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months became a shop steward and within a year the president of her Local. She often went to work with her eyes blackened by her husband but learned to laugh about it with her fellow workers. Her ability to laugh about the abuse she was receiving was not an acceptance of her circumstances as unchangeable or a mechanism of denial. It was the beginning of her ability to put her life into perspective. Despite her pain and the negativity of her home life, she began to see that she could make a difference not just for herself and her children but for others as well. It was not long before she felt empowered enough to leave the abusive relationship and together with her five children launch out into a new life. The necessity of caring for her children and her lack of formal education did not limit Joan. "I took every course they offered". She, eventually, was offered a fulltime job working for the provincial union and overtime became the first woman to be a representative on the national counsel. There were men that tried to hinder her union advancement but there were men who also helped facilitate it. Joan stood for no nonsense or disrespect but she was not bitter. She learned to resist injustice and to transform the circumstances she had some influence over. Her life as a union representative and a mother highlighted these two tendencies. Through her own empowerment, she learned to empower others. She is unapologetically a feminist but does not perceive that to be anti male or a denial of the significance of motherhood.

An empowered woman is not somebody who is able to assert a masculine-like machismo over their life circumstances. She is someone who is fully comfortable with her womanhood while at the same time cognisant of her capacity to be changed and to make change with or without the help of men. The images of women empowered by guns and the capacity to assert physical advantage are simply an attempt to keep women in the same stereotyped roles they have been in traditionally dependent on male imagery for their identity and never free to simply be themselves.

Learn more about this author, Steven Macpherson.
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