VSW 1090 West 7th Ave Vancouver V6H1D0 JULY '79 tus of Women IKSID6- iimniinn - Summertime, and the big issue's abortion (again) SFU 17 trial is under way VSW cooks up new constitution We have our own art gallery SORWUC scores two major victories in Muckamuck strike Across Canada: Bi-national lesbian conference How the Feds are doing it to us Marge Piercy on art and politics The Dinner Party Speak out against incest Firefighting on Galiano Women in the struggle for the liberation of the Phillipines The great lesbian sense and sensibility debate continues 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 12 14 16 18 20 SUBSCRIBE TO KINESIS! Published By Vancouver Status of Women 1090 West 7th Ave, Vancouver V6H 1B3 Subscriber Only _ Member/Subscriber AMOUNT ENCLOSED: Subs are $8/year Individual (or what you can afford), $15/year Institutions. VSW membership is by donation. Please remember that VSW operates on inadequate funding — we need member support! Kinesis July '79 1 Abortion is back as the big issue this summer In hospital society meetings held in a number of communities in June, abortion was a hotly contested election issue. Anti- abortion candidates were successful in Richmond and Powell River, capturing all the vacancies on these hospital boards. At this writing it is unclear whether this will mean an end to abortion at those hospitals. At the same time, supporters of abortion as a women's right to choose also scored victories. In Langley, the anti-abortion candidates were all defeated in the meeting of June 21. In Surrey, an energetic group of women succeeded in enrolling more than 2,000 pro-choice members in the hospital society in six weeks work. Anti-abortionists also mobilized and the crowd that-gathered for. the hospital meeting June 20 was nearly evenly divided. In the end, on a recount, two pro-choice candidates and one "pro-life" were elected to the 11-member board of trustees. The pro-choice position now has a two vote majority. The women of the Surrey pro- choice group plan to continue to meet. The so-called "pro-life" movement is presently shifting into high gear. A strategy planning conference of the national umbrella organization, Alliance for Life, will be held at UBC June 27 to 30. In B.C. 35 groups will band together in a province- wide body at the end of June. The present Vancouver-based Pro-Life Society claims 5,600 members and took in $4-7,000 in donations last year. Traditionally hosnital board elections _ " MiioM igSS?^,,«*«Hriiw«EV' . CHILD1 UNDER A } A are held in June or September. It is of crucial importance that women familiarize themselves with the situation in their local areas now, as it is clear that every hospital with a therapeutic abortion committee is a target. In the cases where pro-choice people have been informed enough ahead of time to mobilize, we have been successful. The Vancouver group, Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion (CCCA), is prenared to be a clearing centre for information and assistance in setting up groups to deal with this issue. If you have any information as to what is happening in your area, or know people who would be useful to contact, please write to CCCA at 115 N. Kootenay St., Vancouver, V5K 3T9, or phone Tessa Stewart at 324- 8890 or Ann Thomson at 684-7696. CCCA's next meeting will be Tuesday, July 10 at 336 E. 46 Ave., 7:30 p.m. Plan to come! Rape Relief refuge becoming a reality Staff at Vancouver's Rape Relief are in the middle of a spirited campaign to raise about $150,000 to enable them to open a women-in-crisis residence in Vancouver early next year. Spokesperson Teresa McDowell told Kinesis that the five paid staff and 25 volunteer staff at Rape Relief on Kingsway, have organized a series of fund-raising events to take place over the next six months. They hope to raise, through donations and pledges, enough money to purchase a large house for women and children needing emergency shelter from violent situations. This includes battered wives, rape victims, and "violence against women in general," says McDowell. Donations and proceeds from a highly successfully benefit held recently have dropped more than $7,000 in the coffers. But, admits McDowell, it's a long way to $150,000. To meet this end staff are scheduling the following events: A Stanley Park Walkathon July 22. This is a 10-mile walk, pledges available at Rape Relief. A picnic in the park follows the walk. Oct. 27 is Casino night with gambling and a dice time for all. McDowell says, Rape Relief is hoping the Ridge theatre people will sponsor a film festival 'with proceeds going towards the home. And then there's the December Telethon and a raffle draw. McDowell said the vision of an emergency shelter for women facing violence on the streets and in the home came about when staff discovered that an increasing number of women are being trapped in threatening situations. We have about 200 oases on file since the beginning of 1979. These involve rape, incest, sexual assault, sexual harassment on the job and child abuse. We are constantly receiving calls from women raped by husbands, acquaintances, or whose children are being sexually molested by stepfathers, uncles and other family members. We realized that there is no resource for Policy regarding operation of the facility is still to be worked out. The members will be meeting during the summer to answer specific questions such as how long women and children will be permitted to stay. Says McDowell: When the home is operational (furnishings donated by individuals) we hope to rely as little as possible on money from any level of government. We will raise enough money for the down payment and mortgage. That way the house is ours and no one aan take it away. There's T-shirts: "Remember the dignity of your womanhood, take courage, stand with us," buttons, pledge cards for donations and the walkathon and more information available at Rape Relief, 45 Kings- way in Vancouver. Fast on the heels of the Supreme Court's Gay Tide decision Lesbians are bad for business? LIL (Lesbian Information Line) has been denied advertising space in the Vancouver Free Press, because it's bad for business. This follows fast on the heels of a recent Supreme Court decision that it was okay for The Vancouver Sun to refuse a Gay Tide subscription ad on the grounds that an advertisement for a gay liberation newspaper might, in the paper's opinion, result in a loss of business. LIL is a counselling and referral service for lesbian women. LIL was phoned by the Vancouver Free Press, says a spokesperson for the group. We were told to drop by and pick up our ad copy since our ad had been cancelled. Well, we certainly hadnht cancelled it. So I went over to their-office, only to be given the 'bad for business ' reasoning. Kinesis phoned the Free Press to find out what was going on. Publisher Dan McLeod: I didn't know until after the fact. The advertising manager is making these decisions based on the fact that we don't want this paper to gather the same kind of stigma as the Georgia Straight. Reconsidering Advertising manager Tony Kennedy: We are reconsidering accepting the ads. ...They (LIL) said The Courier is accept- ^ ing them and we are reconsidering if our colleagues are placing them. Kinesis: Has the Supreme Court decision enabled you to refuse ads by using business as an excuse? Kennedy: (Pausa). Yes. It's a business decision, we don't want to be put at a business disadvantage. Kinesis: I would think if it hadn't been for that decision it might have been more difficult for you to refuse. It might have been a human rights issue. iocoi3,P2 2 Kinesis July '79 Adams Lab outrage A woman's car was smashed at three in the morning while she was doing her picket duty. The police still don't know who did it. The truck of another woman picketer was smashed up by a company car but she was accused of having done it herself. Another picketer, Ron McCann, was hospitalized after he was attacked in his apartment and stabbed eight times. These are separate incidents. But the three people have something in common: they are all employees of Adams Laboratories Ltd. in Surrey who went on strike against the company last Feb. 21. Their union, Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers, was certified in November of last year but the company refused to recognize them. The negotiation for a first contract therefore reached a dead end. The workers went on strike. The company hired relatives and non-union workers to replace them. The picket line, therefore, became the only rallying point of the striking workers. It also became the scene of many nasty confrontations. Suddenly, before anybody realized what happened, the B.C. Supreme Court came down with a judgment that is too hard to swallow. Two women, Mary Lynn Wheant (whose truck, was smashed) and Ildiko Szelkely (whose car was smashed) were each given a 10-day sentence in jail "for picket line incidents" outside Adams Laboratories. McCann, on the other hand, was sentenced to six months in jail after being linked to the cutting of an air brake on a semitrailer transporting Adams products which had been manufactured behind the picket line. Nobody mentioned that he almost lost his life previous to the incident. Three other strikers were fined $300 each while the union was fined $10,000 for failing to obey an injunction that limits pickets and their activities on the line. I was sorry to see them go to jail, says Keith Robinson, co-owner of Adams. Me too. If Robinson and company had been cooperative enough to give the workers what is rightfully due them none of this would have happened. —CesRosales Boycott London Drugs Adams Laboratories Ltd. prepare the vitamins for London Drugs. Don't go into any of their stores until Adams workers have won their first contact. ■LABOUR SFU 17—right to picket is on trial in Burnaby courtroom As we go to press, the trial of the SFU 18 is under way in a Burnaby courthouse. The defence lawyers Stu Rush and Marguerite Jackson are due to open their case June 28. Justice Patricia Proudfoot rejecte'd a bid on behalf of the 18 to have a mass trial, which clearly would have been advantageous to the 18 both in terms of finance and mobilizing support. The trial now proceeds person by person, with alphabetical hearing dates. Provincial Justice S.Romilly presides Peter Armitage is first. The verdict in this.first trial will be important. If he is acquitted, it could possibly mean that the charges against the remaining 16 (one of the 18 has already had charges dropped) would be dropped. The prosecution has presented it case against Armitage. Cop after cop has testified to having seen him touch the arm of a policewoman who was dragging defendant Judy Cavanagh to the paddy wagon - obstructing the officer in the course of her duty. Prosecution says Armitage made the policewoman turn around ninety degrees. But Armitage's trial is somewhat atypical, as he is accused of having touched the cop. Acquittal could mean that the trials of the others proceed nonetheless. An AUCE representative to the SFU Defence Committee told Kinesis that the costs of the trials is expected to run as high as $15,000 - $20,000. You can make your donation to the SFU 18 Defence Fund by sending it to the committee c/o AUCE provincial offices, 901 - 207 West Hastings. Following a support meeting for the SFU 18 June 18, a joint union defence committee was struck with representatives not only from AUCE but also SORWUC, CAIMAW and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Local 580 (on strike at Adams Laboratories Ltd. ) - all of which are targets of government intervention. Background On March 22, 1979, a rally at the picket line concluded with approximately 200 supporters joining the line. The picket- was peaceful and legal and at no 'time did the RCMP tell the picketers that they were committing an offence or require them to disperse. After three hours, however, the police, including members of the RCMP security service's "Ad Hoc Labor Liaison Committee" Clip and mail EATONS ATTN: Mr. D.J. Hudson 701 Granville Street Pacific Centre Vancouver, B.C. V6B 4E5 I SUPPORT THE BOYCOTT OF J.P. STEVENS PRODUCTS SOLD AT EATONS PLEDGE THAT MY CONSUMER DOLLARS WILL NOT SUPPORT • UNFAIR COMPETITION TO CANADIANS JOBS • UNEMPLOYMENT IN CANADA • DISREGARD FOR HEALTH OF WORKERS • DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN • CORPORATE LABOUR LAWBREAKERS • SUB-STANDARD WAGES • SUB-STANDARD WORKING CONDITIONS Signed_ attacked the picket line and arrested 18 picketers. The charges laid on March 22, 1979. were "obstructing a peace officer in the execution of his duty," a criminal offense carrying a maximum two year jail sentence. The Crown laid the second charge of "blocking a highway" approximately a month later and this is a summary offence carrying a maximum sentence of six months in jail or a $1,000 fine. One of the 18 arrested is no longer being charged. Fifteen of those arrested are or have been members of trade unions. Twelve of those 15 were also students at the time of the arrests. AUCE 2 is the bargaining agent for 650 clerical and technical workers at Simon Fraser University. After months of bargaining, AUCE 2 began a series of rotating strikes in December, 1978. In January, 1979, the SFU administration stated that its final offer, as directed by the university's* board of governors, was six per cent over two years. On March 6, 1979, the university began selective lockouts which forced AUCE 2 into a full-scale strike. On March 8, 1979, a picket line was set up at the entrance to the university and remained in place until April 20, 1979. An Industrial Inquiry Commission, whose decision will be binding, has now been appointed by the minister of labor with hearings set for July 3-6, 1979. All through negotiations, the SFU administration showed bad faith and attempted to break AUCE 2. For example, the administration made the offer of conditional binding arbitration, a major condition being comparability with unorganized clerical workers in the private sector and selected by the employer. Unfortunately, the latter are traditionally low paid and the comparison was put forth for the purpose of reducing unionized wages The fact that members of the SFU board of governors are also involved in big business is significant. By working against AUCE 2, board members such as Bill Hamilton (also president of the Employers Council of B.C. ) work to maintain interests other than those of the university com- LILline from p.i... Kennedy: We've also got the right to run a successful business...what's the point i of backing a minority at our expense? Kinesis: Well, I could argue that. Kennedy: That's a moral issue. This is business. We are in a particularly delicate position. It might be a bit of over-reaction. We will be reconsidering the ad. On May 22, the Supreme Court decision said that The Vancouver Sun could, under a reasonable cause clause, refuse to print the Gay Tide ad placed by the Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE). In its judgment the Supreme Court concurred with the findings of Justice A. Robinson, of the Appeal Court. The crucial section of Robinson's ruling reads: The GATE advertisement would offefid sow. of the newspaper's subscribers, which in addition would, of course, result in a loss of subscribers and afford reasonable cause for declining to accept the business,% July. ...3. L to R: DarlyneJewett, Joanne Einblau, Casey L to R: Janet Beebe and Libby Weiser L to R: Debra Lewis, Susan Hoeppner, Nadine Allen, Gayla Reid VSW Annual General Meeting- plans for new constitution Plans for developing an updated constitution for Vancouver Status of Women were on the agenda at the Annual General Meeting, June 13. Outgoing executive members expressed their desire that the new executive undertake the process of flattening out the hierarchical structure of the board. Lee Grills, who was completing her second term as president, commented: it is a constant source of amazement to all of us that we continue to press for solutions to our problems against such overwhelming opposition...we have more difficult days ahead but it will not shock me at all to find that we will continue with energy, commitment and creativity. Reporting on the year's activities, VSW staff characterized the past year as one of survival, re-location and growth, pushing ahead with community organizing while maintaining an office which hums with information referrals, research and public responses on women's issues. Sandra Currie, Diana Ellis, Mercia Stickney and Judy Bourne were elected by acclamation to the positions of president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer respectively. Ellis, Stickney and Bourne are all former VSW staffers . Each of them expressed a desire to give back energy to the organization in return for all the benefits working at VSW has brought to them. Sandra Currie was emphatic that she would be president only if the position was not treated with the false accoutrements of power traditionally foisted upon presidents everywhere. Elected as members-at-large were: Darlyne Jewett, Kay Matusek, Jillian Ridington (outgoing vice-president), Sylvia Spring, ., Joey Thompson (former secretary) and Cat Wickstrom. All affirmed their commitment to VSW's financial survival and to an ongoing involvement in community organizing. 'ñ†L to R: Sheila Reljic, Bobbi Patrick, Violet Johnson Sandra Rose holding ballot box while Rosalie Hawrylko (far right) smiles into* camera L to R: Norreen Garrity and Linda Shuto 4 Kinesis July 1979 LOCAL MOVEMENT NEWS Vancouver women now have their own art gallery By Marg Wood A new Women's Art Gall.ery opened its doors in January of tris year. This small gallery is operated by Women in Focus, Production and Distribution Centre and has two specific aims: To provide a space where women-defined art can get public exposure and be controlled by women artists. The idea for the gallery came out of the 1978 Vancouver Women's Video and Film Festival. In order to create a women- defined atmosphere for the'festival, local women artists were invited to display ■their works. Graphics, paintings, photographs, weaving, life-size figures and huge paper mache animals contributed towards a successful art environment. At this time a number of women realized that space was not available in Vancouver for the continued showing of this art. Most, if not all, art galleries do not consider much of women's art as art. In the next few months the Women in Focus collective converted a 10 x 10 room into a small but bright and warm gallery. Many women unable to afford art school Due to their economic status many women artists are unable to attend art schools. They work in their homes using less expensive materials such as colored paper, cloth fabrics and wire. In contrast, artists seen in the art galleries work with the more expensive and accepted paints, metals and clays. This work by women has been called craft and has not been viewed by many as art. The images used basically come from the women's own life experiences, which according to the art critiques, do not appeal to the masses. Feminist ideas are often portrayed which, from my own past experience, is not accepted in the art world. Just ask Judy Chicago and the many others who worked with her on "The Dinner Party." After five years of gruelling work this masterpiece may well end up in storage. The content criteria established for the Women's Art Gallery is that the material be non-sexist and not contrary to feminist theory. If images of men appear they are to be portrayed in a non-traditional, non- h Quilt by Liz Shefrin asks, "I wonder if quilting is art or craft?' : JS&KBf oppressive'way or appear as part of a feminist political statement. Each artist's work is on display for approximately a month and is for sale. We invite you to come and support these women artists. The gallery is located at Women in Focus, Production and Distribution Centre, #6 - 45 Kingsway. Hours for viewing are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4- p.m. and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information especially for women interested in having a showing please contact the women at 872-2250. ■Upcoming Showings: July 2-30 DIANA KEMBLE, ongoing graphics in book form. Aug. 1 - 30 CLAIRE KUJUNDZIC, paints/ drawings Devil's advocacy Coming to town : a women's building A women's building for Vancouver: we'll take our five free shares in BCRIC and pool them. They will constitute collateral for a loan, with which we'll purchase our - very own women's building. Sounds good? Think again. *Using BCRIC shares for collateral amounts to complicity in an unscrupulous Socred gimmick. Ordinary people will soon find that those five "free" shares are useless. By taking the "free" shares we lend credibility to the Socred sell-out of this province's natural resources to corporate giants. * It's -an energy drain. We shouldn't be getting embroiled in the hazards of acquiring and maintaining real estate at this time. We have our hands full fighting cutbacks. * The building will work towards centralizing the Women's movement.' The strength of the movement has always been in our ability to remain decentralized, diffuse. * The women's building will be divisive. Our local movement will split between those who are in favor of the building and those who are not. Internal politicking re the building is an inward-looking project. want to support the building? * The building will be for both women and men. Even after all the effort of organizing the building women still won't have their own space, where they can get away from heterosexist hassles. * The project will mean that a lot of women will waste a lot of time going on and on about The Man Question. * The building will encourage passivity. Women will use the building without contributing their energy to it. It won't work as a politicizing tool. * Women aren't pledging their shares to the building. s building the build- Are * Estimated co half a million- it for the building—about ■is way too high. We can't afford it. Women are dreaming. * We already have a women's building: the YWCA on Burrard Street. * The building will be for women only. This will feel threatening to women new to the movement and they won't want to be a part of the events. What about men who What do you think of the women' proposal? What role do you set ing playing? Do we need it? What do you think of these criticisms? some valid? Specious? At Kinesis we believe that debate about the women's building proposal is useful and necessary at this time. Please send in your comments. They can be anywhere from 100 to 1,000 words. If we receive them by July IS, we'll print, them in the next issue of Kinesis. (For details of the proposal, see Kinesis April-May p. 3).* Kinesis- July '79 5 After a year, two breaks for SOR WUC within 48 hours Wading through the Muckamuck strike By Elizabeth Godley The Service, Office and Retail Workers' Union of Canada is a survivor. Neither rain nor snow nor injunctions nor lack of money will keep SORWUC from organizing the unorganized. Although SORWUC first caught the public eye with its drive to unionize the banks in 1977-78, the union has been around since 1972. SORWUC was formed by a group of Vancouver working women who say that women workers are ignored by the traditional, male-oriented labor movement. Waitresses make less than waiters, secretaries make less than janitors, even inside the same union, says a member. Sexism is not a prerogative of the middle classes. The established trade unions have not been fighting for women's needs. SORWUC has been organizing small groups of workers since its birth. It holds the only certification in B.C. for a bargaining unit of one person. Lots of times, women aren 't in a union because their workplaces are so small it's not considered economical to organize them, explains Jean Rands, the union's national treasurer. And in fact it's just as hard to organize a unit of three or 10 as it is to organize a big place with 100 employees. For the past year, SORWUC has been on strike at the Muckamuck, a Davie Street restaurant owned by whites but employing native Indian workers and serving native Indian food. Wages not the only issue When Kinesis contacted owner Jane Erick- son, she refused to speaker with us. She and co-owner Doug Christmas say they are trying to do the Native community a service by creating an authentic West Coast Indian environment in the restaurant. The workers disagree. Ethel Gardner, a former employee, says, J know for sure that they were not doing the Native people who were working there a service....They did represent much of the Native food and their decor was fairly authentic, but that doesn't say they were doing anybody a service. The Muckamuck workers joined SORWUC in the spring of 1978. Wages weren't the only issue. There were scheduling problems, with people on permanent staff being told not to come in for a few days because management was trying someone new. You might get two or three days work in three weeks, says Gardner, adding that another problem was compulsory attendance at staff meetings, with no pay, even on a scheduled day off. Job security was nil, and management would promise to train a worker in one sort of work - bartending for example - and then renege. Ethel Gardner says she forgot to put a pan of bannock (Indian bread) in the fridge one night and $7.50 deducted from her pay cheque. Complaints to the department of labor brought no results. We figured that with a union we would have a right to appeal management decisions and we 'd have a say in how our schedule was going to work out, Gardner adds. The workers wanted definite job descriptions and, all the protection a union gives. SORWUC was certified for the bargaining unit, on March 20, 1978. Three bargaining sessions were held. When a mediator couldn't bring the two sides together, a strike vote was taken. One June 1, 1978 - just over one year ago - the Muckamuck workers walked off the job. The union has been picketing Muckamuck for a year now, and estimates that business has been cut by 80$. Holding the line together hasn't been easy, but we've done it, says Pat Barter, national executive member. The pickets try to persuade customers not to go into the restaurant by explaining the issues. Most of the time they are watched through the window by management and scabs. A couple of times, the scabs have come written decision, the LRB stated that to accede to the application (for decertification) at this time would not only involve the board to an unacceptable extend in the collective bargaining process, it would, in effect, nullify the strike of x Muc*( A* ___**, support the strike support the strike out to picket. The last time they did that was May 26, says Barter. They were definitely locking for a fight. But we kept our hands in our pockets^ except when we had to push picket signs out of our faces. Pat Barter said that sometimes the scabs will come out of the restaurant and thrust themsleves between the pickets and the customers they are talking to. You can imagine how angry this makes us. The picket line has not been a tea party, and on June 1, management applied for a court injunction to prevent all picketing, citing violence on the line. Justice Patricia Proudfoot granted the injunction in spite of the union's protests. The union had planned an anniversary celebration for that evening - 60 people were expected to rally at the restaurant, to sing and eat a huge chocolate cake baked for the occasion. The celebration moved to a nearby beach where the shocked union members tried to recall the last time such LRB on the decertification: the employees...".It would thus grant the employer a victory which they had not attained in collective bargaining. The board went on to say that the union should be given the opportunity to sign a contract, but that should any unlawful acts take place on the picket line, it would be prepared to consider another application for decertification. On June 18 SORWUC went to the Court of Appeal to have the injunction overturned. Justice Proudfoot rejected the appeal, saying that unlimited pickets would damage tourist season business! What does the future hold for the Muckamuck strike? Settling the strike would be like getting on their hands and knees for management now, says Nat Girvan, an employee on strike for a year. And indeed, management is appealing the decertification ruling, saying that unlawful incidents on the picket line should force the board to reconsider its decision. t(,. .to accede to the application at this time would not only involve the board to an unacceptable extent in the collective bargaining process, it would, in effect, nullify the strike of the employees. " an injunction had been granted in B.C. The injunction was one tactic the Muckamuck management used to try and break the union. The other was an application for decertification. Under the B.C. Labor Code, an application to decertify - remove - the union can be made 10 months after the union has been certified. In January, such an application was made on behalf of the scabs working behind the picket line. The Labor Relations Board (LRB) was in a quandary—employees must vote on a decertification application, and the LRB would have to decide who could vote: employees working when the strike began, those currently working at the Muckamuck, or some combination of those two groups. It was four months before the LRB reached its decision. June 6 and 7 were red-letter days for SORWUC. Justice Proudfoot's injunction was modified to allow six pickets on the line and the Labor Relations Board ruled against the decertification bid. In its The owners of the Muckamuck certainly do not appear to be ready to sign a contract. On June 14, scabs from the restaurant picketed the building at 207 West Hastings St. where SORWUC has its office, and the bank where Jackie Ainsworth, the union's national president, works. SCRWUC says morale is high, and except for chronic problems raising money to pay the strikers $100 a week, the strike is going well. The strikers are sticking together, in spite of the apparent endlessness of the strike. Ethel Gardner sums it up. You know, things are looking more positive for the union. The Muckamuck owners are going to have to come across—either that or they are going to have to put up with a picket line outside forever, m Elizabeth Godley is a former SORWUC member who is currently studying journalism at Langara campus, Vancouver Community Kinesis July '79 New Caledonia Collegemen won't spend women's access money The Prince George College of New Caledonia board members defeated principal Charles McCaffrey's recommendations to establish a Women's Advisory Committee and provide a fulltime Women's Program Animator for a nine-month period, using $25,000 that the Ministry of Education has given the college for Women's Access Programming. At the June 12 meeting held in Burns Lake board members agreed that the grant applied for by the administration was here now and the board will vote on how to allocate it. This prompted community education dean Toulsen to testily explain that the minister had earmarked the money to be spent exclusively on Women's Access Programming. Further discussion was of the jocular "boy's club" genrej equal rights for men, men are also frustrated at work, it's only frustrated housewives. Board member Austin Howard-Gibbon, appointed to the college board by school board chairman Bruce Strachan, Socred MLA for Prince George South, professed innocence of the fact that the minister designated exclusive use of money and went on to say he protested the exclusivity and requested the name be changed to Person 's Advisory Committee and have both sexes on it. This was greeted with guttural chuckles by his male supporters. The first reading of the motion produced a tie. Chair Ruth Rushant was under the impression that the college's new bylaws restricting the chair's vote, had been passed by Victoria, when in fact, they hadn't, leaving Rushant unaware that she could cast the deciding vote. Rushant called for a recess, during which she assured the women from Women's Equal Rights Association that she would vote in favor. The men, however, held a coffee-urn caucus and returned to defeat the motion again, leaving the two female members meekly raising voting hands to half- mast. They 'd rather send it back to Victoria! The question of the $17,000 Animator's salary arose, fanned by comments such as we'll find a person willing to do an interesting job as opposed to one paying $40,000 and offering prestige, offered by chair Rushant. Emotions ran high and principal McCaffrey ' pointed out the college is not obliged to spend any part of the money. You won't lose it to anyone. We will send it back to Victoria. This was in response to a woman's question of where the money would be spent if not on women's programming. Some background information is needed to make a judgement on the college board's actions. The Women's Equal Rights Association of Prince George had met with college administration through the spring and lobbied for an educational conference to determine what women want and need in college programming. The college agreed to the conference and pledged $5,000 for the conference coordinator's salary and miscellaneous costs to be taken from the $25,000 grant. Eighty women attended the conference April 20 and 21. An interim advisory committee, was elected and resolutions passed. McCaffrey met with the committee twice for assistance in drafting his recommendations to the board. No hint was ever given that his proposal might be defeated. The committee itself was so confident of the board rubber- stamp approval that not one member attended the board meeting! Wants Person's Advisory Committee One could cynically speculate that the board action confirms the need for special women's programs, especially in life (lobby) skills to gain the knowledge needed to play the political game. The college board members are provincial government appointees, with the exception of Austin Howard-Gibbon. Are all of Bill Bennett's non-elected holders of office cast from the same mold? Is the take a fag to lunch day slip of the Human Rights Commission tongue indicative of the goon mentality which is overlooking adult education and human rights in this provinc e ? By Trude LaBossiere ■10 Canadians arrested in anti-Trident demonstrations Ten Canadians were arraigned in Seattle federal court Monday June 11, the aftermath of anti-nuclear demonstrations June 9 and 10 at the Trident submarine base, . Bangor, Washington. All were charged with two counts of trespassing.. Two days before the demonstration, the federal law was changed to impose stiffer penalties on protestors. Due to these changes, the 10 women and men will not be entitled to a jury trial, despite a maximum possible combined'sentence of one year in jail and $1,000 fine Public defender Irwin Schwartz speculated that the people charged may be sentenced to 30 days in jail on the first charge and 60 days suspension on the second charge The charges stem from civil disobedience actions. On Saturday June 9, 13 Canadians crossed the fence at the Trident submarine base in Bangor, Washington. In a non-violent action the protestors approached a missile standing near the base's old main gate and displayed a banner describing the offensive capability of Trident. Two trees were planted in front of the missile to symbolize the need to "move from Trident to Life." After processing by Navy nersonnel. the SHOULD NOT PE IN THEIR HAND* 13 were removed from the base. All were given barring letters telling them not to re-enter the base at risk of arrest. Simultaneously with the action at Bangor, a rally of Canadians and Americans was held in Peace Arch Park. About 300 people listened to live music and to speakers who voiced their concern over Trident and the escalating arms race towards nuclear destruction. On Sunday, June 10, the 13 Canadians returned to the base. In a non-violent and symbolic action, demonstrators formed a human fence in front of the missile. Ten had participated in the previous day's action. These 10 were promptly arrested and transported to nearby Bremerton where they were held overnight to await arraignment Monday. The three 'first-timers' were released at the base. This fall, there wil] be simultaneous anti-Trident demonstrations at five locations in the U.S. including Bangor. These fall demonstrations will coincide + with the refitting of Poseidon submarines £ with Trident I missiles and will be or- % ganized by a coalition of groups in- * cludine Vancouver's Pacific Life Community. ^ Contact them at 874 8863 or come to a Mon- & day night meeting at 3255 Heather Street. _ UBC School of Social Work surveys women counsellors By Erica Trimble Women currently seeking counselling in the Vancouver area have access to only limited information about services available to them. Female clients seeking counselling should have information about a prospective counsellor prior to seeking help; a survey of women-to-women counselling services is currently being conducted under the auspices of the UBC School of Social Work. The survey is funded by the Youth Employment Services. A short questionnaire is being sent out to female counsellors in this area. We want to identify the type of service offered, the availability of these ser vices and the attitudes and treatment goals each counsellor has for female clients. We are limiting our survey to individual, voluntary, out-patient counselling services for adult women where the primary goal is psychological change and not amelioration of specific difficulties (eg. career counselling) or severe mental disorders. At this point evidence exists that female counsellors may be particularly effective with female clients and therefore our survey is restricted to female counsellors/therapists. There are two parts to this study. One involves the compilation of a directory of services and programs particularly oriented to women; the second part is a study of counsellor statements in counselling sessions for the purpose of developing a system of measuring or objectifying differences in counsellor orientations to women. Researchers are interested in therapists' statements in an early encounter with an adult female client. Your volunteer participation in this study would be greatly appreciated. If you wish to participate by supplying names for the directory and/or audio tapes for the research, please contact Erika Trimble or Susan White at 228-2383.■Kinesis July '79 7 High energy, largest leaping lesbian dance in Canada Scene: A hot summer's night. In a large hall, standing room only, women are dancing, talking, drinking. On the stage: women playing excellent rock and roll. The occasion? The largest Leaping Lesbian Dance in Canada's herstory. Scene: Fifteen women sitting in a circle in a small cement room with no windows. They are discussing the state of distribution of women's art in Canada, (it needs a lot of work). Scene: Women in friendly groupings sitting and lying on the lawn outside Hart House, University of Toronto. Some are singing and most are eating out of cardboard boxes. A woman gives an impromptu workshop on handwriting analysis. These events took place at the 1979 Bi- National Lesbian Conference held from May 19 to the 21 in Toronto. Over 400 women registered for the conference. (Bi-National refers to Quebec and Canada). From Friday night to Monday afternoon there were workshops, cultural events, reports, dancing, dining and great exchanges of information. The theme of the conference was "Our Lives, Our Community, Our Movement." The conference was structured so that we talked about our lives first, then the movements we have been and are involved in, and on the third day, arrived at plans for further action. Thus some of the workshop headings for the first day were: how do we cope; booze, dope, cigarettes, ageism; lesbian mothers; lesbian image/coming out; bisexuality; organizing our communities. On the first day there were at least 24 different workshops. About 60 were held throughout the conference. The second-day workshop focussed on our movement, on alliances we forge with other liberation movements and on the problems and benefits in working in other groups. A sampling of titles included: lesbians and the trade union movement;...and religion;... and the women's movement;...and socialist feminism. The third day was a wrap-up session with women formalizing proposals that had been discussed and passing resolutions. Each day was prefaced with a plenary session in which reports were given. We had time also to raise issues in the larger group. On each of the three days there were skill- sharing workshops running concurrently with the discussion groups, and displays of art, as well as musical get-togethers. The conference opened up with a- coffeehouse A number of excellent performers shared their music, comedy routines and comments with us. Ferron sang. Unfortunately I did not take note of the other performers' names, (oh, provincial chauvincism!). The Saturday night dance music was provided by Mama Quila (Toronto) and Equis (Winnipeg). Sunday night there was a delicious banquet. During it we saw slides of women's art, with a good selection from Vancouver's own, followed by a play done by women from Winnipeg. Most workshops were only two hours long, which gave us time to introduce ourselves and have a general discussion, but little time to come up with concrete proposals for action. However some workshops were held more than once, and by the third day there were a number of resolutions ready to present to the final plenary. What we were basically doing in endorsing the resolutions was saying that we supported the action that these women were willing to work on. Thus we supported: l) the formulation of a Lesbian Bill of Rights which would be used as an aid in organizing and sonsciousness raising. 2) The development of a special issue of "The Body Politic" which would have a large section devoted to lesbians. (This was initially undertaken by the Lesbian Mother's Defense Fund as a response to the Body Politic's "Men Loving Boys Loving Men" article). 3) The development of a quarterly national newsmagazine called Lesbian/Lesbienne. Printing has been arranged with Dumont Pres in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. At the conference, content for the first issue was planned, and the editorial policy was formulated which demands that the articles reprinted be "clearly feminist." It is not expected that the bulk of the newsmagazine will consist of originals— it will be compiled predominantly by taking excerpts from newsletters across Canada. There is a possibility that next year's conference will take place in Winnipeg. That will be finalized within three months. This year's conference organizers—a group of about 20 women—worked extremely hard to pull everything together. I appreciate their labor a great deal, as my sense upon leaving the conference was: this is only the beginning! ■By Lou Nelson (help from Susan Croll) (Note: a contact list of regional reps, was set up for Lesbian/Lesbienne. Our B.C. contact is Sharon Alexander, 1495 Myrtle Street, Victoria B.C. V8R 2Z5.) Equal pay— that will be the day! After an hour-long debate in the Ontario legislature May 17 a private member's bill was passed to give women in Ontario some hope that wage equa'lity could become a reality. Representatives of the many women's groups which form the Equal Pay Coalition were present in the galleries to hear the debate. In an earlier press conference the Coalition had presented arguments in favor of equal pay for work of equal value concept, along with figures showing that in 1976, women were being paid only 53.5 per cent of the average earnings of working men. The bill calling for equal pay for work of equal value was proposed by Ted Bounsall (NDP—Windsor-Sandwich). Having been passed on a voice vote by NDP and Liberal members, it will now be considered by a legislative committee, which can hold hearings to canvas public opinion. Enthusiasm on the part of the government does not run high and it will probably allow the bill to die on the order paper at the end of the current session of the legislation in December. A good deal of public pressure is going to be necessary for the concept to be enshrined in law in Ontario. ■Reprinted from Upstream more traditional spheres. In the family we have provided a moral base; in the wider world we have consistently struggled to humanize our environment... Moral values, social relationships—women have taken historic responsibility for all that which renders communities more fully human. If politics is the process through which society safeguards the humanity of its members, then women belong in politics; and if politics is not such a process, then clearly women are needed to make it so. At its first public meeting, held June 15 ,_, , . _ in Toronto, the Feminist Party admitted WOUlQ J^W VOte t effliniSt ! that theirs is a formidable task: turning __ tp . • 4. r, ^ ^ o x , vision into policy and policy into strategy The Feminist Party of Canada wants to know. Feminist IFarty of Canada Why build a new political party instead of increasing the numbers of women within an existing party? Because, says the Feminist Party, women elected from within these male-dominated power structures usually end up denying the roots from which they came. At the moment of victory, most women shake off their political debts to other women. In the struggle to retain credibility with-. in that male context, they walk on alone. The only way a woman can maintain her feminist beliefs while in office, the Feminist Party concludes, is when she is shielded by a feminist party structure. EMPHASIS ON WOMEN'S MORAL ROLE Women's full participation in the political arena will bring a new direction to government in general, Feminist Party advocates maintain. The vision women will contribute to politics ,-ts the same vision we have always been dependent on to bring to our Troublesome questions have been raised. How can you expect women with only gender in common to take unified action and overcome the years and allegiances of ideological differences? For the interim committee of the Feminist Party, the choice is clear. They advance the idea that a feminist party is, the only method that could truly be representative of women's needs and desires for For more information contact the Feminist Party of Canada, 122 Hilton Ave., Toronto! Prairie Woman needs your help The collective of the newspaper, Prairie Woman, is in trouble. They did not have enough money to publish a May-June issue. This is the only socialist-feminist newsletter on the prairies, and they want to continue. Send them a subscription (it's only $4.00 a year) to Prairie Woman, P.O. Box 4021, Saskatoon, Sask. ■8- Kinesi3\J-uly:,'7.9:. . Feds! offensive: reserve army under seige By Debra Lewis The history of women's relationship to the workforce in Canada can only be described as one of crass manipulation. The myth of choice—that is, that women individually and as a group have been and are in a position to choose what form this relationship will take—is exactly that. The position that women are assigned at any particular point in history is reflected in a myriad of ways—"popular wisdom" as a reflection of current ideology, media representations of the "ideal" woman, fashion trends, and so on. Not the least of these are the ways in which government legislation and policy manipulates the ability of women to participate (or not to participate) in the labor force. Probably the most blatant and well known example of this manipulation occurred in the period of the Second World War and the years immediately following it. Restrictions in the federal public service, for example, had been in force prior to this time. The Civil Service Act of 1918 gave the federal government the right to limit job competition on a number of grounds including, among others, sex. Only women who were unmarried and self- supporting were considered to be qualified candidates. Others would be appointed only if 'qualified' candidates were not available, and then only on a temporary basis. Rosie the Riveter During World War II, however, there was a significant increase in the number of women working in the civil service. This reflected the general increase in women's participation rate, particularly in job areas which had formerly been closed to them. Child care facilities rapidly increased to encourage this trend. The need for women workers was further reflected in media perceptions - the image of "Rosie the Riveter" became an acceptable manifestation of women's role. In the years following the war, however, the bottom quickly fell out of women's wartime role. Childcare was once again at a premium, and the media role of women as wife and mother was once again in the forefront. At the end of the war, restrictions on the participation of married women in the federal.public service were once again in evidence. Only in special circumstances were they hired or retained as employees, and even then with restrictions on advancement. Only in 1955 were such limitations eliminated (in theory, at least). The coordinated efforts of government, the media, and other aspects of the state apparatus accomplished their task admirably. In 1945, women represented 31.4 per cent of the labor force. Only one year later, this figure had failed to 22.7 per cent. It was not until the early 1970's that the participation rate of women once again reached the 1945 level. In the reserves The example of wartime labor force participation is perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the manipulation of women workers. However, it is certainly not the only one. A primary feature of a capitalist economic system is its need for labor reserves. Women constitute a major form of such reserves, and it is this status that provides the basis of their manipulation in and out of the labor force. Consequently, women are held into a double position of dependence. First, they are dependent within the structure of the nuclear family. Further, they are dependent on the needs of the economy which may or may not allow them access to independent wages. Legislating backlash In the past few years, the backlash against women's right to an independent role in the workforce has been very much in evi dence. Among the clearest forms this backlash has taken are a variety of governmental legislative and policy changes specificly designed to limit women's role as an independent wage earner. The primary distinction in this phase of manipulation is that restrictions are seldom placed on women per se. Instead, government propaganda refers to "secondary" or "marginal" wage earners. The theory appears to be that changing the language used may disguise the actual events which are taking place. However, no mistake should be made that women are not the target of a systematic attack by all levels of government. UIC The most public of steps recently taken Inst women in this respect were last into practice by late 1978. At that time the (then) Liberal government brought forward a number of proposals designed to "tighten up" the system and, supposedly, allow for resources to be used instead for job creation. Changes in eligibility requirements for "new entrants" and "reentrants" (read youth, and women who have taken a number of years off to raise a family), the restriction of benefit eligibility to those working over 20 hours a week (and the vast majority of part-time workers are women) and the reduction of benefits from 66 2/3 per cent to 60 per cent (when women earn an average of 59 per cent of men already) are clearly intended to penalize women workers. In addition, those who have collected benefits whitin the last year are now subject to additional weeks of employment Government policy and women in the workforce Part 1 December's amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Clues to the federal government's intentions in this area could be nd in the 1977 "Comprehensive Review of the Unemployment Insurance Program in Canada." This report made a number of sweeping and undocumented statements about women. It stated that "secondary earners" are more likely to abuse the program, that males were keener in finding jobs than females, and that the continued growth of secondary earners with unstable employment patterns would likely impose unexpected increases in unemployment insurance benefit expenditures. The implication, of course, is that women work only for luxuries (or "pin money") and consequently are likely to misuse the program. The facts, however, clearly counter this view. In 1975, the female labor force consisted of 31 per cent single women, 20.7 per cent women married to husbands earning less than $10,000 per year, and 9.4 per cent those who were widowed, separated or divorced. Clearly then, at least 61.6 per cent of women were working primarily for reasons of financial necessity. It is further true that many wives are entering the labor force to maintain a stable family income in the face of inflation. Patricia Connelly has pointed out that while the percentage distribution of income (calculated by individuals) for the lowest, second lowest and middle fifths of the population has decreased since 1951, the distribution for families in the same three sectors has remained relatively stable. This can only be accounted for by the increase in labor force participation by married women. These women work to maintain a reasonable standard of living, not to increase it. "New entrants, re-entrants." Despite these facts, the hints of things to come in the 1977 Review were being put in their qualifying period to be eligible. Since women are generally "last hired, first hired" and since many women (particularly those returning to the work force) are forced to find employment through temporary employment agencies, such a provision is clearly aimed at women as a group. Even Bud Cullen, then Minister of Employment and Immigration, had to admit that new provisions would particularly affect women. However, he claimed: We will compensate for the effects of these changes by increased and continued efforts to improve the status of women in the labor force. No more outreach Somehow, Cullen managed to keep a straight face while making this allegation. Only a month before, however, (October 17, 1978) he had announced that women would no longer be considered a target group for Manpower Outreach programs which provide employment-related services for those who have particular difficulties finding work. Further, in rationalizing the elimination of women's outreach while introducing unemployment insurance cutbacks he stated: But women can in no way be considered severely disadvantaged because they are women. No more training allowance Similarly, changes in Manpower training programs were of particular impact to women. In September, 1978, training allowances were decreased to $10 from $45 (per week) for those 'married to or living with' an employed person; to $80 from $90 for those with one dependent; and to $95 from $97 for those with two dependents. Allowances for those with three or four dependents were marginally increased. Obviously, such changes are of most significance to married► Kinesis July '79 women and single parents (most of whom, of course, are women). Again, Cullen attempted to rationalize the changes by stating that allowances were never intended to provide training incentives (as if $45 a week is much of an incentive), but to defray costs and therefore remove disincentives. However, it is obvious that $10 weekly cannot begin to compensate a woman with children for the added expense of her training—transportation, child care, etc. It certainly seems that the minister was adept at speaking with a forked tongue. "Undermining incentive to work." Ironically (or perhaps quite-intentionally), the report which gave the go ahead for policy change in the Manpower training field was also released in 1977 ("The Canada Manpower Training Program: A Policy Review). The report stated: Income maintenance schemes should seek to cover those in need without undermining the basic incentive to work or distorting programs, such as training, which have other primary objectives. In due course, it is our intention that trainees will receive- from the training program such reimbursements for expenses and incentives as may be necessary but will no longer receive income maintenance payments from this source. Clearly, the figures cited above indicate that even expense reimbursement is inadequate. Further, the move to use unemployment insurance payments to cover training periods will effectively bar women returning to the workforce, who already have had their eligibility for unemployment insurance severely cut back. In addition, the policy will have direct implications for those already working at cant proportion of trainees withdraw from the labor force after training, many of them "to keep house. " The great majority of persons in this group are dependents. " Once again, women are singled out without reference to the fact that they are, in fact, women. Assertions such as the above rest, of course, on a number of crucial assumptions. First, women working in the home do not, as the report asserts, contribute skills to Canada's economy. In addition, it is supposed that women in such positions (that is, oat of the paid work force) will continue in that role. However, it is clear that removing training courses from these women will in fact coerce them into precisely that position ployment insurance cuts was to aid job creation). An analysis of Phase I of the program (April 1977 to March 1978) indicates that only 27 per cent of the participants were women and, of these, almost one half were under 25 years of age. Given other manifestations of federal government policy, it is difficult to believe that this trend is accidental. It is interesting to note that Canada Works was initiated in 1977, which is proving to be a rather magic year in the attack of the federal government on women. This discussion began with information of past federal government control of women in its own public service. It is therefore perhaps appropriate that it should TABLE 1: Comparison of unemployment insurance with Manpower training allowances based on prior earnings of $3 an hour and a 40 hour week. § of dependents none one two three four U.I. rate (per month) Manpower rate (per month) $309.60 $309.60 $309.60 $309.60 $309.60 $258.00 $344.00 $408.50 $473.00 $537.00 minimum wage rates. Table 1 presents the situation for a person employed for 40 hours a week at $3 an hour. Such provisions, obviously, will have their greatest effects on single parents (most of whom are women). No more language training Another feature of the 1977 Manpower review was the recommendation to provide official language training to only those immigrants who have made "independent applications. The report states: "...in many cases, it (language training) is not being provided to the right people. A signifi- PROSPERITY: m> KJUST //jpjm 1 I Canadian Dimension whether or not they want to be there. Further, it is certainly not proved that many women who do "keep house" after language training do so from choice and not from the effects of a deteriorating labor market. Some subtleties, even Not all government policy changes are so overt, however. There are other, more subtle changes in programs which are similarly prejudicial to the participation of women. One such indication is that of the ability of federal job creation programs to serve the needs of women, particularly women seeking to re-enter the labor market. A recent report by Mary Pearson for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women asserted that the former job creation scheme LIP (Local Initiatives Program) was particularly effective in this endeavor. She notes that ...LIP was an effective tool in providing work for unemployed women, re-entry women, sole-support mothers and welfare mothers. Evidence for this statement was drawn from the fact that 41.2 per cent of LIP participants were women. Of these, 55.4 per cent reported that they were unemployed and 24.1 per cent that they were "keeping house" prior to entry into the program. In addition, 45.3 per cent of female LIP participants were 25 to 44 years of age and 21 per cent of them over 45. No more LIP service Since the phasing out of LIP, its successor, Canada Works, has been much less effective at serving*the needs of women. (It should be remembered that a rationale for unem- end with more current information on this subject. In the past few years, attacks on the public sector, from the extreme example of the postal workers on down the line, have become increasingly popular. This anti-civil servant attitude, however, once again has particular effects for women. Comparability nonsense The prevailing attitude now (and although at its most acute at the federal level, it is certainly not absent at other levels of government) is that public sector workers should not be paid at levels higher than those received by those doing similar work in the private sector. Obviously, this approach is a thinly-veiled attack on the collective bargaining process in general, but it is also an assault on women. Women employed in clerical occupations in government constitute one of the few groups of women in such fields who are organized. Since office workers are in general both unorganized and grossly underpaid, a comparison of women in the public sector employed in similar work will have a double effect. First, the slim financial benefits public sector women have been able to accomplish through trade unionism will be undercut. In addition, it is likely that this process will continue to hold down pay levels for similar work in the private sector. It is obvious that this process makes nonsense of empty government rhetoric concerning equal pay. It is clear that, regardless of rationalizations, rhetoric and empty promises, the policy of the federal government in recent years has been to severely restrict the participation of women in the labor force and to provide them little protection when they are victims of a sagging economy. In the second part of this discussion, in next month's Kinesis, the provincial government as an accomplice in this process will be examined. ■10 Kinesis July '79 Marge Piercy: "We're in for the long haul." By Claudia MacDonald and Gayla Reid I don't think you get much out of not fighting in your life, says Marge Piercy. All you get is a faster defeat and an earlier old age, a poverty-stricken one. Her work, she agrees, is a call to struggle, a struggle which lasts a lifetime. But don't romanticize that into a streetfight- ing image, she warns, for the kind of fighting that keeps women alive is kitchen fighting. Piercy, the foremost feminist novelist and poet of our times, came to Vancouver recently as part of the women's studies program in continuing education at the Langara campus of Vancouver Community College. While in Vancouver, Piercy performed her poetry, conducted a workshop, spoke with local women and gave an interview to Sylvia Spring of Vancouver Status of Women. What follows are notes from tapes made by local feminists of that interview and of the workshop. J wrote both fiction and poetry from the time I was 15, Piercy said. Her poetry, however, began to appear long before any of the fiction, because her novels were "totally unpublishable" until the 70's: I was far more interested in politics than you were allowed to be, far more in- terei ted in women. Writing feminist fiction in the. 50's was lonely work. Piercy recalled how, when working as a secretary, she illicitly obtained a library card to the University of Chicago library. She would frequent the stacks, seeking out information on witches, goddesses, strong images of-women, trying to understand what it was that was killing the women I loved and which was trying to kill me. Reading Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex and her novels was like walking into a lighted room. Here was a woman of the left, a feminist, writing about women's lives and writing politically. It was marve I lous. Active in SDS and the anti-war movement, Piercy comments that at the height of anti-war activism she probably had less feminist consciousness than she had before or after—ending the war became a real priority. What was happening haunted me day and night. "My first identification is as a feminist." Piercy is clear where she starts from: my first identification is as a feminist. She sees three great movements of the theory and practice of social change in this century: marxism, anarchism and feminism...my home is in feminism but I'm never going to be so stupid as to ignore the other two. I have a lot of identification with them and with people in them. These days, I'm a feminist mostly. I work on other issues when they annoy me enough, like nukes. Art is political and writing is work. It is a deliberately concocted and fairly recent heresy that art is separate from politics, Piercy maintains. You wouldn't have to go back very far in time before people started laughing at you: Try telling Alexander Pope that art isn't political. Try telling Catullus, Homer! Writers live in society, and are part of the complicated social web (just like everyone else. Art she sees as productive work: "T believe artistic production is real production...we create out of the experiences of other people for other And writing is a political act. I am not writing for the women 's movement, says Piercy of her novels. I am writing for people who are not yet persuaded. If she wanted to communicate within the movemeni there are more direct ways of doing it than going through a New York publisher. Because: her novels are written for people outside the movement, and outside literary circles, it is very important to her that they be published in paperback: If they don't get into drug stores and supermarkets where ordinary people who don't go into bookstores get books, they are no use at all. There are different constituences for different kinds of work. Some of my poetry is for feminists. Looking at Quilts, for example, is addressed specifically to women. But the Rape Poem is for men: All it takes to cast a rapist is to be able to see your body/as jackhammer, as blowtorch, as adding machine gun. The you in the poem addresses men. Of her novels, Piercy was asked most often about The High Cost of Living. Among the workshops participants, there was a general sense of disappointment with that book, whose protagonist, Leslie, isn't a feminist. What was she trying to do in that book? It's aboit class, Piercy responded. It is, she added, about growing up in the late seventies and facing a narrow range of choices—a much narrower range than people faced when growing up in the 60's. It's about those choices and consequences of those choices for the three central characters in the triangle—Bernard, Leslie and Honor. Not in the matriarchal comics business Do I want people to think Leslie is a heroine? No. She points out that she's not in the business of producing matriarchal comics—which might make you feel better for a short period of time, like having a beer. It is also about the limitations of taking a purely moral stance, as Leslie does , and confusing that with a political one, as many people in the late 70's are doing. Leslie is a lesbian, but the novel is not about that fact. Piercy says she wanted to write a novel where being' a lesbian was presented simply as a given, the same kind of given as that Leslie has red hair, comes from Michigan and likes karate. In The High Cost of Living Leslie is a graduate student from the working class. Her boss-professor, George, is her meal- ticket. He is her only way out. You could call it The High Cost of George. "I am writing for people who are not yet persuaded." If we don't like the book, then that probably means that it's not a book which is useful to us, Piercy suggests. It's not written for a feminist audience. What was the audience, then, for her previous novel, Woman on the Edge of Time? Anyone who is not right happy with the way things are under the status quo but who perhaps needs concrete images of how things might be. In setting out to write Woman on the Edge of Time she decided to embody the best ideas of the future which people working for social change have developed. Her ideas, Piercy emphasizes,, are collective ones. That's the paradox of her novels: her ideas come from the movement ► !••.'•• Kinesis July!79 11 but are not specifically aimed back at the movement. On one point Piercy is particularly emphatic : My books are about collective experience, about the buried lives of lots and lots of people...1 am trying to articulate buried lives. Too many novels, she adds, are about suburban adultery, about people who have far too much money and who see alcohol as being their sole problem, about people who are just killing time. My profession is to be a novelist, she says, stressing that she does not write veiled autobiography or confessional prose. Many readers mistake fiction for life, however, She has received no less than four job offers for Miriam, the computer analyst of Small Changes. She has been called at six in the morning by a person who said that she/he needed to talk to Phil, a character from the same book. Has she had the experiences she writes about ? You're supposed to say yes to that question, yes, you have to be a lumberjack. But that's nonsense. Actually, if you have any analysis and you have any gift of empathy ...in truth you have the capacity to assimilate other people's experience rather rapidly. Can she open up to men in empathy for those purposes as readily as she can open up to women? There isn't a substance called men, Piercy answered. 'There are more men who have power and money and rewards— at least sexist reward—which give them licence to oppress someone in this society. Percentage-wise you are going to find more men who are dangerous to you and will hurt you. You will also find men who. are involved in trying to change this, men who will help you. Does she support violence, asked one workshop participant. Piercy's response was direct: "If somebody's standing on your foot, you get them off." People Whose lives are committed to working for social change, and Piercy identifies herself as being among them, are in for the long haul. I'm not one of the people who believed that in 1969 we were about to have a successful, violent revolution, she says, adding, and I'm not one now. That long haul is the theme of much of her writing. You will do it again/for nothing living/resembles a straight line/certainly not this journey, she writes in The Spring Offensive of the Snail. Because the struggle is going to be lifelong, she cautions, you have to guard against burnout. You have to give yourself energy to try things. You have to live in a way that you like your life. Piercy was asked about the nature of friendship in her novels, about the nature of romantic love. Is it possible to love someone and not be friends with them? She responded: Romantic love is a possessive love. It's a type of love where you have someone or you'd like to see 'em dead...love me, or if you're going to leave me I'd like to see yoi. with your throat cut.. .so I guess that the only love which I've much interest in is loving friendship. Does sexuality change friendships? Some it makes more intimate, some it brings to an end, but relationships that begin in the kind of blind oedipal chemistry that we are trained to respect as romantic love frequently, when that energy is worn off, there isn't much. There often isn't even much sexuality. I think a lot of sexuality that is good for us is based upon liking somebody, being able to be open about what you want... " Is that kind of relationship possible with men? If it's not possible with men, it's not possible with women; it's not easy with anybody ... except maybe an exceptional Siamese cat now and then. The tape is available for viewing at Video Inn, 261 Powell St. Video Inn is starting a women's media night each month. You can view tapes, learn how to use media equipment. Pat, Shawn, Peg and Claudia have more information at Video Inn : 688 4336 'Vbu can be a participant in Dreamspace Women's Dreamspace will be at Robson Square Aug. 1 to 16. P.J. will be there, too. P.J. is a doll. She's named for her two mothers, Penny and Joanne. P.J., seen here with a young friend, is a composite. She's half young, black woman and half old, white woman. Dreamspace, a collective, cooperative project by numerous women is part of a show in celebration of world unity and the year of the child. There will be flags, decals, a world made out of junk materials. A walk-in womb. Lots of ethnic music, says Shula Leonard, one of the women involved in the project .Dreamspace, a women's sculptural event. P.J. was created especially for Dreamspace. She's now being taken around town and photographed doing all the things that women do: at the laundromat, on the bus, in the park, at the stores...pictures of P.J. in her everyday woman's environment will be part of Dreamspace. Possibly, pictures of F.J. will also be projected on to the four outside surfaces of the white Dreamspace. Inside Dreamspace, there is a wall of pain, a wall of change, a herstory wall and a closet. The wall of pain is about contraception, UIC, all the hassles, says Leonard. The closet will deal with women 's clothing from birth to shroud. It will feature junk jewellery, plus a huge cosmic serpent. P.J. will be sitting next to the serpent, brave as can be. Different women are coordinating the work on each of the walls. Centre of the wall of change is a big, oval 6' mylar mirror with graffiti, including be sure to ask for your change. Sculptured faces done in gauze frame the mirror. Directly across from that is the herstory wall - in red on white colour xerox pictures of our herstory. (if you have any pictures of women, the project people would use them right now). The ceiling will act as a balance to the wall of pain. Patchwork sculputre pieces 18" by 18" convey hopeful images for our future, images of people and things we love, recurrent dreams. The whole piece will be painted white so that you can add your own graffiti to the piece when you take part in it. (Paint- crews are needed to add the white paint to sculpture). There will be lots of in teresting things hidden away in the sculpture, says Leonard. Like a photograph album in the closet, if you happen to find it. The process of women being involved in the sculpture at the Robson Square show will also be recorded on video. Many women from very diverse political backgrounds have come together to work on this project, and it's really going well, Leonard concluded. Be a part of Dreamspace. You can find out more about the project by phoning Shula Leonard at 732 9716 or 681 7654. i SOPHIA This highest form of feminin female power misrepresented as AMAZON Embodiment of Warric HATSHEPSUT d. 1479 B.C. Egypt. Pharoh of the 18th dynasty ASPASIA 470-410 B.C. Greece. Scholar, philosopher ISHTAR Great Goddess of Mesopotai PRIMORDIAL GODDESS The feminine principle Jane Anne Manson Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party" is a profound and coherent artistic statement S- bout the history of women in Western society. The work stands as the major North American art work about women's experience. Five years in the making, "The Dinner Party" is a symbolic representation of the herstory of women in Western Civilization, and is the cooperative creation of more than 400 different artists working under the direction of Judy Chicago. "The Dinner Party" consists of 33 porcelain plates which represent 33 pre-eminent mythical and historical female figures. The plates rest on ornate linen runners accompanied by porcelain chalices and flatware. These in turn are displayed on a 48 foot equilateral, triangular table. The table stands upon an iridescent hand-poured, hand-polished porcelain floor. On this "Heritage Floor," the names of an additional 999 great women are organized. They are arranged in streams by century and profession, flowing to and from each plate providing the context of each great woman's emergence. The floor symbolizes the importance of the network or support system in producing "greatness." It reminds us not only of the miltitude of great women hidden from history, but also of the relationship between these women. The Dinner Party closed June 17 after a three-month exposition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Attendance at the show had broken all of the museum's previous attendance records for the exhibition of a living artist. During the week it was necessary to wait up to one and a half hours to view The Dinner Party. However on the final weekend of the exhibit, when I visited the show, the wait in the line-up had escalated to five hours. People were appearing at 8:00 a.m. to await the museum's 10:00 a.m. opening. However, the enormous popularity of the exhibit is deceptive, since only two museums in North America have deemed The Dinner Party "worthy" of exhibition. During her June 10 lecture at VCC Langara campus in Vancouver, Judy Chicago explained that the museums retain all of the funds obtained from admission and sale of catalogues. The artist receives none of this money. Yet despite the apparent profitability of Chicago's work, Canadian and American museums have"declined" the opportunity to show The Dinner Party. Indeed institutional resistance is so strong that when a group of women in Houston, Texas, went to their local gallery to lobby for a showing, they were told that it would be necessary to raise $50,000. It was claimed that the money was required to cover the packing, shipping and exhibition costs. (However when the women's community successfully raised the money and returned to ETHEL SMYTH 1858 - 1944 England. English composer VIRGINIA WOOLF - 1941 England. English w the selections committee, they were again refused.) It should be noted that they were refused by a publically-maintained institution. Closer'to home, the Seattle Art Museum was one of the three original museums that agreed to exhibit The Dinner Party. The Seattle, San Francisco and Rochester, New York museums were to split the packaging to e, coherent body of information, capable of altering values and achieving social change. Women's artistic endeavors have been historically restricted and simultaneously demeaned for remaining within the realm of the "minor" or "lower" arts. Devalued for their utilitarian or decorative function, these forms are invisible to the THE DINNER PARTY and shipping costs in order to reduce the financial burden upon each institution. When Seattle withdrew their commitment for "political" reasons, this action reduced The Dinner Party's audience and potential impact, but also increased the so-called risk to the other museums. The Vancouver Art Gallery was offered the opportunity to exhibit The Dinner Party in 1976 but turned down the offer after Alvin Balkind, the chief curator, "was unable to rouse enough interest in the show to justify taking it on." The Dinner Party was offered to the Vancouver Art Gallery for the modest and easily recovered fee of $9,000. To understand the art establishment's resistance to The Dinner Party one must understand the sexist and classist framework into which Judy Chicago has been attempting to make her contribution. A permanent part of our culture In the broadest terms Chicago is trying "to ensure that women's achievements become a permanent part of our culture." She recognizes that women's accomplishments have been, and are, trivialized or individualized as inconsequential or something peculiar only to one woman's personality. However, Chicago believes that the attainments of any woman, artistic or otherwise, must be compared with those of other women so that all these deeds may be amassed In- male-dominated "high" art world of painting and sculpture. An objet d'arte must be utterly useless, except as a visual experience, to be valued as "high" or "real" art. Art is political Thus the technical excellence of elaborate tapestries, lacework, weaving, embroidery and pottery are overlooked as mere "crafts." Some of the institutional opposition to The Dinner Party is undoubtedly rooted in Chicago's attempt to level this heirarchy within the arts. Working within the traditional framework of china painting, ceramics and needle-work, The Dinner Party confronts the illegitimacy of such standards as "minor" and "major," "low" and "high" arts. The teams of artists under Chicago's artistic direction have brought the artist's original drawings to an awesome fruition. In form alone, the work poses a threat to established art notions. The content of The Dinner Party is another matter again. The vaginal/flower/butterfly forms are undeniably female—but not as usually conceived of and desired by men. The female sexuality evident in the images cannot be objectified; one can only identify with the forms. Chicago has developed a broad language for expressing the various racial, historical and emotional experiences of women. She articulates an incredible variety of fates through the basic icons of female biological definition: breasts, ovaries and a. 380-415 Alexandria. Roman scholar MARCELLA 325-410 Rome. Founded the first c SOJOURNER TRUTH 1797 - 1883 United States. Courageou vagina. Margaret Sanger, the birth control pioneer is represented as a placenta-like form. Her winged hands grip the edge of the plate as if to propel herself beyond its constraints and take flight. The plate of Italian painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, is a powerful rainbow-colored muscle. It is impressive for its strength as well as its self-protective folds. The plate reflects the biographical fact of Artemisia's rape by an artist hired to instruct her and her consequent sensitivity to the endless gossip which surrounded her after the assault. A favorite subject of Gentileschi's paintings was Judith, a Jewish heroine who is honored in yet another of Chicago's plates. It is precisely_this type of interplay between the gallery figures which gives The Dinner Party its depth and coherency. For me, seeing the show was an incredibly moving and satisfying experience. After hearing Judy Chicago speak and seeing her show her slides at the Langara campus, I realized what an important work this was for me to see. I felt like a time-traveller reunited with her past. I went to San Francisco for the specific purpose of seeing The Dinner Party as if completing some sort of pilgrimage. I had to see it to content my own longings for a feminist millenium. When I arrived in San Francisco I went straight to the Museum of Modern Art. There I joined hundreds of other people waiting to see the show. The line-up itself was an incredible experience—five hours gives a lot of time for conversation. I met students, a sculptor, midwives, housewives and people who knew little about the work ("I think her name is Nancy Chicago") but were amazingly willing to wait five hours. It was the first time I have felt any sense of international feminism. As a Canadian I found it difficult to deal with America, the nation that dominates Canada, and America, the people. Consequently I was overjoyed to find a kindred spirit amongst us and such pleasure in our conversation. An incredibly moving experience At the same time I was angered that I was one of the few among my friends who were able to see The Dinner Party. It was only with the cooperation of friends and my employer that I disentangled myself briefly enough to see the exhibit. With all this talk in Vancouver about "Taking the Art Gallery to Court," I wonder if we shouldn't do so! We should take the art gallery to court not in the manner currently advocated but for breach of contract for the non-representation of the interests of 50 per cent of the public* CAROLINE HERSCHEL 1750 - 1848 Germany. Pioneer v. ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI 1590 - 1652 Italy. Renowned haliai ELIZABETH R. 1533 - 1603 England. ISABELLA D'ESTE r, M 1 HP PETRONILLA DE MEATH d. 1324 Ireland. Burned as a THEODORA ca. 508-548 Byza TROTULA d. 1097 Italy. Physiciai HROSVITHA 935- 1002 Germany. German playwright, historian ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE 1122- 1204 France. Queen, asm HILDEGARDE OF BINGEN ca. 1098 - 1179 Germany, medical w 14 Kinesis July '79 Kiss Daddy Goodnight: Sexual abuse speak-out KISS DADDY GOODNIGHT: A SPEAK-OUT ON INCEST by Louise Armstrong Rawthorn Books, Inc., New York, $9.95 Kiss Daddy Goodnight, as the subtitle promises, is a speak-out. Sixteen women, a young man ,and the author herself share their troubling childhood remembrances. Armstrong composes an ad: I am a woman writer doing a first person documentary, book on incest. I am looking for others who hav° had an actual or near- aotual incest experience to participate in my 'forum. ' The ads placed, Armstrong then feared she might be the only one in the world to whom this had happened. "This" refers to incest—Broadly defined as "the sexual abuse of a child by a needed and trusted parent." Her fear proved unfounded. Armstrong received 183 responses and selected those arouses strong emotions. The skeptics among us who might doubt such testimonies, should note that one of the most unnerving stories is also the only one substantiated by both a sister and. brother, Sara and David. When their mother goes back to school and a nursing career, Sara and David a left alone a lot with their father, "a pillar of the community." In the mother's absence, the father begins "training" Sara, David and two foster children in various sexual techniques. He "instructs" them in blow jobs for him and then puts them into position with each other. Always, the father does the orchestration. Four-year-old Sara is called into the bedroom and told to lie down on the floor. "That," says Sara, "was my introduction to sex. Right there." In later years, the father wants the she felt "had the ring of the common" and were within the scope of this book. In previous books, Louise Armstrong wrote stories for children. DADDY is a book about the lives of children—mostly girl children—one of whom remembers cunnilin- gus being performed on her in infancy and another who located hospital records indicating that she'd had gonorrhea at the age of three. This book's structure is sometimes tricky to follow; imagined conversations distract from the actual. Yet it is Armstrong's choice of structure which allows the women to "speak" and lends Daddy its gruelling tone of authenticity. Weaving her own personal story in and out of the painful intimacies confided to.her by the 16 interviewees, Armstrong melds narrative with theory. With both fine and broad strokes, she touches upon every aspect of incest. By choice, the overriding perspective is first person and not that of the detached clinician. If Daddy is exhausting to read, it is because separate accounts blend into a collective litany of shocking abuse. Sexual violation came to the "speakers" when they were young, uniformed and had no resources other than mommy and daddy. In order to empathize with the experiences being recounted, a reader is required to relive her own feelings of dependency and helplessness. So reader, beware—this book Katurah Hutcheson children to experience intercourse. David is commanded to perform with a foster sister close to his age; Sara is commanded to perform with daddy. When Sara resists David defends her and the father takes out his hostility in various ways. Sara and David survived with emotional scars and, in Sara's case with physical ones as well. Sara has self-inflicted cuts up and down her arms, and she has attempted suicide—the only one in the book, I believe, to have done so. Of incest, David says: Kids aren't ready. It pushes them...at that age you want to feel safe and in control and intact. Sara says: Emotions are so hard, so funny to deal with. You can have one strong emotion one way and just keep it that way—like hate. And then something stirs other memories. And he could be so good. And then so awful. He was just one mass of contradictions. Contradictions thread their way through Kiss Daddy Goodnight. June, who experienced cunnilingus as an infant, sums it up best: I feel this man's actions contributed to me not having a mind of my own and not being able to say no to men. I feel I owe him because he raised me like a daughter (he was her stepfather) but I hate him for subjecting me to his adult will at such an early age that I can't think for myself. ■I want to destroy- every female child's vagina so it can't be used in an adult way. For the women in the book, penetration occurred at different ages—some before menstruation, some after. "Kiss you cherry goodbye." Wendy's dad warned as she approached menstruation. Kiss Daddy Goodnight is a hard book to take—repulsive in places. Sandy, trying to imagine what it's like hearing stories like this says: I can get grossed out. Because it's repulsive. Really sickening. Not just a grown man molesting a child, but his daughter yet. Louise Armstrong asks, "Why is it necessary for men to eroticize all positive affectionate, even sensual responses? And why are men such victims of their own sexuality?" As one listens to June, Sara and Sandy, one gets the sense that they have spent hundreds of hours brooding over each single hour of abuse. It overshadows their lives. Louise Armstrong's father made his first sexual advances toward her when they were away on a trip. At the time, Louise was eleven. The writing of Daddy feels very much like part of her own therapy for the trauma. As recently as when she got the contract to do this book, she had not told her own mother about her father's sexual abuse. When she finally did, she learned more about her own past and the reader shares in Louise's sense of discovery. And yet—for Louise—there is no real relief: It doesn't go away. It recedes. You don't have to like it. You just have to live with it. Like a small nasty pet you've had for years. Part of Armstrong's motivation in undertaking Daddy is an attempt to break through the tradition of silence which protects the repeated abuse of children and which also perpetuates shame in the objects of abuse. "Rape can allow for a straightforward reaction but the seduction of a child by a needed and trusted parent is far more complex." All the same, some straightforward reactions are to be found: If something like that happened to my children, I think I'd kill him..'.your father's supposed to love and protect you, and if he does something like that, it's'the biggest betrayal there is. What you really need from a father is just love. Jill fantasized about killing her father with an ice pick. Kiss Daddy Goodnight, without being a cold statistical survey, raises the issue that far more women were abused as children than legal files, Social Service records or case histories reveal. The issue won't go away As with wife-beating and rape one longs not to look. One wants the issue to go away. But it will not. "I just wish I"d been able to cope with less human wreckage along the way," says Maggie, who was molested by her father from ages four to sixteen. "How can someone do that to another human being?" For your information Louise Armstrong, you can count me in on your list of women who formally admit to having had an incestuous father. Although he's been dead for 10 years now, I still spend a disproportionate number of hours brooding over my past life with him and— like Maggie—"wish I'd been able to cope with less human wreckage along the way." By Mary Lou Shields, New Women's Times, Feminist Review, March IS, 1979. ■Kinesis July'79 15 Forcing incest out of the closet By Gayla Reid Here's some horrendous arithmetic for you: Take a Grade 12 class of 16 young women. One in four will have experienced some type of sexual assault. Of the four, one will have been involved, or is involved, in an incestuous relationship. Experts assert: Ninety-five per cent of the victims of incest are female. Ninety-nine per cent of the offenders are male. And we can't start dealing with incest until it is defined as a problem. Social taboos demand that sexual abuse be seen not to exist. Like wife battering, like rape, the sexual abuse of children is an issue which the women's movement is fighting to bring to public awareness. Sexual abuse is any physical contact from one person to another person who is not a willing partner. Diana Ladell, of Nanaimo Rape Relief has been researching the issue and studying the incidence of sexual abuse in the Nanaimo area over the last nine months. When Ladell learned of the statistics on (sexual abuse, her first reaction was one of disbelief. They're way too high, she thought they must be exaggerated. Nine months later she feels that the figure lof one in four is indeed accurate. What kind of man would sexually abuse children? What happens to the victims of the abuse? What kind of situation does child labuse take place in? [Kinesis asked Ladell. When confronted, the response of the sexual abuser varies: She's just making it up because I wouldn't give her an allowance. She was wearing that flimsy little nightgown, so what do you expect? I got drunk and passed out. When I came to my daughter was sitting on top of me, try- • to get my penis inside her. I wanted her first sexual experience to be a good one. My God, I'm glad it's out in the open. The men who sexually abuse children range from chronic offenders to those who do feel extremely guilty and ashamed. The chronic offender is one who has consistently avoided adult relationships and is sexually attracted to young girls. He tends to feel no remorse. Then there's the sexual abuser who has found adult relationships stressful and disappointing. He's depressed, he feels that his manhood has been threatened. It's a new activity for him, begun when his self- image is at a low point. More often than not, this man is a married heterosexual. The suspicion that the child molester is homosexual is a sensational media myth—witness their avid attention to the unusual Toronto murder of shoeshine boy Emmanual Jacques. Happens within regular family units More than 50 per cent of the time, sexual abuse takes place within the regular family unit. Attacks by psychotic child abusers account foi- only five per cent of sexual abuse. Typically, the attacker is the live-in father figure. He could be the father, the stepfather, mother's live-in lover or a brother, uncle or grandfather. The abuse ranges from fondling of breasts to touching genitals, masturbation and intercourse. Physical violence is rarely involved. Because the child does not have bruises visible on her body, the abuse can go undetected for years. Coercion is present, but subtle. Daddy's taking care of me, daddy's paying me special attention, daddy loves me— these are the seductive images which can be presented to the victim. Abuse typically starts when the girl is between eight and 10 or 12 and 13. In one study the victim was 12 years or younger in 81 per cent of the cases. "If I leave, she's next." And it goes on and on—lasting anywhere from six months to 14 years. In one case a 16- year-old said that her father had been "playing with her" for some years now. She was reluctant to leave home because her younger sister was 13 and "if I leave, she's next." What about the mother? It's often the women who get blamed, says Ladell...the wife, the man's own mother, the daughter:..women and kids are in a really bad position in this society. Economically and to some extent emotionally the mother is dependent on the husband. What is she to do? If she reports the case, if the man ends up in jail, she ends up on welfare. There goes her breadwinner. The mother may deny that the sexual abuse has in fact taken place. Or she may clue into other disturbing tensions that have been happening within the family: the grim pieces fall into place. Whatever course is taken, says Ladell, sexual abuse puts the whole family in crisis. Keeping the family together, the Socred's resolute answer to social problems, can in some cases be detrimental. Sometimes that policy can protect the child but sometimes it's best to get the child out of the situation, adds Ladell. What works? Ladell outlined for Kinesis readers one approach which seems to be successful. That's a therapeutic family treatment program in Santa Clara, California. All the family dynamics are treated: mother and father have marital counselling, mother and daughter have therapy, victims and offenders have special groups. In B.C.? People are still trying to cope with the fact that sexual abuse happens, let alone get organized around it. I've just come back from a national conference of rape ■crisis centres and I can tell you that we have as yet no adequate treatment programs operating in this country. We 're still at the stage of making the public acknowledge sexual abuse as a large problem. If we 're going to make any positive steps towards confronting the reality of sexual ■abuse, Ladell stresses, it's important that the people who work with children In that light Ladell sees the B.C. back- to-the-three R's as not being a helpful move. It means that students have less space to talk about their problems. Without that time, the problem doesn't surface until a point of crisis. The crisis could emerge when the girl runs away from home, becomes uncontrollable,or pregnant at age 13. With cruel irony, the victim becomes the social problem. Removing her from her home can feel punitive: she's the one who must have done something wrong because she's the one who is taken away. Keeping her within the home and removing the father can be equally a problem: she can feel responsible for the economic consequences; (They'll send your father to jail and we '11 end up on welfare. Is that what you want to do to us?) The trauma of being used and.betrayed by her father can often mean that the victim loses her sense of self-worth. This in turn leads to further abuse. Studies reveal a high correlation between delinquent acts in adolescence, pregnancy, venereal disease, psychiatric illness and early sexual abuse. As many as 50 per cent of runaway adolescent girls have been involved in sexual abuse. About 70 per cent of adolescent drug addictions and 60 per cent of young prostitutes were victims of some form of family sexual abuse. Many adult women report adult sexual problems as a result of early sexual abuse. And 90 per cent of mothers seeking help in a California refuge for people who physically abuse their children said that they had been sexually assaulted as children. Almost all of us have our story Talk with any group of adult women, says Ladell. You'll find almost everyone has a story. In the course of her study, she talked with groups of Brownies, with, junior high and senior high school students. She heard girls speak of sexual abuse, making it public for the very first time. She was approached on her own, after discussions, by students who wanted to tell someone privately. Sexual abuse, the most concealed form of child abuse, is just now being brought out into the open. Learning about it feels a bit like seeing pictures of Dachau for the first time. The sooner we can generate a better-informed and less defensive acceptance of sexual abuse as a common fact of family life, the better it will be for the women involved.■16 Kinesis July '79 NON-TRADITIONAL WORK Iowa firefighter fights to feed her baby By Jan Wood Linda Eaton, the only female firefighter on the Iowa City force, has gone to court over the right to be different. She is the only firefighter on the force who breastfeeds her baby during working hours. Linda states: I'm not trying to create a ruckus. I wish we could settle all this amicably. I just want to nurse my baby. I want to continue nursing my baby myself because I don't want to give up that emotional closeness. Also breastfeeding is healthier than bottle feeding. With all the stress on families, and the disruption in family life today, you would think employers would try to encourage bonding between parents and their children. Not try to prevent it. Asked if she thought her breastfeeding distracted male firefighters or aroused their "sexual-aggressive tendencies," Linda answered: I'm nowhere near the male firefighters when I feed him. The other firefighters don't even see Ian when I'm nursing him. My mother and my sister bring him to me during my breaks twice a day. They usually come to the back door with him, and I go down two flights of stairs to a room reserved for women. There are two chairs. I sit in the more comfortable ohair when I nurse Ian. He's used to the room now. I'm nowhere near the male firefighters when I nurse him. Does it interfere with her job? No, if there were a call I would hand him right over and go and fight the fire. Has there been any support from co-workers? Not. much. I get the impression from some of the men that their wives are encouraging them not to support me. I don't know how true that is, but only one firefighter has expressed publicly his support for me. He 's the only black firefighter on the force. Two others expressed their support to me privately but they didn't want to jeopardize their jobs, or their relations with the other fellows, so they want to keep it that way. Anyway, now a memo has come out saying that the other firefighters shouldn't make derogatory remarks about me, so they're all being very careful." Does she think being a single mother has adversely affected her in this situation?' J wasn't married when I became pregnant, and I'm not married now. But even if I were married, I think I would still have trouble about nursing my baby at the fire- house. Having a baby is a very special thing to me. I would like to spend more time with my baby but I have to work to support myself. I like being a firefighter. It's a good job and I don't want to have to give it up. And besides, a lot of people around me are really happy to know that I'm not on welfare. Iowa City officials, anxious to avoid a court battle, offered Linda employment elsewhere, but she refused. She was offered jobs as a bus driver, maintenance worker, animal control officer, and police dispatcher, all of which pay higher wages . than what Linda now earns. She was also offered the alternatives of an unpaid leavel of absence, and permission to use a breast pump during working hours to obtain milk for her baby. She has found all of these alternatives unacceptable. Asked whether she thought a ruling against her might jeopardize the rights of her male co-workers who in future might also want to breastfeed their babies at the firehouse, firefighter Linda Eaton had no comment. Donations to Linda Eaton's Legal Defense Fund can be sent to: Johnson County, Iowa City NOW, P.O. Box 946, Iowa City, Iowa 52240. ■Info: New Directions for Women, The Guardian and The Express. In B.C. women can fight fires for free, but not for fee By Janet Beebe News of the Iowa woman fighting for her right to breastfeed her baby at her workplace, the firehall, reminds us of the struggle B.C. women are waging to become firefighters. In Vancouver, that struggle has been going on publicly for the last two years, since city officials and a local fire chief made it clear that women, as well as Asians, were not considered firefighting material. Vancouver officials have resisted any change in height and weight restrictions for city firefighters because, they said, such a move would reduce safety standards. In debate in city council at the time, the issue was actually one of cost rather than safety—the cost of providing facilities should women become firefighters. A time-worn excuse! Aid. May Brown stated during the debate: You can defeat any issue by saying there isn't enough money. There never is enough money for everything. It is just a matter of making it a priority. Height, weight and age restrictions for firefighters vary somewhat throughout the Lower Mainland. Vancouver stipulates a minimum height and weight of 5'9" and 160 pounds, and a maximum age of 29 for applicants. New Westminster and North Vancouver base selection on individual merit rather than arbitrary standards. New Westminster, Burnaby and White Rock all dropped their age requirements more than two years ago, fearing that such restrictions contravened B.C.'s human rights legislation. Outside the Lower Mainland, smaller cities and towns commonly adopt standards set by large cities such as Vancouver. Standards can be valid, or they may simply be arbitrary and without substance. In Washington State, where height and weight restrictions were dropped more than five years ago, fire officials have stated: The regulations could not be substantiated. They were found not to be relevant to the job. It was felt there that height and weight restrictions were particularly discriminatory to Asians. Perhaps women just are not cut out for "rough" jobs like firefighting. After all think (with appropriate dismay) of the spectre raised by city officials here, of a 5' woman struggling—we must assume unsuccessfully—to carry a 200 pound man from a burning building. As they say, Who the hell fights fires in China? Women can be found fighting fires ably in a number of cities which have abolished height and weight restrictions, and in some specialized areas such as forestry and the armed forces. It is also significant that women have long been considered good enough for volunteer firefighting in countless small towns and rural districts all over North America. Here, as a positive counterpoint to the struggle of urban women for access to firefighting jobs, is a profile of a volunteer fire department on Galiano Island, where half of the 40 members are women. Volunteering on Galiano Galiano is one of the Gulf Islands, approximately 17 miles long and ranging from i to five miles wide. The permanent population is around 600, but with the influx of summer residents and visitors the population swells to at least 1,500. Homes are scattered from one end of the island to the other, most of them being at the so-called South End, where the ferry docks are located. Because about 2/3 of the island is forested, trees are the greatest fire dan- ► Kinesis July '79 17 ger. However, house fires are not uncommon and often result from overheated wood stoves (still widely used) or chimney fires. Potentially, there could be serious fires at each dock since they are wooden structures chemically treated to prevent rot, or at the one gas station and the oil storage tanks behind it. Another fire problem is the hazard created by the carelessness of visitors to the island. Fire hazards highest in summer As anywhere in B.C., the time of highest fire hazard is in the summer, especially dry summers. At such times, the water table on the island is drastically reduced because of the lack of rain and the increased population, so there can be great problems simply in having sufficient water to fight a fire. If the sea is close enough to a fire, salt water can be pumped to the scene (though salt water can be hard on the equipment). In the event of a fire, firefighters and equipment are sent out from the one fully-equipped fire hall at the South End of the island. Apart from a small portable water tank and untrained volunteers, there is no adequate local fire protection for residents beyond approximately the midway point on the island because of the practical and financial difficulties of servicing North End residents . Galiano has no local municipal government but instead is governed from Victoria. Because the island is an unorganized area, and its population too small to qualify for a provincially-funded fire department, fire protection is provided by volunteer effort under the administration of a fire chief, who receives a small stipend. Women have been firefighters on Galiano only since 1975. A year earlier, the \ women's auxiliary to the South Galiano Fire Department had been formed to assist more directly in supporting firefighting activities. Initially, there was some outrage at the presumption" that women have any role in active firefighting. Generally, however, "I get a lot out of firefighting, though I'd like to have more formal training than I do." team spirit has been good and the active women have proven their worth as firefighters . Training in the basic skills of firefighting is available to all active members. Skills include: — teamwork techniques — radio 'operation — driving the firetruck, including operation of pumps and gear — hose and ladder handling — salt water techniques — rescue skills, including familiarity with first aid and rescue skills — servicing of the firetruck — maintenance of the fire hall, including water supply, tools and equipment One joins the South Galiano Volunteer Fire Department simply by volunteering. New members learn by doing in most cases, although some people bring to the job valuable practical experience from which all firefighters benefit. For instance, women are often strong and experienced in outdoor work, or have skills in such areas as carpentry and machine handling. In addition, women are used to providing back-up, and so are skilled in teamwork. Men more often, although not exclusively, have backgrounds in trades such as forestry, truck driving, mechanics and a few have previous firefighting experience. Jean Wilson, who is an active firefighter on Galiano states: I^ joined'the fire department because I didn't want to feel helpless in the event of a fire. I wasn't interested in simply joining the WA and helping in the more traditional ways. The way we are set up now, active women and non-active women (those who don't actually fight fires) all belong to the WA. At our meetings, we discuss and initiate ways in which, from our accumulated funds, we can best support the SGVFD, such as the purchase or repair of equipment. I get a lot out of being an active firefighter, though I'd like to have more formal training than I do. I've learned some basics about firefighting that I never had the opportunity to learn in cities. I can do_ something responsibly about a fire, I have a good practical knowledge which benefits me and the community, and I can be active in a way which best suits me. Since I am reasonably young and strong and not great at sitting around in women's groups geared to being anonymous behind- the-scenes drudges for men, this fire department suits me very well. I like the women and men in the department, feel personally accountable to both, and have been impressed by the cooperation and team effort that has occurred at fires and in other department activities. More women should have the opportunity to prove that they can take an equally active part in what concerns everybody, m Meet Kinesis' summer solstice slippery sardine award winner The"school district you work in—and in which your children are being educated— sends around a flyer announcing that the Grade 3 girls will be taking part in (of all things) a Sardine Queen contest. Knowing that the sardine queens of today are the Playboy bunnies of tommorow, you write a letter of protest which is what Richmond teacher Naomi Lis did. In part, she wrote: With the increasingly-raised consciousness in the community about the negative repercussions on women and girls of sexism in our society. ..I felt sad that such otherwise excellent schools in our community continue to support this archaic and discriminatory (and, might I add, degrading) process in which little girls are selected and paraded in the local media and in community events, to be accompanied by 'ooh, aren't they cute. ' Too much for Mr. Sardine This letter was altogether too much for% Don McKinnon, coordinator of the Richmond Centennial Sardine Queen Day. His letter to Naomi Lis wins this month's slippery sardine award by a mile. Here is what the Sardine Queen Day coordinator has to say for himself: Dear Mrs. Lis; Reference is made to your letter dated May 3, 1979... Normally a letter such as yours is discarded or filed as poison ( McKinnon spelt it poisen) pen. However when a teacher in the Richmond School District takes issue with the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers a reply is necessary and I trust you will read mine and analyze it as I have your letter. Firstly you have used some words of a learned scholar placing your letter high above the level of a dedicated volunteer. From my Funk and Wagnalls I have found; A. Sexism - This word is not in the Dictionary (I also checked Websters). B. Archaic - Old fashioned, antiquated, characterizing a word, an inflectional form, or a phrase no longer in use. C. Discriminatory - showing prejudice or bias. Question? To whom - the winner is the result of the draw. D. Degrading - to debase or lower in character, morals etc. Question? How do you lower the character of a Grade Three student. E. The reference to "Ooh, aren't they cute." Question? Do you not show pictures of your children to your friends and is not the reply the same. I do hope you attend our pageant on June 9 and that your daughter represents her school next year. By attending the pageant your eyes will open and you will see the light. In closing I am sorry that a teacher would place on paper words from emotion rather than thought. An old saying would apply in this instance- "Get it first, but first get right." Yours in Disbelief, Dan McKinnon Coordinator Centennial Sardine Queen Day ■Assortment of turkeys Salem attorney Charles Burt, who represented John Rideout in Oregon's first marital rape case, recently attended a dinner for the Bar Board of Governors where he was presented with a T shirt that read: Rapists need love, too. Found in the employees' washroom of a Dairy Queen in Penticton: ATTENTION TO EMPLOYEES: Any person working the front counter that (sic) comes to work in a bad mood and has a sour look on their face will be asked by management to either improve the condition or go back home. ffi Barbara Amiel (in Maclean's, June 4).* Guess what they 're protesting this time ...SEXUAL HARASSMENT. ...Perhaps I'm just peeved. I've been in the labor force for over 20 years in every job from waitress to executive and no one has ever sexually harassed i Maybe I just don 't have any < iiii According to a Gallup poll conducted for the publication "Woman's Own," one in six husbands has never looked after his child on his own; one fourth have never put their children to bed; and one in three have never read to their children. Women's Report/BMR 18 Kinesis^ July '79 INTERNATIONAL NEWS KVomen in the struggle for Phillipine liberation Why are you so hard? They ask. Why do you not bend a little? Taken from a poem dedicated to a Filipino woman revolutionary, Nelia Sancho, the verse is actually an apt description of women and men involved in the Philippine revolutionary movement. Faced with the most brutal threat imaginable from the hands of the military under Philippine dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, women in the Philippines have surged forward in their fight against all the "isms" such as facism, feudalism, bureaucratic capitalism and imperialism, which have caused the sufferings of the Filipino nation for centuries. Intimidation, harassment, torture, rape, imprisonment and even death have failed to keep women out of the revolutionary mass movement. I was very impressed, says Elaine Ko, an American citizen who was a recent visitor to the country. Women are definitely in the forefront of the struggle. They have taken on leadership positions and are very actively involved in doing organizing work. Some examples that Ko cited occurred in the province of Davao in the southern section of the Philippines. A slum area in Davao City called Piapi has an all-woman leadership in its community organization. The women have managed to establish collective childcare throughout the area. Ko talked about the people of Bienvenida, a small barrio (or village) where one woman became known as the "revolutionary heroine of Bienvenida" because of her leading role in trying to stop the arrest of 34 farmers who refused to be evicted from their land. Unfortunately, she landed in jail along with the farmers. Meanwhile, the wives and children of the farmers took over the work in the fields, plowing the soil and planting the crops. In another section of Davao City, workers in a cigar factory (all women) defied military harassment as they went on strike to back their demand for a union. In short, says Ko, women play an active role in the national democratic movement. In rural areas they are defying military abuses and fighting against evictions. In urban areas they are struggling for better living conditions and demanding higher wages in factories. I was very impressed. The participation of the Filipino woman in the present struggle can be traced to the so-called First Quarter Storm (1969- 1971). It was then when the call for a national democratic revolution was issued by the Communist Party of the Philippines. It is national because it seeks to assert national sovereignity against U.S. imperial, ism and its local running dogs. It is democratic because it seeks to fulfill the peasant demand for equal distribution of land and to restore the full democratic rights of the people against fascism. It was also during this period that the first militant women's organization, MAKIBAKA was formed. MAKIBAKA is an acronym which stands for FIGHT—STRUGGLE ON. At the same time, revolutionary songs were enticing women to unite and fight against oppression: 0 oppressed woman, Think and ponder You have long been oppressed, Subject to foreign rule. Why don't you defend yourself? Your children are starving Your youngest wails, Can you bear to see them suffering? Why don't you rise up If you truly are a mother who feels and cares? This song undoubtedly rang through the hearts of most women. Not so much because of the haunting melody, but because the reality of their suffering became more vivid. It was therefore to be expected when women joined the movement in droves. They took on tasks and responsibilities and ► Women's class locations within the Phillipines The peasant woman in the Philippines, compared with others, takes a more active part in the process of production. Together with her man she plants, harvests and winnows rice if that is the source of their livelihood. This affords them more status, and thus more say, in domestic affairs and more help from the man in the rearing of children. However, other than taking part in some stages in the process of production, women are compelled to stay home, care for the children, cook, wash dishes and clothes, and plant vegetables or raise pigs or poultry to supplement an insufficient family income. Unlike the men, women have little or no dealings with the landlord, and this tends to shut out from their purview any first-hand knowledge of class struggle in its principal feudal form (i.e., the landlord-tenant relationship). Unlike the men, their knowledge of the process of agricultural production is confined to a few stages, and this effectively limits their perspective and confines their vision, rendering them incapable of handling processes bigger than the management of vegetable gardens and pig sties. This limited role of peasant women in the productive process of the feudal mode of px"oduction narrows down their perspective. While peasant women are compelled to stay home to care for their children, men are entitled to a certain amount of recreation that may be unenlightening, but which nevertheless affords them the ability to see new things, hear new talk, discuss new issues. The fact that men, aside from having a more thorough grasp of the mode of production, can also expound on vital issues that affect the barrio, the town, or even the nation, goes a long way in thickening the aura of male authority that surrounds them. The fact that women are compelled to stay home and are thus limited to "tsismis" (gossip) and inane comic books, on the other hand, goes a long way in thickening the aura of ignorance that, pervades their everyday lives. The knowledge made available to the wives of workers is'even more limited than that made available to peasant women in the sense that these women are nearly all excluded from the productive process of the capitalist mode of production. And because lay offs are frequent and life is generally more hectic, the frustrations of the unpoliticized husband over his inability to provide sufficient support for his family often leads him to take it out on his wife and children, he being the male authority and breadwinner. Unpoliticized husbands take out frustrations on family The incidence of intra-family violence with the man as aggressor, is higher and sharper in worker families for this reason. However, because layoffs are frequent and unemployment is rampant in semi- colonial Philippines under the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship, the woman is often called upon to become a worker herself, if her income as "labandera" (washer woman) is insufficient to provide for the family. This is increasingly the case with wor kers ' daughters in their teens as well as, less frequently, workers' wives. The concept of women as domestic slaves is felt less acutely by wives coming from the national bourgeoisie, and in greater degree, from the petty bourgeoisie., This happens because, having no part at all in the mode of production, they still partake of the more substantial fruits of their husbands' labor and do not have to work too much at home because they can afford to pay a poor woman to do their household tasks. The major occupation of this class of women is to keep themselves pretty and lively so that hubby can relax after a day's "work." In these "upper" classes women are more like commodities, indeed like legal prostitutes, doled out a regular stipend to provide their men with the required entertainment and relaxation. Of course they play also the important role of the incubators of the next generation of the ruling class by making babies who will inherit the father's wealth and property. On the other hand, they too have little or no part in production. This says much about the backwardness of women in the bourgeoisie in relation to their men as it does for the backwardness of worker and peasant women. And if they too are forced to choose to take up a career, they are discriminated against because according to tradition, men not having been reared and brainwashed as stay-at- home types, are backed by the work experience and the education that equips them with a broader perspective and better tools of work. ■By Clarita Roja, Filipino Women and the Revolution Kinesis July '79 19 worked as hard as everybody else, at risk of life and limbs. With the declaration of martial law in Sept. 22, 1972, it was no surprise when women went "underground," left school and/ or their families to work in areas where they were needed and/or joined the New People's Army. Women drawn into major struggles Today, a fully operational Red Women's Detachment exists. It is composed mostly of peasant women and attached to the new People's Army. Women sit on almost all party committees and hold responsible positions in different levels of the organizational structure. At this stage of the struggle, several organizations, which exist in the urban areas to assist people in their fight against the fascist regime, have women in the forefront, Trinidad Herrera, already a victim of military's torture chambers, is one of the leading women in ZOTO, a militant organization fighting for the rights of the squatters in Tondo, Manila. ZOTO led a march in 1973 of 5,000 people to Malacanagn Palace, the residence of the dictator, to demand that Marcos keep his promise to improve their living conditions . The head of Task Force Detainees, the organization keeping a close watch on the conditions and whereabouts of political prisoners, is Sister Marianni Dimaranan. Even in the religious sector, whose role in the Philippine struggle is now becoming a phenomena, it is known that there are more nuns than priests involved in the struggle. Heartwarming as all this women-power is, we certainly do remember that "the revolution is not a picnic." Several courageous women; Liza Balando (a worker), Lorrie Barros (head of MAKIBAKA) and Liliosa Hilao (a peasant) to name a few—have lost their lives in the hands of the fascist government. Two social workers, Rose Apit and Susan Patacsil, were the most recent victims of the dictatorship. The two women were with the poor workers in a watermelon field in the town of Arayat, Pampanga (87 km northwest of Manila) when, on April 15, "the town was disturbed by a long burst of gunfire," narrated the town priest. When this ceased, and when the farmers found the two ladies, they were lying exposed'in the field, stripped naked by the military. Their bodies, from which life had been cut, were molested in all parts. Many more will likely suffer the same fate for as long as the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship exists in the country. Others who survived after their capture are now languishing in military camps without much end in sight. Nevertheless, they have managed to be heard by staging protest actions inside the camp. One instance was a hunger strike in 1974 and 1977 to back their demands for the release of pregnant women detainees and for better living conditions in the camp. On International Women's Day in March, 1977 a solidarity message was smuggled out by the women detainees. Today, we female prisoners in Camp Bicutan express our firm solidarity with women everywhere who are in the forefront of the struggle. We have great faith in this struggle. We believe that the progressive winds of change will blow towards fundamental changes leading to the liberation of women as part of the liberation of people, not only in the context of Philippine society, but also in all societies where oppression and injustice previal today. Female Political Prisoners, Camp Bicutan, Taguig, Metro Manila, March 8, 1977. _ Illinois denied abortion cut-off The United States Supreme Court this month refused to allow Illinois officials to cut off funding for most women on welfare who want an abortion. The justices denied two emergency requests that sought to end financial aid for abortions to all poor women under the Medicaid program except those whose lives are jeopardized by the pregnancies. The Illinois department of public aid and two physicians had asked that the state be allowed to enforce a law cutting off most abortion funds pending further appeals. Justice John Paul Stevens denied the requests, after which they were referred to the full court for their consideration, which also turned them down. Justice Stevens said he found "wholly un- persuasive" the state argument that it incurred a financial drain while having to continue funding abortions, it is less expensive for the state to pay the entire cost of an abortion than it is for it to pay only its share of the costs associated with a full-term pregnancy, he said. All of this must stick in Henry Hyde's throat. Hyde is the Illinois representative in Congress who sponsored the infamous Hyde Amendment, which bans most federally funded abortions for the poor. As a result of the Hyde Amendment, a projected 250,000 federally-funded abortions dropped to only 2,421 actual abortions last year. But that's still too many for Henry Hyde. "The real problem," says Hyde, lies with state governments which continue to fund the abortions for poor women. B Crigler facing 10 years A Washington State woman, Sharon Crigler, who had asked for police protection, is facing the uncertainty which is finally over for Wanrow. Crigler, a 22-year-old black welfare mother, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting her ex- boyfriend when he attempted to break into her house in a clear act of vengance. Initially, the police decided that the shooting was justifiable homicide. It was not until a week after the shooting in 1977 that Sharon was charged with first degree murder. The basis for the murder charge was that Crigler asked the Tacoma Appellate Court that her conviction be overturned and the charges dropped . It was after Sharon's conviction that the Washington State Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark decision known as the "Wanrow Instructions," that a jury must take into account the physical and psychological differences when a woman must defend herself against a man in this society. The Circuit Court judges have yet to decide to overturn her conviction. Even if she wins her appeal, Crigler expects to be retried. "They have too much at stake to let me win," she said. "If I win it might open up a lot of other cases here and around the country which are based on similar situations." V.D. linked with miscarriage A Massachusetts doctor is recommending that women who want to have children be tested for a venereal infection which may be responsible for as many as one in four miscarriages in the U.S. Doctor Kuth Kundsin of Boston reports that the infection known as T-mycoplasma is often diagnosed as "non-specific vaginitis" in women by doctors who are not familiar with the disease. Kundsin says that more gynecologists are becoming aware of T-mycoplasma after recent studies showed that 93 per cent of a test group of men with urinary infections and 51 per cent of women with conception and pregnancy problems were infected with this disease. Pandora ■Xerox machines fume Xerox machines can be dangerous to working women. They can, and often do, produce ozone fumes as a byproduct. Ozone can cause throat and eye irritation, coughs, headaches and chest pain. A government survey of the ozone in an office in Philadelphia showed that five out of six machines had potentially dangerous levels of ozone at the machine's delivery trays when they were operating continuously. Duplicators and electrostencil machines also give off hazardous fumes. It is important to take health symptoms seriously: headaches, sore throats, and * eye strain are often regarded as "personal problems" rather than seen as work-rel- lated. Union Boycott Contac-C, Sea and Ski The Alliance for the Liberation of Mental Patients is demanding that the production of Thorazine and Stelazine be halted immediately. A nationwide boycott of SmithKline's other products include: Contac cold capsules, Love Cosmetics, Sea and Ski products, Allergy Relief Medicine and Sine- Off nasal spray. Every day Thorazine and Stelazine are forced on psychiatric "patients," prisoners, nursing home residents and other institutionalized people, with side effects that include: dizziness, lethargy, blurred vision, impaired thinking, hallucinations, sexual dysfunction and death. Big Mama Rag B Kinesis July '7, Lesbian Sensibility Debate —Part III By Cy-thea Sand I have followed, with a keen interest, the Lesbian Sensibility Debate between Connie Smith and Sylvia Spring (Kinesis: March, April/May and June 1979). Connie believes that "It is the artist's responsibility, especially the lesbian feminist artist, to help create through her medium, images.which inspire, set new standards, and support the belief that equal relationships between women are possible and do exist." Perhaps Smith's perspective would have been better understood if this statement had appeared in her original criticism. Sylvia chose to react to what she calls Connie's insensitivity. Inaccurate assumptions and deductions followed. No where did Connie clump all lesbians together or infer that lesbianism is a political choice divorced from emotional complexity or that there is, or should be a monolithic lesbian sensibility. It seems to me that COnnie is interested in what Cheri Register, a feminist literary critic, calls "prescriptive criticism: criticism which attempts to set standards for literature that is "good" from a feminist viewpoint. It is prescriptive in that it implies a need for new literature that meets its standards. It can guide authors who are writing literary works from a new feminist perspective as well as guide those critics who are analyzing existing literature." Sylvia's contention that only a minority of lesbian feminists have or are struggling towards liberated relationships, does not preclude our need for artistic expressions of them. Moreover, Sylvia's question as to whether or not we "must condemn lesbian literature from the past for not living up to our present purified standards," is misleading. Natalie Barney (1876-1972) and Renee Vivien (1877-1907) infused the gay Parisian scene of the early twentieth century with their lesbian feminist visions. "Vivien scoured her sources for themes of female independence. Amazons, Androgynes and archaic dieties abound in her writing," writes Gayle Rubin her introduction to NATALIE BARNEY 1876 - 1972 United Stales. Writer, aphoris Vivien's novel A Woman Appeared To Me. Rubin also discusses Natalie Barney's revolutionary ideas on romantic/erotic love. Claire Morgan's The Price of Salt, published in 1952, is beautifully free of lesbian sex-role stereotyping. Our lesbian literary tradition is as complex and diverse as contemporary lesbian literature. The enemy of the women's movement is more multi-faceted than "the myth of romantic love." I agree, however, that the phenomenon of romantic love is acutely oppressive n—whether lesbian or heterosexual. However unfair to Jane Rule and Marge Piercy Connie may have been, surely there is room'in our movement for lesbian critics who express concern and anger with artists who fictionalize the myth and its accompanying role playing. I do not believe that this concern infers or suggests that male- identified women should be ignored in our personal lives or in our art. Both Connie and Sylvia are attacking patriarchal romanticism. Connie's demand for lesbian feminist art which does not perpetuate stereotypes and self-hatred is both valid and instructive. Sylvia's reminder that we have all internalized the myth is important and incisive. Their approaches are complementary. I think feminist literature should avoid pedantry, though, writing good politics but poor art. There i_s a dilemna for the feminist artist in re-creating life as it should be or how it is for her. But as women collectively heal their psychic scars, imposed on us by androcentric culture, life and art will celebrate women's evolution ..and re-creation. ■------————————*---——-———————-—-——————— Langara Women's Studies Women 9s Room weekend —anything but dull I spent the weekend of June 16 and 17 in a seminar on Marilyn French's novel The Women's Room. The Langara campus poster advertising the event asked participants to analyse the following questions: Is there inevitable conflict between men's and women's life goals? Can self-determined lives be combined with close relationships? As the feminist consciousness level of the 14 women present was so varied, the weekend became more like a consciousness- raising session than a seminar analysis of the novel. We used the novel as our frame of reference to stimulate discussion. Some of the many questions raised were debated; others were ignored by the demands of time. We discussed whether or not children were a trap for women, does money equal power, do women take power away from other women, are we inevitably caught in one system or another, is a permanent and health commitment to another person possible in our society and whether or not we could find any hope beyond the novel's ending. One woman strongly disagreed with her perception of the novel's fundamental assumption: that society is based on male control and dominated by a rape mentality. Others strongly agreed. Our multi-levelled t discussions pivoted around our agreement or disagreement as to whether or not "men are the ultimate enemy." As the group was fairly well equally composed of radical, liberal and conservative women, the weekend was anything but dull. Frustrating yes, threatening, sometimes but dull—never. Atmosphere of tolerance, respect One of the most beautiful aspects of the weekend for me was that despite the fundamental philosophical and political differ ences between us, there was an atmosphere of respect for and tolerance of each others views. This phenonenom is rare when members of an oppressed group meet to analyse their discontent. I was impressed by the brilliance of the humor and the genuine concern we had for each other. Cy-thea Sand ■Womanspirit: an artists' directory WOMANSPIRIT is currently compiling a directory which will provide a communication link across Canada for feminist artists. Womanspirit—an art, research and learning centre in London Ontario wants to make its multi-faceted artistic directory as comprehensive as possible. Categories of interest for the directory are very broad, ranging from painting and sculpture through music, mime and literature to dance, video, glass-blowing and metal-work. If you are a feminist artist and you want to be included in this directory, send your name, address and phone number plus a short description of your work to: Womanspirit, 237 Dundas Street, London, Ontario, N6A 1H1. _■a birthing experience Where do babies come from? Six-year-old Rukmini and two-year old Tara won't have to ask that question. They know. They may ask, Why do my friends ' mothers have to go to the hospital to have babies? Hospitals are for sick people. That's the question and comment their father, Alan Jacobs, makes'in his song -entitled "Home Birth." Alan questions the substitution of advanced medical technology for human warmth and love in the birthing experience. Placing births in the hands of the experts has robbed mothers, fathers and children of the right to natural joys , the experiential process of creating life and parent-infant bonding. For Zin and her husband Alan the birth of Rukmini in a Vancouver hospital in 1972 simply was "not connected enough." There was no support. An episiotomy was administered routinely even though Rukmini weighed only six pounds. Although Alan witnessed the birth, the hospital version just didn't make it with him. Zin and he knew that the next one had to be at home. An English-trained registered nurse midwife attended Tara's birth in New York MARGARET SANGER 1879-1966 United States. city in 1976. Her size (nine pounds) and Zin's small frame would probably have encouraged a forceps delivery in the hospital. Because the midwife applied perineal massage, there was no need for such barbarity. The warm feeling of sisterhood developed between midwife and mother was soul-stirring for Zin. A Vancouver lay midwife from the Birth Centre helped Zin and" Alan with Jetsun's birth last April. Alan says he feels "incredibly at one with his kids," after experiencing two home births. For him it meant holding Zin and squatting behind her while she gave birth to Tara. It meant cutting the cord for both Tara and Jetsun. It also meant sharing the birth euphoria with Zin. Mary Burns ■Kinesis July '79 21 Working for your life Lead?...I've been working here since 1948. Lead's not dangerous unless you pick it up and eat it. So begins an interview at a lead storage battery plant conducted by Labor Occupational Health Program staff members Ken Light and Andrea Hricko as part of their new documentary film."Working For Your Life," based on the LOHP handbook with the same title, is a 55 minute color film focusing on the often overlooked hazards faced by women on their jobs. Filmed in over 40 workplaces, the film highlights occupations that are both traditional ones for women (eg. clerical and hospital workers) and jobs into which women are just beginning to move (such as mining). Shots of women at work are interwoven with interviews of women who have been injured on the job or who are actively involved in trying to improve their working conditions. One woman discusses leaving her clerical job to take a higher-paying industrial job in a production line bakery—only to have her hand maimed by a machine on which she had been improperly trained. Another woman talks of years of exposure to dust in an electrical appliance plant before discovering that the dust was asbestos. Their names have been added to the ever growing statistics on workers whose lives have been disrupted or ruined by hazards on their jobs. But "Working For Your Life" will not be simply an examination of these problems. It shows women who are seeking solutions •to these job hazards, including a woman who set up a union health and safety committee, women testifying at Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hearings, and a woman organizer who is concerned about health hazards in her electronics plant. With 20,000 feet of film already shot, the slow process of editing has begun. LOHP has been'fortunate to have the support of many unions and foundations during the making of the film. Grants from the Film Fund and the Woody Guthrie Foundation have enabled the film to progress to this point. But over $17,000 must still be raised. All contributions are tax deductible and any assistance or ideas for additional sources of funds will be gratefully appreciated. A copy of the handbook may be had by sending $10 to Labor Occupational Health Program,-University of California, 2521 Charming'Way, Berkeley, CA 94720. Make checks payable to the Regents of University of California. ■Five Sleazy Pieces not enough Remember those movies we were supposed to like? By Janet Beebe I first saw "Five Easy Pieces" when I was 18. I disliked the film but the praise it received then (and continues to receive) has all these years made me mistrust my initial perception. I recently saw this film again—to compare my reaction eight years later. "Five Easy Pieces" gives us scenes from the life of a working man. Bobby (Jack Nicholson) has had the benefit of an extensive musical education as part of a very talented musical family. In his youth, however, he rejected a musical career and became a roamer, working when he needed to. Bobby is portrayed as a confused individual, caught between two worlds - the cultured milieu of his youth and the less- threatening world of oil rigs, bowling alleys and country music that he has run to. Bobby never stops running in the film but he is never portrayed as pathetic for it. He is a hero for being who he is. My sympathy for Bobby and for the movie stops here, for to build Bobby into a hero requires that every woman in the movie be put down. Rayette (Karen Black) lives with Bobby. She is a waitress who would like a singing career and wants support for that (recall a similar character in "Nashville"). Rayette receives nothing but bad treatment from Bobby. It is clear that he would like to leave her, but it seems his compassion (or is it his de-* sire?) for her won't let him walk away from her. Only once in the movie does Bobby defend Rayette, and that is in a verbal attack on another woman (a stereotypical pinch-faced spinster, if there ever was one). This is a movie, unfortunately, in which female stereotypes abound. The swinging singles who provide sexual competition for Rayette are one-dimensional, almost disposable characters. Bobby and Rayette pick up two women hitchhikers who provide comic relief until they and Rayette begin to fight and Bobby has to intervene to "shut them up." Even his sister, a talented pianist, comes off as a pathetic character. She who chooses a career over a man only courts loneliness and displays her "penis envy" in the process. The one woman in the film credited with intellectual depth and spirit is a music student engaged to Bobby's older brother, whose integrity is hard-pressed in the face of Bobby's inevitable sexual advances. She succumbs, of course, in the middle of a fight. Bobby leaves all these women by the end of the movie: the swingers, the hitchhikers (at the side of the road), his sister, the music student, and finally, Rayette. Bobby leaves her at a truck stop without a word, only his wallet and the car, and makes his escape by jumping into a passing rig. Of course Bobby is escaping from something deeper than Rayette or any of the other women in the film. My question is, why were the women portrayed as the losers in this film? Audience reaction to this movie involved much musculine approval—guffaws, hoots, even applause, but there was very little response from women. They must have been as disappointed as I was.B Committee will monitor TV sexism from PAT DALEY, Upstream- If you're tired of seeing women on television with their heads stuck in ovens, wishing they'd married Mr. Muscle take heed. The federal government has established a new committee to monitor sexist stereotyping in the electronic media which, according to former federal communications minister Jeanne Sauve, will through -regularly publishing the results of its analysis...empower the Canadian 'public to bring pressure on advertisers and broadcasters. Announcing the creation of the committee at the Second International Advertising Show in late April, Sauve said, The government's concern is based on the view that the use of sexist stereotyping in advertising is an impediment to the changing status of Canadian women and that the negative portrayal of women is becoming increasingly offensive. Sauve also said that the Canadian Radio- Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has started to develop guidelines and standards to encourage the elimination of sex role stereotyping on television and.radio, including the vh^TMjP> development of codes to define sexist content in advertising and broadcasting. The daily assault on the dignity of women continues, Sauve told her advertising audience, pointing to a CRTC report which shows that 59 per cent of Canadians — both male and female—agree that a lot of television advertisements are insulting to women. Statistics like that contain the seeds of a major revolt. So.it is in the best interests of advertisers themselves to accept the reality of change. The new monitoring committee grew out of the International Women's Year conference in Mexico City in 1975. A world plan of action to be carried out over the next decade was declared then, Sauve said. The result in Canada was the federal government's plan of action for women, released this spring, of which this committee is part. The seven-woman committee will have its independence guaranteed, she said, by the stature of its members and. ..by its right to publish what it pleases without reference to either the minister or the department of communications. I have confidence that the committee, by providing avenues for translating individual concern into public pressures, will soon generate positive results. And I have confidence that the day will come when basic humanity prevails on the airwaves; a day when all of us can enjoy that simple riqht to dignity, Sauve said.a Feminist computer technologists With the goal of making the powerful tools of computer technology available to more women, the Feminist Computer Technology Project was launched at the U.S. National Women's Studies Association conference held last month in Lawrence, Kansas. The group wants to hear from women who are involved in the field of computer technology. An initial action of the project will be to seek funding for an experimental computing centre to be' set up in 1980. Contact the project's communications facilitator: Helen Eisen-Rotkopf, 4407-c Normandy Trace Drive, St. Louis, M0 63121. 22 Kinesis July 79 LETTERS Women's Building I dispute the research done by Gillian Marie in her June '79 Kinesis article on the history of the first women's building in Vancouver. Her research leads us to believe that the first women's building in Vancouver was founded in 1911, but in fact, Vancouver's first building was established by the YWCA, which opened its doors to Vancouver's women in 1897. The early work of the Vancouver YWCA wasv not merely to provide food and shelter to young immigrant women who came as strangers to the city. Early activities included classes in bible study, domestic science, elementary English, voice culture, penmanship, dressmaking, shorthand, cooking and home nursing. In the early 1900's the YWCA involved women employed in factories, laundries, hotels, restaurants and homes, in self- governing clubs which met at the 'Y' in the evening. These clubs served as an avenue for personal development as they allowed, by their self-governing nature, women to develop their leadership potential. Nor was the early work of the Vancouver YWCA just educational and recreational in nature. The 'Y' was involved as it is today in social issues that affect the lives of women. Following the introduction by the 'Y' in 1934 of the first domestic homeworkers course in B.C., action was initiated by the YWCA to endorse the Domestic Houseworkers Code which established regular hours of work and a minimum wage for Canada's 134,000 domestics. The Vancouver YWCA today is a place for women. It is all the things that the proposed, new women's building wants to achieve. The organization is owned and managed by women (70 women staff, 14 women board of directors). It provides housing accommodation, recreational facilities, an information centre including a housing registry, counselling service, restaurant, child minding service for program participants and volunteers, meeting rooms, auditorium for banquets and dances, office space and an outdoor education - centre for conferences. More important, the YWCA does not just provide the physical plant which seems to be the prime focus of the proposed women's building; it provides leadership opportunities where a woman can develop as a total person, physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. I cannot support the concept of a new women's building when the women of Vancouver already have this vision at 580 Burrard Street. Let's build on what we have and support the largest and strongest women's organization in Vancouver...an organization that has been in the business of developing women to their full potential for 82 years. Sincerely, Susan Witter ■YWCA In my article in Kinesis (June 1979) I did make the distinction between the YWCA and the Women's Building. I saw the women's building as a place that housed women's organizations, as a centre, an umbrella if you like, out of which these women's groups worked. -The structure was thus different from the Young Women's Christian Association, which was part of a nation-wide organization. The women's building was a locally initiated project. I have questions about Susan Witters research into the Domestic Houseworkers Code which, she states, established a minimum wage for domestics in Canada. My understanding is that domestic workers, and farm workers too, still do not receive minimum wage through government legislation. They are excluded from the Labor Code and thus excluded from minimum wage legislation, or paid holidays or on-the- iob benefits. But I think the biggest difference, though, is in our perception of what a women's building is. The YWCA has its own traditions, programs, focus and structure. The women's building I hope will be open to be used by all women but will reflect the politics and needs of this wave of the feminist movement. I do not see the two in opposition but rather as fulfilling the needs of difference groups of women. Where at the YWCA can we hold a woman- only dance or concert, for instance? There is no room at the YWCA for different, women's groups to be housed—or even to meet. We do need another women's building in Vancouver. ■"Neutral" To the Editor Kinesis Renewal time again and here I am with my cheque for $10 to cover my membership and subscription to Kinesis. I wish it could . be more. If I am in a position in the future to become a "sustaining subscriber," I shall certainly be in touch. I love Kinesis and feel it is a vital organ in the community of women to keep us informed of what is happening. The only criticism I have is reflected in some corn- comments in the last issue—those dealing with coverage of lesbian news. While I consider myself a "neutral" on this subject, I do feel that lesbian news is receiving an undue proportion of space in Kinesis—that is, it is out of proportion to the actual percentages of women who are lesbians and/or those who have an interest in the subject. I also endorse the suggestion by one woman in a recent edition that Kinesis try to report on successes, too. ■Occupational hazards Dear Editor: Why are offices designed to have ALL the windows assigned to offices for management and sales staff, many of whom are out during the day, and NONE to the office- bound secretaries and clerical staff? Why are windows the property of management anyway? Why should they be used as a reward for climbing the corporate or government ladder, a status symbol instead of a human right? Why should the staff be cooped up in win- dowless areas, work day after work day, season after season to contemplate unchanging bland walls, the same humdrum reproductions, probably developing tunnel vision? These dehumanizing floor plans are standard practice in business offices and are totally unnecessary if a molecule of though were given to the designs. Are you aware how prevalent this insensitive indifference is and how many in our society are demeaned by the injustice? SHAME on management for such arrogant selfishness and for thinking of office employees as no more human than the' office equipment. A study would prove that more work is done more cheerfully with less absenteeism and staff turnover in offices where a moment can be taken here and there throughout the day to refresh the psyche, to look to infinity for the health of the eyes and to stay aware of the world beyond the confines of perpetual sameness. Can you tell me where pressure can be applied to force executives to acknowledge office employees as human beings by having them share so basic a human need? Your comments and advice will be appreciated Sincerely,. Jean H. Blair T.H. 91, 99 Brimwood Blvd. Agincourt, Ontario, MLV 1E3 ■(.^wearagreyiogpgl I s* . ^rkvour car when ,.% who follow me and put ik in a neck lock; ktJtk me hi a • ■-— «WE ARE FIGHTING BACK, Ml .1 VjUt: ■menlnextseeyoul^5 1. recognize you. Island up to you. ^ Snot allow you to dale me. .-£** % %_*4& p Wi\| Defend Mys^-f^ Rape Relief has been putting up this poster in the Kitsilano and Dunbar areas of Vancouver, in response to repeated rape attacks in those parts of town. It gives a description of the rapist and his way of operating, and provides Rape Relief's phone number. BULLETIN BOARD Kinesis July '79 23 support If you have had an abortion and are left with unresolved feelings or if you simply want to talk with other women who have had the same experience, contact the Vancouver Women's Health Collective about a group being formed for that purpose. This will be a small group that will meet weekly with two facilitators. Call the Health Collective at 736-6696. Open Road women's issue Open Koad, Vancouver's anarchist newspaper, has just published an anarcha-feminist edition. In addition to pages of news coverage from many parts of the world including our own, this issue looks at porn, abortion unions, occupational hazards and anarcha- feminist theory. Interesting stuff. Open Road can be found in Vancouver at either of the women's bookstores, or can be requested from Open Road, Box 6135, Station G, Vancouver B.C. The collective of women who produced this edition plan to distribute it throughout Canada and the U.S. and went into debt to make this possible. So if you request a copy, send some money to help them to cover their costs. They're contagious What can five women do with musical backgrounds from ragtime to classical? They form a band called Contagious, with instruments like fiddle, congas, guitar, bass mandolin, saxophone, washboard and spoons, their music is difficult to categorize. But it's easy to appreciate. To book benefit performances call this feminist band and ask for Janet or Wendy at 873-0595. For an evening of dynamic eclecticism but subtle musical blending, listen to them perform at Kitsilano Neighborhood House, July 20 at 9 p.m. Women's Work Directory Volume. #1 of Women's Work Directory is now available by mail. If you are in need of a product or service and would prefer to deal with a woman, write to us for your free copy of- Women,' s Work Directory Vol. #1. In it you will find 55 listings of women who: build furniture; read palms; take pictures and more. Send 50j^ (to cover postage and handling) to: Women's Work Directory C/0 1612 East 8th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. V5N 1T5 Completely produced by women. Volume #2. Watch for Healthshahng: health networks A quarterly national newsletter about women's health issues is being prepared by an Ontario feminist collective, Women Healthsharing. The group, a writing and research collective, comments: Currently, too much of the important medical research and analysis is locked way in specialized professional journals. It is vital that accurate and practical health information be made available to Canadian women. You can contact Women Healthsharing at P.O. Box 230, Station M, Toronto, Ontario, M6S 4T3 LIL line 688-4519 LESBIAN INFORMATION LINE 685-4519 We want to be able to tell our callers what's on about town. If you have any information about upcoming events call us anything and leave a message on our . tape. LESBIAN INFORMATION LINE 685-4519 Sustainers are great! Response to our sustainer appeal has been tremendous. We have made our appeal twice so far - once in the April-May issue of Kinesis and again in our June issue. Already, you have pledged and donated more than $1000 to the Kinesis sustainer fund. Thank you, sustainers. Your contributions give us a powerful feeling of community support. Practically, they make the continued existence of Kinesis \ If you have not yet made a sustainer donation or pledge, but have sufficient income to do so, we ask you to think about it. Sustainers make a personal commitment to keeping Kinesis alive. Sustainers contribute $50 a year, in a lump sum or. in ten installments of $5.00 (or any variation of the above). Sustainers recreive their own subscription, along with any number of free trial subs, fo?'their friends. Why not fill out .this sustainer form to help Kinesis continue? NAME ' Postal code I enclose my monthly installment of I enclose a lump sum of $50 Clip and mail to Kinesis, Vancouver Status of Women, 1090 West 7th Ave., Vancouver V6H IB3 KINESIS August 10: Prison Justice Day KINESIS is published monthly by the Vancouver Status of Women. Its objectives are to enhance understanding about the changing position of women in society and work actively towards achieving social change. VIEWS EXPRESSED IN KINESIS are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect VSW policy. All unsigned material is the responsibility of the KINESIS editorial group. CORRESPONDENCE: KINESIS, Vancouver Status of Women, 1090 West 7 Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6H 1B3. MEMBERSHIP in.Vancouver Status of Women is by donation. KINESIS is mailed monthly to all members. Individual subs to KINESIS are $8 per year. We ask members to base their donations on this and their own financial situations. SUBMISSIONS are welcome. We reserve the right to edit, and submission does not guarantee publication. Include a SASE if you want your work returned. DEADLINE; The 15th of each month. WORKERS ON THIS ISSUE included: Janet Beebe, Janet Berry, Janice Pentland- Smith, Gayla Reid, Ces Rosales, Joey Thompson, Leslie Wagman, Jan Wood and Jean Faguy. NEXT KINESIS MEETING: July 3 at VSW office, 1090 West 7 th Ave., noon.
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Kinesis Jul 1, 1979
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Title | Kinesis |
Publisher | Vancouver : Vancouver Status of Women |
Date Issued | 1979-07-01 |
Subject |
Women--Social and moral questions Feminism--Periodicals |
Genre |
Periodicals Newspapers |
Type |
Text |
FileFormat | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Notes | Preceding title: Vancouver Status of Women. Newsletter. Date of publication: 1974-2001. Frequency: Monthly. |
Identifier | HQ1101.V24 N49 HQ1101_V24_N49_1979_07 |
Collection |
Kinesis |
Source | Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. HQ1101.V24 N49 |
Date Available | 2013-08-15 |
Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
Rights | Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the Digitization Centre: digitization.centre@ubc.ca |
CatalogueRecord | http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=1213576 |
DOI | 10.14288/1.0045541 |
AggregatedSourceRepository | CONTENTdm |
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