Brettel Dawson arrived in Canada from New Zealand wearing a sheepskin coat in late August, 1983.
What was envisaged as a one-year, research intensive stint as a graduate student at Osgoode Hall Law School became an exciting awakening into a feminist (legal) consciousness. The graduate degree was allowed a more leisurely pace to accommodate feminist book fairs, a summer with the (UK) London Women’s Liberation Newsletter, engaging with then raging debates (which are still raging albeit in different tropes), and dabbling as the legal correspondent and latterly collective member with Broadside.
Being able to contribute to lively and relevant feminist conversations through the written word (and soak up the collected wisdom of collective members) was the key attraction of working with Broadside, a natural fit given her long history of playing around with type, layout and proofreading and prehistoric Gestetner machines.
The same streak led her to become English language co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law variously between 1991-1996 after the desktop publishing revolution. Still in Canada and now thoroughly acclimatized, Brettel has become a citizen, married the woman of her dreams and now lives in Chelsea, Quebec, a pesticide-free rural paradise close to Ottawa.
She is a faculty member in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University (and former chair of the department) and Academic Director with the National Judicial Institute. She teaches and writes in the area of women, equality and the law.