Jan Jipson and Ursi Reynolds

Flying down the 401 in Ontario at eighty miles per hour--trying to con-
vert "km" to "mph" so I will know if I'm speeding in Canada. I imagine
myself to be Thelma or Louise before the Grand Canyon became the in-
evitable climax to their lives, stretching the boundaries of the possible,
traveling free, no hesitation. As I drive I listen to a Bob Dylan tape, one of
my favorites--"Just Like A Woman." I hear the line, "And she breaks just
like a little girl" and I shudder. Did I ever really notice what he was
singing? I fast-forward to "Like a Rolling Stone," but the feeling of power
and energy leaves me.

I thought back to a xerox from a 1960s Seventeen magazine that a col-
league had shared with me . . . something about being "blessed" to be a
woman. I probably first read it as a teenager. I wonder how articles like
that had affected my friends and I in the 1960s and had influenced our
collective socialization as women. I considered how insidious those
magazines were, how subtly the song lyrics shaped our expectations of
life.

I pull into Burger King, my young son clamoring for a cold drink. The
Kid's Meal special is Pocahontas; we draw a blonde, blue-eyed, plastic
John Smith. Erik is disdainful, comments in his own imperious way on
colonial multiculturalism and decides the doll will fit in his Jurassic Park
collection. I start a different road tape, "Boys on the Side," and catch
Bonnie Raitt and later Whoopi Goldberg singing versions of "You Got It."

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