Spaces Like Stairs by Gail Scott
Excerpt: Feminist writers everywhere know of the struggle to express a reality that has been mute with a language tailored to the needs of a society where the Phallus is significant. Although the material arising from the current wave of feminist consciousness very quickly starts hammering away at the boundaries of form, the assumption among most Anglo-American feminists until recently has been that language, syntax, genre are not important enough issues to merit serious debate. Québéçois women writers have played a vanguard role in the growing awareness of the relationship between language and struggle for change. But whether there will be, in English Canada, the kind of energetic fusion between feminism, and revolt in language and form, that characterized Québec women’s writing of the late 70s remains to be seen. Canada’s history is different from Québec’s, particularly its history of progressive struggle. In Québec, language has always been a political issue. This was further fueled by the cultural connection with France and the language-focused issues raised by post-structuralists (Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida) and by feminists like Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. Also, in Québec, since the beginning of the nationalist movement, avant-garde writers have been a point of political/cultural reference, another factor which facilitated the emergence of a deeply contestative group of women writers in this culture.
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