The Optimist
Periodical profile published 1983

Year Published:  1983
Resource Type:  Serial Publication (Periodical)
Cx Number:  CX2694

Abstract: 
"We are strangers in a strange land. This is not our home. We do not belong here. We did not create this culture...We do not significantly shape it...and it is not healthy for ys: this patriarchal culture is, in sum, inhospitable to women, children, as it is to people of colour, lesbians, gays, the old, disabled and poor." These words are from a speech by Denise Horman delivered to the Fall Women's Conference in 1982. The appear in the January 1983 edition of THE OPTIMIST, a newspaper published four times a year by the Yukon Status of Women Council.

The January editorial on sex role stereotyping makes the point that the stereotyping of women and men specially in the early years encourages intolerance of individual differences. These differences then serve to reinforce the stereotypes as we grow older. THE OPTIMIST see education as the key to breaking this vicious circle so that the next generation of women and men can have a better chance to reach their human potencial.

Other articles in this edition deal with incest, women and unions, daycare, older women, and sigle parents. One on women is Yukon history points out the problem of discovering this history. Since most the accounts are by men, the histories "reveal more about men's images than women's roles". Indian women and White women also have two different histories in the Yukon and its development. The article concludes with the hope that Yukon women can work togethe in the 1980s to review their histories and begin to shape a new consciosness.