Radicalization
By the time she entered her teens, Hansen had begun to strongly identify with the hippie counter-culture and clashed sharply with her family over values and social issues. In high school, she admired the Front de libération du Québec.
At the University of Waterloo, Hansen began to fully develop her political consciousness. She studied political theory and briefly worked on The Chevron, a Marxist-Leninist dominated school paper, before becoming disillusioned with Marxism. In 1979, she traveled to Europe for six months to study urban guerrilla groups such as the Red Army Faction as part of the university's Integrated Studies Department. While in France Hansen was influenced by the Autonomists, anarchists who lived largely outside of mainstream society and were well known for violently clashing with the authorities.
After she returned from Europe, Hansen was involved with the prison abolition movement and Bulldozer, a prisoners' support newsletter in Toronto.
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