school continue to inspire me and I’m grateful for everything they’ve done to help me succeed: Sherene Razack, Helen Lenskyj, Gerda Wekerle, and Linda Peake.
My colleagues and students at Mount Allison University have fostered a warm and invigorating environment for my work over the last ten years. Special shout out to everyone who’s ever taken Gender, Culture, and the City: this book is a pure distillation of what a particularly-engaged cohort once called “Kernography.” Our conversations helped frame the goals for this book.
My urban and not-so-urban adventures have been filled with fun and sisterhood and travel and tattoos and cheese and impractical footwear because of my two girl gangs, the Pink Ladies of Toronto and the Sackville Lady Posse. In order of appearance in my life: Jennifer Kelly, Kris Weinkauf, Katherine Krupicz, Sarah Gray, Cristina Izquierdo, Michelle Mendes, Katie Haslett, Jane Dryden, Shelly Colette, and Lisa Dawn Hamilton.
I’ve always had the unfailing support of my family, including my parents, Dale and Ralph, and my brother Josh, as well as a big network of extended family—biological and otherwise. My partner Peter makes the coffee every morning, which basically allowed me to write every word of this book. My daughter Maddy is an absolute light. I love you all and deeply appreciate everything you do for me.
I have an old picture of my little brother and I surrounded by dozens of pigeons in London’s Trafalgar Square. I’m guessing from our matching bowl cuts and bell-bottom corduroys that it’s 1980 or 1981. We’re happily tossing out seeds that our parents purchased from a little vending machine in the square. You won’t find those machines anymore because feeding the pigeons is strictly frowned upon, but back then it was one of the best parts of our trip to visit my dad’s family. We were in the centre of everything, our excitement palpable. In our glowing faces I see the beginning of our mutual lifelong love of London and city life.
Josh and I came into the world via downtown Toronto, but our parents raised us in the suburbs. Although Mississauga’s population makes it one of the largest and most diverse cities in Canada, its essence in the 1980s was car-centred suburban mall-scape. My brother and I each moved to Toronto as soon as we could, rejecting suburbia faster than we could say “Yonge-University-Spadina Line.” But our experiences of city life have been vastly different. I doubt Josh has ever had to walk home with his keys sticking out from his fist or been shoved for taking up too much space with a baby stroller. Since we share the same skin colour, religion, ability, class background, and a good chunk of our DNA, I have to conclude that gender is the difference that matters.
Women
