By the late 1970s, Hansen was living in Toronto, where she met Brent Taylor. She then moved to Vancouver and began a relationship with Taylor.[1] They decided to form a guerrilla organization named Direct Action, with the addition of Doug Stewart, Julie Belmas and Gerry Hannah, local fixtures of Vancouver's punk scene. The group carried out militant actions which included an attack on a BC Hydro substation on Vancouver Island and the Litton Industries bombing in Toronto.[1] The Litton Industries site was preparing to build components for US cruise missiles and the explosion played a part in Litton losing the contract.[2] Hansen, as a member of a separate group known as the Wimmin’s Fire Brigade, later fire-bombed several Red Hot Video stores in Vancouver which sold hardcore porn.[3]
In August 2012, Hansen was arrested and imprisoned for alleged parole violations after she had organised a film screening at public library in Kingston, Ontario at which a lawyer gave a direct action workshop.[7] She was held again at the Grand Valley Institution for Women.[8] She was released with stricter parole conditions in October.[7]
Hansen is part of the P4W Memorial Collective, which campaigns for the preservation of the former Kingston Prison for Women, where she was previously incarcerated.[10] When the building was redeveloped, the group requested a memorial garden be built to remember those women who were imprisoned there.[11] Hansen participated in 2020 as a speaker in the event Untold stories on Kingston Penitentiary Tours: An online panel discussion.[12]
Hansen donated her personal papers to the University of Victoria Libraries' Special Collections & University Archives' Anarchist Archives in 2011.[13]
(with Julie Belmas) "This Is Not A Love Story: Armed Struggle Against The Institutions Of Patriarchy" in Disorderly Conduct 5, 2002.
"Armed Struggle, Guerilla Warfare, and the Social Movement Influences on 'Direct Action'" in (eds) Nocella, A. and Best, S. Igniting a revolution: Voices in defense of earth, AK Press. 2006. (ISBN9781904859567)
Taking the Rap: Women Doing Time for Society's Crimes. 2018. (ISBN9781771133555).
Foreword to Remembering the Armed Struggle: My Time with the Red Army Faction by Margrit Schiller. 2021 (ISBN9781629638737).
^ abcBeadle, Scott (2002–2003). "Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla/Guilty of Everything". BC Studies. 136: 146–148. ProQuest196907575.
^Shantz, Jeffrey (January 31, 2003). "Two Reviews of; Ann Hansen; Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla". Social Anarchism (33): 63. ProQuest232455456.
