Women Heroes 1. What qualities do Mary Dohey, Anna Lang, and Maria Scarpelli Iori have in common? 2. How has each woman suffered as a result of her heroic actions? 3. What rewards has each woman received for her heroism? 4. Do you agree with Stephanie Morris' statement that these three women promote "an image unlike that of male heroes"? Explain. 5. Write a letter of congratulations to one of the three women in the article. Women Heroes: Where Are They? STEPHANIE MORRIS ASKING CANADIAN WOMEN who their heroes are is unlikely to produce the names of Mary Dohey, Anna Lang and Maria Scarpelli Iori. Yet, these are three living Canadian heroes, each showing a different brand of courage, each promoting an image unlike that of male heroes. Their actions have sprung from the middle of very ordinary lives. Each one has made me aware that there is a price the hero pays, that she survives, in many cases, to face danger and unpleasantness anew. MARY DOHEY  When Mary Dohey stood before the Governor General of Canada in 1976 to become the first living recipient of Canada's highest bravery award, the Cross of Valour, her mind flashed back to the foster mother she'd lived with when she was 5. "You're no good," the woman had shouted, "you'll end up down in the gutter." Dohey couldn't help but think that she had certainly shown her. Mary Dohey was 38 and on the job as an Air Canada stewardess when, on November 12, 1971, 20 minutes into the air out of Calgary, she was seized in the first-class lounge by a man wearing a black balaclava and carrying a double-barreled shotgun. With his gun pointed at Dohey, the man told the purser to deliver a note to the captain. "There'll be no heroes tonight," the 506-word note ended, "for tonight we all die."  Born in the Newfoundland outpost of St. Bride's, she was the youngest of 14 children. She was orphaned at 3 and spent years in various foster homes, sometimes abused. But instead of becoming a victim or a criminal herself, she made goodness her goal. Devoutly religious, she is a registered nurse with a specialization in psychiatry and, at the time of the hostage-taking, had 17 years' flying experience. As an Air Canada official remarked, "Mary, I'm glad he picked you because no one else could have pulled it off."  Mary Dohey lives alone and is still fearful after her adventure, but talking about it provides a kind of therapy. All her religious faith and professional experience came to her aid that day in 1971. She was able to forestall panic by praying as the man described his "mission" to destroy the plane and all its passengers. If it was not his mission, he asked, then why had he not been stopped-with his gun and his bomb-at security? Dohey tried to see things his way. "That makes sense to a tormented mind. I realized right away how sick he was." In her mind she struck God a bargain. He might want her to die, but surely He didn't want her to take all those people with her? She asked to be able to save the.

1. Women Heroes
1. What qualities do Mary Dohey, Anna Lang, and Maria
Scarpelli Iori have in common?
2. How has each woman suffered as a result of her heroic
actions?
3. What rewards has each woman received for her heroism?
4. Do you agree with Stephanie Morris' statement that these
three women promote "an image unlike that of male heroes"?
Explain.
5. Write a letter of congratulations to one of the three women in
the article.
Women Heroes: Where Are They?
STEPHANIE MORRIS
ASKING CANADIAN WOMEN who their heroes are is unlikely
to produce the names of Mary Dohey, Anna Lang and Maria
Scarpelli Iori. Yet, these are three living Canadian heroes, each
showing a different brand of courage, each promoting an image
unlike that of male heroes. Their actions have sprung from the
middle of very ordinary lives. Each one has made me aware that
there is a price the hero pays, that she survives, in many cases,
to face danger and unpleasantness anew.
MARY DOHEY
When Mary Dohey stood before the Governor General of
Canada in 1976 to become the first living recipient of Canada's

2. highest bravery award, the Cross of Valour, her mind flashed
back to the foster mother she'd lived with when she was 5.
"You're no good," the woman had shouted, "you'll end up down
in the gutter." Dohey couldn't help but think that she had
certainly shown her.
Mary Dohey was 38 and on the job as an Air Canada stewardess
when, on November 12, 1971, 20 minutes into the air out of
Calgary, she was seized in the first-class lounge by a man
wearing a black balaclava and carrying a double-barreled
shotgun. With his gun pointed at Dohey, the man told the purser
to deliver a note to the captain. "There'll be no heroes tonight,"
the 506-word note ended, "for tonight we all die."
Born in the Newfoundland outpost of St. Bride's, she was the
youngest of 14 children. She was orphaned at 3 and spent years
in various foster homes, sometimes abused. But instead of
becoming a victim or a criminal herself, she made goodness her
goal. Devoutly religious, she is a registered nurse with a
specialization in psychiatry and, at the time of the hostage-
taking, had 17 years' flying experience. As an Air Canada
official remarked, "Mary, I'm glad he picked you because no
one else could have pulled it off."
Mary Dohey lives alone and is still fearful after her adventure,
but talking about it provides a kind of therapy. All her religious
faith and professional experience came to her aid that day in
1971. She was able to forestall panic by praying as the man
described his "mission" to destroy the plane and all its
passengers. If it was not his mission, he asked, then why had he
not been stopped-with his gun and his bomb-at security? Dohey
tried to see things his way. "That makes sense to a tormented
mind. I realized right away how sick he was." In her mind she
struck God a bargain. He might want her to die, but surely He
didn't want her to take all those people with her? She asked to
be able to save the passengers, the crew, and finally, herself.

3. That "bargain" with the invisible presence became her modus
operandi.
For eight hours, Dohey sat beside the hijacker, alternately being
threatened with the gun, being forced to hold the two wires of a
bomb in the fingers of one hand and trying to keep him talking
to distract him from his mission. "Role-playing" as she would
have done with a sick patient, she told the hijacker her name
and got his in return; she held his hand and eased his fears.
When he was going to shoot her, she looked at him down the
barrel of the gun and told him he didn't want to hurt her.
It was after the plane had landed in Great Falls, Montana,
refueled and taken off again that Dohey got her first inkling of
how she might get the passengers off. She asked him if he had
sisters or brothers, and he said no. She told him she had 13 of
them and he laughed. That laugh told her he liked children, so
she waited a little and then said, "Oh, Dennis, I hear the
children crying." The hijacker became upset at the thought of
children crying and ordered the captain back to Great Falls to
let the passengers off.
In Great Falls, everyone except the captain, two pilots, the
purser and assistant purser filed off the plane, while Dohey still
sat with the gun to her neck. Suddenly, the hijacker whispered
to her, "Do you want to go, too?" She asked him what he wanted
her to do. He said he wanted her to stay but that they would be
flying "into oblivion." "I was his security blanket; I felt if I left
his side he'd go absolutely berserk." The plane took off; Dohey
was sure she would die.
At this point, however, the hijacker seemed to lose his will. He
said he was going to dismantle the bomb, then ordered the
captain down to a lower altitude and decided to walk out the
back door of the plane. The captain convinced him to use an
exit window instead, and as the hijacker tried to open the

4. window, he put the gun down. The captain kicked the gun away
and wrestled with him until the purser hit the hijacker over the
head with a fire axe. The plane landed in Calgary safely with no
injuries, save the unconscious hijacker, 10 minutes left of fuel
supply, no ground contact and only 20 minutes ahead of a 48-
hour fog-in. "How's that for having God on your side?" asks
Dohey triumphantly.
But God was not the one most people thanked. When the pilots
got off the plane, they kissed the ground and then kissed
Dohey's feet. She was showered with public gratitude in a
subsequent raft of letters. Dohey did not break down then on the
ground or ever in public: suddenly, she had an image to live up
to. The company doctor appeared with a bottle of Valium which
she doled out to the crew and never touched herself. "I was still
role-playing."
Dohey's brand of heroism -where she actually had to set up a
relationship with her assailant-was a very costly one in
emotional terms. "I still look over my shoulder," she says.
"Even now, I think, 'How did I get through it?' I consider every
day of my life a bonus." She now feels she was picked by the
hijacker not as a punishment, but because she would be able to
prevent bloodshed. For Mary Dohey, the opportunity for
heroism served to strengthen an already strong sense of self.
And as much as she was prepared to die for others, she can be
greatly impatient with weak people. "Whenever I hear someone
say, 'But he had such an unhappy childhood,' I don't buy it. We
are still individuals; those bootstraps are yours to pull up on;
you can't expect anyone else to do it."
ANNA LANG
Anna Lang was the hero who nearly wasn't named. When news
reports first came of the rescue of two people from a river
coated with flaming gas near Hampton, New Brunswick, on

5. September 9, 1980, credit was given to two boys who were
standing on the bank. Anna Lang spoke to her friend, Lana
Walsh, whom she had pulled out of the river along with her 4-
year-old son, Jaye Walsh, and said, "Look, you know and I
know what happened, and that's enough." When she was notified
that she would be awarded the Cross of Val our, she asked her
sister if she thought it could be true.
Lang's rescue of her two passengers, after her car was pushed
off a bridge into the river where a gas tanker exploded, is more
in the male tradition of an impulsive act of physical courage.
Lang, 40, her friend, Lana Walsh, and Lana's son Jaye were
stopped at a red light on a bridge on their way home from
exercise class. The car was hit from behind by a truck carrying
9,000 gallons of gas, fell 50 feet into the water and sank 20
feet. The truck followed the car into the river and the gas
exploded.
She talks about the accident today as if it were a matter of fate.
"I didn't want to go to town that day. We were late coming back
because we stopped for pickling spices. There were so many
things we did that we don't usually do." One lucky fact was that
they drove Lang's car, not her husband's, which had electrical
windows from which there would have been no escape once the
car was underwater.
"I think I floated out the window," she says, two and a half
years later. "I surfaced in the flaming river and swam to shore.
In my mind, I was hollering at Lana telling her I was coming
back, and Lana thought she was hollering at me, but we never
heard each other."
On shore, she stripped down to her leotards and tights and dived
back into the rings of fire. "The heat was tremendous. All I
could think of was taking a big gulp of air.

6. It was like being boiled alive, but I guess because I was in the
water I didn't fear the fire." She got hold of the child and towed
both him and his mother to shore, avoiding Lana's grasp. "I
thought if Lana reached me she'd panic and grab me and we'd
all drown." As the trio approached the bank, they were helped in
by the two boys, Eric Sparks and Jackie Chaisson.
Lang calls her act instinct. "The adrenalin is really pumping; it's
the instinct to survive," she says, ignoring the fact that having
assured her own survival she went back to save others. On the
bank, she was afraid to look at Lana and Jaye in case they were
hurt; she was in shock and tried to walk back to her car to get
cigarettes. That evening, the blisters on Lang's face and ears
came up so she couldn't see. Yet, she did not realize she had
third-degree burns to her face and head for nearly a week.
Lang was not thinking of God or good behavior, not even of her
best friend, she says. In hospital she cried for Jaye, and
wouldn't rest until he was brought to her so she could see he
was alive. When she and Lana met again, Lang said, "I didn't go
back for you, you know; it was Jaye." The other woman
completely understood, since she herself had been most terrified
about how her husband would react if anything happened to the
boy. Anna Lang has not had children of her own, but raised two
stepchildren. It could be seen as a mother's protective response-
yet, how many mothers would have the strength to swim three
times through burning gas?
The most difficult part of the episode for Anna Lang has been
its aftermath. Recovery from burns is long, painful and leaves
plenty of time for brooding. She has just undergone the last of
the operations to transplant skin and hair onto the right side of
her face and head, where the skin is now smooth but still very
red.

7. Lang was sent to a psychiatrist, but after three sessions, she
decided that she was wasting her time. The best salve has been
talking to Lana. She and her friend still travel that road into
town and still talk over the details.
Since Lang retired from her job last year, she does crafts and
gardens; but there are days when she doesn't answer the phone
because she doesn't want to talk to anyone. Although she does
not seem particularly introspective, Anna Lang knows she will
never be the same after the rescue she feels she had no choice
but to make. The incident marked her psychologically-and
physically. "The public has a tendency to stare," she says. "The
lesson I've learned from it all is the cruelty of people."
Under all that public adulation, there is a darker side to
heroism-a kind of public punishment. Both Lang and Mary
Dohey have a long-lasting sense of vulnerability. Yet, the
lesson heroes learn -that it is not easy to bear a mantle no
matter how admiring the public is-in no way diminishes their
courage. Anna Lang feels she would have done the same for
anyone she saw floundering in the water, even a stranger. "It
was just something I had to do."
MARIA SCARPELLI IORI
Less dramatic on a minute-to minute basis, but continual is the
courage of Maria Scarpelli lori, President of Local 560 of the
Canadian Textile and Chemical Union (CTCU). Now 32, Iori
immigrated to Canada from Italy at age 15, and within three
weeks was working at the Puretex Knitting Company Ltd. She
spoke almost no English and had left school after grade 8. She
had been working seven years when she asked for a raise. The
owner promised it, but the next week her pay envelope was the
same. She asked again, and found herself five cents to the good.
"I was so mad," says lori, dark eyes in a lean youthful face
snapping into focus, "I said, 'I'm quitting.' " Then she heard

8. there was a man downstairs in shipping organizing a union, and
she thought she could do the same. "I said, 'I'm not going to
quit, I'm going to do something for me.' "
"Something for me" turned out to be something for everyone.
What did Iori know abut unions at the time? "Nothing. When I
get mad I don't need to know what to do," she says.
Almost 13 years later, she is a seasoned union leader and
negotiator. Still on the job at Puretex, Iori has endured
harassment and intimidation from company officials and
lawyers, but has worked steadily to buoy up courage among
other women workers, as well as keeping house for her husband
and 3-year-old child. She was the winner of the 1981 Toronto
YWCA Woman of Distinction award for labor, and is the
heroine of playwright Rick Salutin's television documentary,
Maria.
"Money is important, but respect is more important," says Iori.
"I've seen women 45 to 50 years old working there treated like
garbage." Iori almost always uses the pronoun "we" in
describing her work. While her singular anger fueled the fight,
she is a hero in a collective movement. "I need courage from the
other women, they need courage from me," she says, making it
sound very simple. It is hard to imagine how much courage is
needed for immigrant women with little English to muster
themselves to demand more, when everything around them tells
them they ought to be grateful even for a chance to work.
When Iori was first organizing the local, she came up against
the women's fear that they would lose their jobs if they joined a
union. She bargained with them: "She'll sign if you sign," and
then, "I only need five more." She ended up with signatures
from 80 percent of the workers, more than the 65 percent
required for certification.

9. "I've never been afraid," said lori, "but I've been mad." She was
especially mad when, after the success of the union and a
precedent-setting three-month strike in 1978 (over the
company's use of electronic surveillance in the workplace), the
company used her maternity time off as an excuse to remove her
from her position as a leadhand. She filed a grievance, but her
responsibilities were reinstated.
Her life is always pressured, but she's not the least sorry she
started on this route: "I think we should have started sooner."
Recently, her sister graduated from school and is thinking about
going to work in the mill, but Iori does not want her to. "It's
hard to work in a factory," she says.
That realization is behind her efforts, as is a basic presumption
of fairness. "I don't know if you can change people," she says
slowly. "The rich are always rich. They don't know what it is to
be poor."
Much of her strength comes from family. "My father is an
honest type; he wants to be respected and to respect others," she
says. "And my mother is a tough fighter on the picket line." She
did extra duty on picket lines when Iori was pregnant. '
She is not at all satisfied with her accomplishments. "The more
you do, the more you want." The union has been negotiating
since November, and issues for the future include equal pay for
women cutters and the management's right to contract out work.
Asked if she is still mad, Iori laughs. "Not now," she says, "but
when I see the company lawyer I will be."
I see myself at the roadside before bodies floundering in a river-
do I jump in? I see, through a bureaucratic haze, a wrong that
should be righted. Do I add that to my pressing duties? "I gave
at the office," I say in my defence. Is a job, albeit with altruistic
aims, or a family duty, enough?

10. The existence of women heroes, today - and tomorrow - finally
hangs on the personal question: have we been tested, and have
we failed? Will we be given the chance to become heroic, and
do we wish it? The answers, too, will be personal ones. I only
know that, talking to real heroes, I am left with the knowledge
that, whether by force of circumstance, pride, upbringing or
something mysterious called character, these women are people
apart.
Reprinted from Chatelaine, April 1983. By permission of the
author.