Lost and Forgotten: Missing and Murdered Sex Workers on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside

From 1978 to 2002, more than 60 women went missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, an area that has often been described as “Canada’s poorest postal code”. For decades, families of the area’s missing women filed police reports and engaged with the media about their vanished loved ones, however little headway was made in the case until ten years later, when the Vancouver Sun began publishing a series of stories on the women that drew provincial and national attention. Motivated by citizen dissent and accusations of negligence, The Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP finally launched a joint task force, resulting in the arrest and conviction of Robert “Willie” Pickton, a pig farmer from Port Coquitlam, for the serial murders of street-involved women. The subsequent excavation of the Pickton property became the largest criminal investigation in Canadian history, spanning several years and costing tens of millions of dollars. However, the danger and violence that plagued women on the Downtown Eastside remained largely the same for many years after Pickton’s arrest. While media coverage narrated Pickton as a single deranged male, this narrative effectively eliminated the context of the broader social background that thrust these women into harm’s way. In this paper, I will discuss the racialization, spatialization, and class distinctions that heavily influence women's participation in the sex trade, as well the media narratives that enable an understanding of Pickton as a violent outlier. The research shows that despite these narratives, violence against marginalized women is a part of the normative social order, which is precisely what allows violent men to function without apprehension in these communities for so long. As you will read, violence against women cannot be described as simply the action of a few bad apples, but is instead a larger part of a “continuum of violence” enacted against already marginalized women. Keywords: MMIWG, Robert Pickton, sexual violence, street-level sex work

Clare’s Legacy Travels to Alberta: Undesired Consequences and Repercussions of Bill 17

This paper explores the proposed legislation entitled “Clare’s Law” which will be implemented in Alberta in June of 2020. Clare’s Law has been used as a response to the alarming reported rates of domestic violence around the world. Clare Wood was a woman who was killed by her ex-partner; she contacted the police numerous times over an extended period of time but was never assisted. Clare’s Law provides individuals with the right to know and the right to ask. This will allow concerned individuals to inquire about the criminal records of one’s partner. Furthermore, it requires emergency responders to inform individuals of one’s criminal history if it pertains to domestic violence. Premier Jason Kenney is addressing the alarming reported rates of domestic violence by enacting Clare’s Law in Alberta. This paper explores the benefits and concerns surrounding the implementation of such legislation. Clare’s Law may provide individuals with awareness of their partners criminal history regarding domestic violence, however this paper’s main argument is that Clare’s Law will not be effective and will cause more harm than good. The Law does not increase services, shelters or support for victims of violence. Furthermore, it may provoke victim blaming and it assumes accountability by police services and judicial systems that have continually failed victims. This paper is significant due to the significant rate of domestic violence in Alberta. This paper states that incidences of domestic violence will not improve because of Clare’s Law and could make situations worse for victims of domestic violence.

Discourses of Blame: An Analysis of Media Coverage in the Robert Pickton Case

When most Canadians consume their news media, they don't often consider the underlying narratives of colonialism, racism, and classism that can be spread through media representations of marginalized peoples. Such is the case with Indigenous women in Canada, who die violently at five times the rate of other Canadian women, but are given three and a half times less coverage in the media than white women for similar cases. News media articles covering Indigenous women's deaths are also less in-depth and less likely to make the front page. Prior to the apprehension of Robert “Willy” Pickton in 2002, media coverage of the dozens of missing women on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside was minimal, and often portrayed the women as the harbingers of their own misfortune. The Vancouver Police Department also failed to take action, citing the women’s “transient lifestyles” as reason to believe they would return soon. However, even after widespread recognition of the issue began, media coverage continued to attribute a level of “blameworthiness” to the missing and murdered by regularly engaging with tropes and stereotypes that individualized the acts of violence against them. In this paper, I look to explore that phenomenon by asking how the women of the Downtown Eastside are named as culpable or blameworthy in the violence enacted against them, as evidenced in the media coverage of the Robert Pickton case. My analysis found that while an identifiable killer like Pickton provided the news media a temporary cause for the women’s deaths, sex-working and drug using women maintained blame in the public eye both during and long after the case, due in equal parts to their use of drugs, their status as sex workers, and their proximity to “tainted” geographical regions like the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. As evidenced by this research, Indigenous women are continually and systemically blamed for the violence enacted against them. Keywords: MMIWG, sex work, media bias, Downtown Eastside, gendered violence

A Comparison of Street Gangs and Fraternities in the United States of America: Demographics, Conduct, and Criminal Justice Perception and Responses

Street gangs and university fraternities are both prevalent social institutions in the United States of America. Despite differences in classification and treatment, they share many of the same characteristics, particularly initiation rituals, the pervasiveness of drugs and alcohol, the emphasis placed on brotherhood and male bonding, and the ways in which misogynistic attitudes and violence are used to reinforce masculinity and dominance. Despite these similarities, offences ranging from misbehaviour to criminal activity by fraternity members are protected under the guise of “academic brotherhood”, and thus go largely unpunished. On the contrary, gang members, who often come from lower-class backgrounds and are over-represented in Black and Hispanic populations, are not afforded these same benefits. I will be further exploring these double standards by examining the experiences of Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs) and how they are likened to ‘educated gangs’. In this paper, I will be exploring the similarities between street gangs and fraternities in the United States in terms of demographics, conduct, and the types and prevalence of criminal offending. I will also be discussing the differences in classification and response of these two institutions by both the general public and the criminal justice system. While I am not advocating for the expansion of federal gang definitions to include fraternities, there needs to be a serious conversation regarding the types of violence that we take seriously, and the ways in which race and class factor into these decisions. Keywords: gang, fraternity, sexual violence, alcohol, initiation, masculinity, Black Greek Letter Organizations

The Role of Mind-Body Medicine in a Cancer Survivor’s Experience

This paper tells the personal story of a cancer survivor and her experience dealing with death. It analyzes Ernest Becker’s thesis, The Denial of Death, by examining the solutions, which he suggests humans use to cope with the fear of death by establishing a sense of purpose and control. The author identifies examples of Becker’s solutions by looking at the mechanisms she used to cope with the possibility of dying through out her journey with cancer. With a tendency toward secularization and a focus on psychology in present day, the solutions people use to deal with death are changing. The author looks at how self-help, in the form of mind-body medicine, is a new solution that is used to deal with the fear of death in the present day socio-cultural landscape. While providing control, this way of dealing with the fear of death can be isolating and lead to self-blame. Keywords: Ernest Becker, Denial of Death, mind-body medicine, psychologize death, self-help.

Hegemonic Masculinity and Subjugated Femininity: Deconstructing the Binary

Many social theories, particularly in the field of gender studies, posit that masculinity is hegemonic, whilst femininity is subjugated. Such theories lead audiences to believe that femininity is always lesser than masculinity, lacking hegemonic power. However, whilst even the most powerful of femininities, such as normative white femininity, will never occupy a hegemonic apex, the gender hierarchy certainly privileges this femininity over not only others, but also alternative forms of masculinity, which exist outside of the hegemonic realm. As such, while it can be said that femininity is not hegemonic, to say that femininity does not have hegemonic features would be irresponsible, especially when one considers intersectionality.

“Willing Victims”: The Prevalence of Violence And Public Discourse against Indigenous Women and Girls

Drawing on the current research, I argue that the extensive violence against Canada's Indigenous women and girls is enabled by public discourses that rely heavily on racist stereotypes. I use Razack's theoretical framework of "gendered disposibility" and "colonial terror" as a lense for critically viewing violence against Indigenous women and girls. To demonstrate the severity of violence, evidence from the Highway of Tears cases, incidents of police abuse, and the creation of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls are all covered.

"For the Good of the Child": The Colonial Machinations of Child Welfare in Canada

Although residential schools no longer exist today, the systems of oppression which allowed them to operate continue. These systems have existed non-linearly throughout time, as the past, present, and future effects of colonialism intersect in the lives of First Nations. The spiritual successor of the residential school project can be viewed in many contemporary structures; specifically, in the institutionalized violence accumulated within the child welfare system. In this paper, I argue that the contemporary child welfare system in Canada, as it relates to both on- and off-reserve First Nations children, is the modern-day successor of the Indian Residential School System. Specifically, the strategies of racialization and subalternation underpinning the colonial machine, and exemplified within the residential school system, have surreptitiously reformed into the child welfare system.

Modern Day Slavery and Assimilation in Canada: An Exploration of the Analogous Nature of the Prison System and the Residential School System

While the idea of slavery seems to be a dreadful story from the past, the effects of colonization in Canada has resulted in a restriction of freedom and rights for Indigenous people to this day. Several colonizing principles and institutions were put in place in order to control and erase an already established people and culture. One of those colonizing institutions is the residential school system established as part of the Indian Act in the 1800s. In a modern context, the same idea of the residential school system seems to be perpetuated in today's capitalist society, by the Canadian prison system. This paper explores this seeming realationship by portraying the actions of the Canadian government to claim the land and create a new economy and government. This paper also explores this relationship by portraying how colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy are "three sides of the same coin".

Outing Biology: Finding a Place for the Natural Sciences in Queer Discourses

This paper critically responds to Stacy Alaimo’s “Eluding Capture: The Science, Culture and Pleasure of Queer Animals” (2010), from Queer Ecologies by Bruce Erickson and Catrina Mortimer-Sandilands. Here, I focus on how the author addresses the relationship between social sciences and natural sciences, how social structures impact the ways in which we understand and interpret scientific data, and how she suggests we embrace the concept of “Naturecultures” in order to move forward in recognizing that heteronormative accounts of life, while dominant, are not the only possible lenses through which nature and sex can/should be seen. I explore Alaimo’s arguments against various different accounts of “same-sex” sexual activity in nature, whilst also reiterating that she does not wish to use animal sex as a form of validation for the LGBTQ+ community, reducing its mere existance to that of biological essentialism and erasing any possible discussions of gender/sexual fluidity by doing so. Instead, she cleverly uses rhetoric regarding animal sex and their perceived sexuality to expose the intrinsic heteronormativity that permeates even the supposedly “empirical” biological sciences, whilst bringing forward what I perceive as a very valuable discussion regarding how social life influences biological life, as opposed to the other way around. Keywords: naturecultures, biopolitics, sexuality, queer