Vancouver Status of Women 2029 W 4th Avenue Vancouver, B.C. V6J1N3 INSIDE Anita Bryant didn't show up but hundreds of protestors did 1 A prison guard says Betsy Wood is "subversive" because she sympathizes with the prisoners 2 Black men and women take on city council 4 The new Grace Hospital: BYOB-Bring your own bed 5 Community organizing pull out feature «. 13 Bill 22 - equality for who? ? 22 Local woman recalls the horrors of a Lower Mainland mental institution 23 Naomi Lis talks about her Caesarian birth 428 Day of reckoning: Day and the city's equal opportunities program is axed 31 SUBSCRIBE TO KINESIS! Published By Vancouver Status of Women 2029 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. 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, February '79 Action Organized by the Coalition Against Discrimination Born-Again Bigotr More than 400 peaceful protestors paraded outside the Orpheum Theatre one clear and chilly night last month. The major attraction was a religious rumor that Anita Bryant, the orange- juice-maid-turned-crusader was in town to co-host a bible thumping Evangelical meeting. Her failure to appear didn't sour the evening for hundreds of demonstrators including feminists, lesbians, gay men, trade unionists and sympathizers who gathered around the front and back entrance of the theatre, waving placards, singing and handing out leaflets to the predominately middle-aged, middle-class meeting goers. Bernice Gerard, Vancouver's aider- woman, was on hand to speak to media people. She was overheard to have said that someone should call in the police squads to put a stop to the protest. Demonstrators, while blocking the main entrances, were not hassling the theatre goers, merely handing out phamplets and talking to those who would stop to listen. January 11, outside the Orpheum Theatre, we protested born-again hate. Inside the plush theatre, the congregation chanted and repeated the words of slick host David Manse, who looked more like a politican looking for votes than a religious man looking for God. Manse cried out to the Lord to save the poor sinners outside. He said he was quite surprised to see the protestors. (Despite the fact that Bryant's appearance has attracted major demonstrations in every city she's visited.) Manse said when he stepped out of his car he saw the throng and immediately called upon the Lord. I wondered what to do and say. The word of God spoke to me of love. So I told the group standing in my way that I loved them. They immediately parted and made way for me," Manse said. The audience loved that one and broke into a frenzy of clapping, stretching their arms in a gesture of adulation and adoration-. Manse beamed. Bryant, once a singer now a pusher of right-wing morals, has spoken out against gays, women's rights and everv other group that doesn't fit snugly into her Christian scenario. "Protect our children from all these evils," is her motto. The B.C.Federation of Women and the Coalition Against Discrimination (CAD) said: the demonstration was called to draw attention to the fact that some organizations, under the guise of "born-again Christianity", are advocating the denial of basic human rights to large segments of the community. Lesbians and gay men have been singled out for particularly vicious attacks; the end result of these "religious" campaigns is dangerous to us all. The gains women have made toward equality are threatened by their insistence that the only role for women in the world is in service to men and children. If today these people presume to deny homosexuals their right to shelter, employment and freedom of association, who is stopping them tomorrow from denying you your rights? The rights you defend are your own. Q We Support AUCE 2 strike action Simon Fraser University clerical workers held a round-the-clock strike action Monday, January 29 in an all- out attempt to gain support from university faculty, students and staff for their attempt to win a decent contract. Joan Wood, union coordinator for local 2 of the Association of University and College Employees (AUCE) said prior to Monday's stepped-up action, union members were picketing only during business hours. But the partial strike action failed to bring administration around to offering any more than a 6 per cent wage increase over two years. The union is seeking 4 per cent in the first year and 6 per cent in the second. Administration originally refused an across-the-board increase and offered clerical workers a token couple of hundred dollars bonus. Strikers have pledges from the other unions on campus that they would honour an AUCE picket line set up at the university entrance and have indications of support from faculty and students, /.bout 50 professors wrote a letter to the university's administration demanding that they resume negotiations and offer a wage increase more in line with soaring inflation. According to AUCE, clerical workers are currently earning between $155.50 and $364.01 per week. The majority of workers are earning no more than $237.88 per week, a salary far below that of workers in most other industries. The average B.C. weekly salary is $305. AUCE's stand is that the service people are underpaid. Most service workers, like most AUCE workers, are women and therefore are traditionally underpaid. "The. university wants our wages to fall in the middle of the lowest paid sector of workers; we insist on being compared with all workers. " Wood said the workers have not received a wage increase since November 1977. And that was a whopping 4 per cent. "We'll assess the support we receive and re-assess our position. We are asking all groups, teaching support staff, faculty and students to honour the line, " she said.q KINESIS, February '79 Wood, Hoon Trial Is Under Way When their trial opened January 22, prison activists Betsy Wood and Gay Hoon faced only two of the original eleven charges in connection with a January 1978 escape attempt at the B.C.pen. As we go to press, prosecution is calling the last of its witnesses. Wood is due to open her own defense within the week. Hoon, charged now with prison break and public have had their charges even times within ten Barely two weeks before opened, they received ictment, in which the murder charge had been Wood and aiding a mischief changed s months the trial a new ind attempted dropped. On June 22, 1978, Judge Clare ruled at a preliminary hearing that there was "no sufficient case ...to put either of the accused on trial." Despite that, prosecution asked B.C.Attorney General to proceed to a direct indictment, which he did. In the opening days of the trial, Justice Harry Hutcheons rejected defense motions to quash the charges because of irregularities in how the indictments were delivered. Wood requested an adjournment on the grounds that defense had been put at a disadvantage because they had barely two weeks to prepare their actual defense, whereas the Crown had many months to prepare its case. The judge ordered the trial to proceed, and a jury was selected. Admires Wood So far, the Crown has called one witness which they did not use at the preliminary: Alet McLeod. She described Wood as a "humanitarian", and said she thought of Wood as a person who would never advocate violence. In the week before the prison break, McLeod said, Wood approached and said that there was a plan to move some prisoners from solitary confinement in the pen. When cross-examined by Hoon's lawyer, Vilvang, McLeod admitted that she had no means of knowing whether or not Wood had been referring to a lawful or an unlawful move.She responded that there is "a distinct possibility" that Wood had been referring to a legal plan. In addition, the Crown has produced much evidence regarding items found in Wood's rented car, including clothing, pills, bullets, money and even cheese. It has not produced an explanation as to how such items are connected with the escape at- temp t. Guns Packed In The court has been told that guards smuggle drugs and weapons into prison, if the price is right. Dave Gowler, an officer in charge of Visiting and Correspondence, admitted: Guns could be packed in by unscrup- lous staff for monetary gain. Guard Clayton tells us: It's quite common to find weapons on prisoners or in the vicinity of the pen yards. The pen was in fact closed for four days in October '77 for a weapons search: 40 knives, a ladder and a grappling hook turned up. Prison rumour had it that guns located inside had not been found. Since the pen had not had open visiting since the Sept.'76 riots, those weapons must have been coming in over the walls, or with guards. Sympathy Dave Gowler, the officer in charge of Visiting and Correspondence at the pen, admitted to Wood under cross examination that he considers her "subversive" because: You're critical of practically everything the prison does. . . and when an inmate has problems you sympathize with their problems like you never look at the way we see things. = Subversive Guards' Code Wood read aloud to the court from the Report to Parliament of the Sub-Committee on the Penitentiary System in Canada. An excerpt from that report says that guards are under intolerable pressure not to break the rule of silence that the custodial staff, in their insecure and embattled isolation have imposed on and tolerate among themselves. If they report such breaches of discipline, they are likely to find little support from their colleagues, given, that all are familiar with the stories of slashed tires, scraped automobile fenders and doors, telephoned threats and other forms of reprisals against those who dare place duty above silence. Then Wood asked Guard Clayton if he was familiar with the "guards' code." He said that he wasn't. Guard Clayton told Wood that a prison guard would never lie to protect another officer, when asked if prisoners would lie, he responded; Of course prisoners would lie. When asked if prison rights activists would lie, Clayton commented: Prison activists might lie to protect each other or inmates. Wood's point in introducing this information about the "guard's code" seemed clear enough. Obviously, guards could be under pressure not to reveal anything about any guards' smuggling in of contraband weapons, since silence is demanded by the "guard's code." Security Guard Clayton told the court that he knew Wright and Saumer were planning to escape. He said he knew this several months in advance, but he didn't know when the exact date would be. Clayton claimed to have filed a report on the suspicious behaviour of the two prisoners. B.C.Pen Director Herbert Reynett said he received no such report, although normal procedure would have been for Security to forward it to him. What Guards Saw Listening to the testimony of the guards, the following pattern of the escape break seems to emerge; On the day of the escape, Guard Clayton tells us that he saw Wright and Saumer approaching the visiting area from an unusual direction. He says that his suspicions were further aroused when Wright bent down, as if to tie a shoelace. Prisoners can transfer weapons from the ground into shoes in this way. Wright and Saumer enter the visiting area. Wright immediately goes into the toilet, while Saumer walks down and speaks briefly with Bruce, and for a longer time with Hall. Bruce, Hall and Bennett are all in the visiting area at the time. Bennett is Hoon's visitor. Hall is Wood's. Shortly after Saumer has spoken with Hall, Hall signals to a guard that he wants to use the toilet, out in the hallway. In the later escape attempt, Hall has a knife. He stabs Guard Yasuda while trying to get the keys to free Bruce. Wright runs into the visiting room, smashes the window with a sledgehammer and is the first to jump through. Wood's visitor Hall was wearing prison uniform, unlike Wright and Saumer, who were in "street" clothes. In cross-examination, the director of the pen agreed that anyone who was planning to escape would be wearing street clothing. Crown witnesses do not appear to be linking Hall and Bennett with Wright and Saumer's escape plans. The vital question is this: If Hall and Bennett were not in on the escape at its planning stages, how could Wood and Hoon have been involved? Kinesis, February '79 Theme for March 8, 1979: Women In Isolation and Solidarity The idea of March 8 as a special day of protest for women originated among working women and socialist women in 1907. Since then, the tradition has spread and been carried on throughout the world. Ten years ago on March 8, Uruguayan women political prisoners led a daring prison break. In Quebec since 1976, International Women's Day has been a day of mass celebration with large demonstrations led by union women. Last year, women in Spain demonstrated for equal pay, contraception, and amnesty for political prisoners; British working women occupied their factories; and 7,000 marched in Belgium. In keeping with this long-standing tradition, Vancouver women have also for several years organized marches, rallies and educational campaigns to commemorate International Women's Day. This year, individual women and members of various groups have formed the IWD Committee to organize activities around March 8, 1979. We have chosen as our theme, women's isolation in society and how it can be overcome by solidarity in struggle. We will emphasize how isolation and solidarity relate to our lives at home, on the job, in the streets and locked away. At Home, At Work... At Home: We are separated not only physically from each other but also by our competition for the dubious privilege of providing free and unrecognized household labour and child care. On the Job: We compete to get or keep jobs that provide poor working conditions and minimal wages, while our government and our employers refuse to recognize that we work, not for "pin" money, but so we and our families can be clothed, sheltered and fed. In the Streets: We are told to stay home after dark because our presence ^ORGANIZE for ^ MARCH 8! in the streets invites rape and violence. But to walk in safety anywhere, anytime is a fundamental human right and we will claim it for ourselves. Locked Away: Women who react against the limited possibilities offered to us are often locked up in prisons and mental institutions. We offer our solidarity and support to these sisters. March 8 Events During the week of March 3 - March 11 the following activities will take place: March 3 - KAY GARDNER CONCERT March 8 - PARADE & RALLY March 9 - BENEFIT DANCE March 11 - INFORMATION DAY Watch for posters giving details of these events, but don't wait until March. We need your help now to organize these events. "Come to a meeting, join a work committee or do both. The IWD Committee meets every Tuesday at 7:30pm in the Senior Citizens' Lounge at Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier Street, and any woman is welcome to attend. Specific work committees are: Parade: contact Gail (327-2935) Research & Public Education: contact Penny (255-4871) Information Day: contact Rachel (879-1219) Publicity: contact Pat S. (253-1224, Press Gang) Kay Gardner Concert: contact Dorrie (872-1940) Benefit Dance: contact Louise (876-4677) Women in the Home: contact Prabha (253-7926) Women's Chorus: contact Pat S. (253-1224 Press Gang) We invite all those who share our concerns and faith in the future to work with us, and to protest our isolation and celebrate our solidarity during the week of March 3-11. O Lesbian Mother Wins^ustody An Ontario lesbian mother won a partial victory recently when an Ontario judge awarded her custody of her two children. The catch is that the judge, Joseph Mahon, made it a condition of custody that the mother could not live with anyone without prior court approval. In other words, she has to ask for "permission" to live with a friend, boarder, lover or whoever. In handing down the judgment, Mahon said, "Homosexuality was a negative factor in the custody application but did not itself require removal of the children from the mother. " He said he could not find any valid reason for taking the children away from the mother, who has had custody in the four years since the separation in August 1974. The judge said it might be emotionally harmful the children if they were taken away from their mother. Both were doing well in school and reports by the Children's Aid Society and the official guardian were favourable to the mother. And a child and family therapist with training in sexual counselling at the Madame Vanier Institute in London, Ontario was a key witness for the mother. The therapist said the children "had a strong bond with the mother and the home she provided showed a lot of warmth and cohesiveness." It would be emotionally destructive to take the children from their mother, she said. Asked about the "effects" on a child raised in a lesbian or homosexual home, she replied that the sexual preference of a parent was "unimportant if the parent recognized his or her preference and was comfortable with it. " She agreed that the- child eventually would learn of the parent's preference but said the effect would "not necessarily" be negative. The Third Time It is said to be only the third case in Canadian family law where custody was sought by a lesbian. In one case, custody was granted and in the other it was turned down. Vancouver's Coalition Against Discrimination says there have been no successful custody cases among lesbian, mothers here. Spokesperson Silva Tenebein said some parents have lost their children because they are lesbians. And lawyers have warned them not to take the matter to court, she said. "Others make a pretty good show of not being lesbians so they can keep their children. A lot of people are very nervous that someday someone will arrive at the door with a court order. "O Kinesis, February '79 Blacks Act Against Harassment Scores of black men and women thronged Committee Room 1 at City Hall recently to drive home a message to the community services committee: either city council takes stringest measures to stop racial harassment at 10 city discos or the black community will have to take the matter into their own hands. The Black Solidarity Association told Aid. Harry Rankin, Don Bellamy, Doug Little and Bernice Gerard that dozens of black members have been denied access to several downtown discotheques and in some cases have been forcibly removed from the premises. Blacks recounted horror stories of racial discrimination, bigotry and harassment at the hands of night club owners and managers who insist that they produce at least three pieces of identification with pictures or a club membership card. They also said that the police were aiding and abetting the owners, encouraging them to discriminate against specific minority groups and coming to their aid when a scuffle or altercation broke out. They said police officers never hassle the owners, yet are quick to arrest customers, calling them names and roughing them up. 'treated like dogs.' "We are treated just like dogs, " said one black woman. "Not once did anybody ask us our story. " Violence erupted one evening at Sugar Daddy's and resulted in one man being kicked unconscious and five black women being thrown into the paddy wagon and charged with creating a disturbance. Association president Delicia Crump made an impassioned plea urging council to cancel the licences of the offending discos. "My people are outraged. I don't know if you have ever been humiliated before. It is quite obvious some of you haven't, otherwise you wouldn't be so insensitive to the situation," Crump told a stunned committee. "Whatever happens from here on in you can't say you haven't been warned. " Other members attacked the aldermen for their lack of action and apparent disbelief of the complaints aired at the meeting. Luke Warrington shocked committee members by pounding his fist on the table and shouting: "I am fed up. I have had it up to here with the discrimination in this city. This is democracy?" Rankin, committee chairman, appeared sympathetic to the pleas for justice. But Aid. Bellamy, Little and Gerard said they felt "uncomfortable and uneasy" because the disco owners were not present to defend themselves against "these serious accusations". .Gerard called for a motion to postpone the meeting until such time as By Joey Thompson the police and disco managers could attend. She later withdrew the motion. Bellamy then asked if council had the power to cancel the licences in view of the fact that the B.C. Human Rights Code usually handled complaints of discrimination. He received a reluctant "yes" from city hall officials. Crump said the complaints have been brought to the Human Rights Branch but little has been done. Branch director Kathleen Ruff has urged the provincial Minister of Labour, Alan Williams, to investigate complaints and establish a board of inquiry 'Ģ Ruff said she has received 16 formal complaints from blacks alleging that they were denied entrance or were harassed at the entrance of Misty's Cabaret. A Sikh also has laid a complaint that he was turned away because he was wearing a turban. "We have not had good co-operation from discos, consequently, we have not been able to get a settlement," Ruff said. "I'm concerned that strong feelings of anger and humiliation are being Credit: LNS Graphics built up (in the black community)," she added. The committee deferred a decision until they had talked to the disco owners. Rankin said a meeting will be called by mid-February to hear the owners' side of the story. FLASH - Labor Minister Alan Williams has agreed to appoint a board of inquiry. Feb. 22 has been set as a tentative date for the inquiry which will be held in Vancouver. GAIN up by one cent. The Social Credit government and its new Minister of Human Resources, Grace McCarthy, has generously increased the total income available for children on GAIN by one cent per month (no, that isn't a typographical error!). In a news release dated December 22, McCarthy announced that the province would be adding $8 per month per child to the cheques of families on welfare. The increase is to make up for the reduction in family allowances which began January 1. At that time, family allowances went to $20 per month per child. If the regular cost of living increase had been added to the monthly grant, families with children would have received $27.99 per child per month from the federal government. As a result, the net benefit of the federal reduction and the provincial increase will be lc per month per child* "There is no better time of year than this for British Columbia citizens to count our many blessings, " said McCarthy after announcing the one cent increase. "We are one of the two most affluent provinces in Canada." McCarthy's announcement followed a report released by the United Way, which stated that income assistance rates in B.C. are between 35-70% too low to meet minimum basic needs! B.C.'s rates are so low that the United Way concluded that "The threat of protracted malnutrition remains a reality for larger families." The provincial government plans to provide the $8 increase only for 3 months, at which time they expect that families on income assistance will have received their federal tax credit of $200 per child. McCarthy did not say whether or not the $8 payments would be deducted from the tax credit. (Downtown East, DERA, January 1979) Kinesis, February '79- Grace : Will We Have to Bring Our Own Beds? Doctors, lay persons and para-medics are becoming increasingly concerned about an apparent lack of adequate obstetrical and gynecological facilities in the proposed plans for the new Grace Hospital. The Grace, scheduled for completion in about two years, will see the closure of the present Grace Hospital as well as the Willow Pavilion at Vancouver General Hospital. Professionals charge that the Minister of Health has either neglected to consider the needs of B.C. women or that he is, for some political tactic, reluctant to release information concerning the extent of the facilities designed to replace existing ones. Underhanded The Maternal Health Committee has been eyeballing the development of the new hospital with much interest and some anxiety. Members say the hospital, as proposed, will not have enough beds for new mothers. They fear that the provincial government is underhandedly about to force women to deliver their babies in community hospitals where facilities are limited and rules governing birthing are more restrictive than those at Vancouver's major hospitals. Dr. James King, a Vancouver obstetrician, shares these concerns. He said the number of babies born at VGH and Grace has not decreased significantly over the past 10 years. In fact, 5,998 babies were born in the two hospitals in 1968, compared to 5,679 last year. Yet the 90-bed facility planned for Grace is a reduction from the combined bed capacity at Willow and the present Grace. "We could be wrong," he said in an interview at the old Grace on Heather Street. "We may be overestimating the potential need for hospital beds but I don't think so. Our statistics back us up. " Twenty-six of the 90 beds will be used by sick post-partum women. King estimates this will not be enough. The demand for specialized or tert- iarty care is increasing, he said. The hospital's original designs included two additional post-partum modules with 16 beds each, but these plans have been shelved; lack of funds claim government officials. To make matters worse the new Grace will not house women with gynecolo gical problems, says King. The present Grace sees about 2,000 women a year. He said he finds it hard to believe that the government has overlooked the needs of thousands of women who require such surgery and care, yet the new Grace is strictly for new mothers and newborns. "There are no gynecological beds in the new Grace. Not one. Where are these women going to go? A Right To Know... "The problem has been pointed out to them (Ministry of Health officials) hundreds of times. They have steadfastly declined to give us any assurance that these women will be looked after. We have a right to know." King speculates that the provincial government may: a) insist that women seek and secure medical help within their communities; b) at the zero hour decide to keep Willow open; c) build a big surprise like a new sleeping-in facility for new mothers; or d) any or all of the above. Bureaucratic Constipation, "We are dealing with bureaucratic constipation rather than idiocy on the part of the government," King said. "There is no way they can't see the obvious shortage created by the closing of these two hospitals and the opening of the Grace Children's Hospital. The government has got to see the light. If they don't, then the women of Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and B. C. are being ripped off, badly. Valentine Promenade magazine MAKARA magazine is having a benefit. Join the Makara Valentine promenade, February 10 from 8pm-lam at the Russian Community Centre, 2114 West 4th Avenue. Ad Hoc and Contagious will be playing. Comic entertainment with David Schendlinger, food by Theodora's. Advance tickets are $4.00. CCCA CCCA spokeswoman Nancy Wiggs said the group is planning to participate in an international abortion day by holding a demonstration in Vancouver on March 31. The day of demonstration is being organized in European as well as North American cities by the National Abortion Council. CCCA benefit organizers say they made about $1,500 in tickets, pledges and bar sales. Kinesis, February '79 S&. Something Fishy A Vancouver official of the Employment and Immigration department told Kinesis that at least 8 women are fighting an unemployment insurance commission regulation which denies benefits to fisherwomen who work on the boats with their husbands. Leo Sonnenberg said the controversial piece of legislation has been in the UIC regulations since 1957, the year that fishermen were permitted to collect UIC benefits. Section 195 of the UIC Act states in part that, "where the wife shares as a member of the crew her shares shall be added to her husband's earnings". The regulation effectively prohibits wives of fishermen from collecting UIC benefits if they choose to work on the same boat as their husbands. Thus, although she is required to pay her own union dues, income tax and fishing licence, she is denied insurance against unemployment. Sonnenberg said historically a spouse who works for another spouse is not insurable, regardless of sex. He said this ruling is based on the fact that, "It is difficult to establish a master-servant relationship in a marital settlement. In order to collect unemployment insurance there has to be a boss and a worker." Obviously, government officials feel comfortable assuming that the husband is the master and the wife the servant. ".. traditionally, HE has been the breadwinner." "Historically fishing has been a man's industry," Sonnenberg said when asked about the blatant discrimination against women. "Traditionally he has been the breadwinner." When told these misconceptions are no excuse for denying women benefits, Sonnenberg replied, "Well, you're not going to re-write society overnight." Sonnenberg said he has been told that there are eight B.C. suits before the court. He said he has been in touch with Ottawa officials who say there are no changes pending and no current plans to review the Act. "There is no point in commenting on proposed changes because of the pending litigation. But the outcome in S the courts will certainly have an in- q fluence on what changes are made in ¬ß" the future," he added. 0) Keith Henders, regional director for ?h the federal Human Rights Act, agreed o that the regulations are "restrictive". PQ 0) He said his office is investigating ?h several complaints from women living +i on Vancouver Island and the West Coast. Full Circle Coffeehouse Closes To all former Collective members, performers and those of you who have supported the Full Circle Coffeehouse over the years: It is with a deep sense of regret that the present Collective has found it necessary to close the Coffeehouse for the time being. We are faced with the problem of an excessive rental fee and a space that is often too small for the Coffeehouse's needs. Over the past six months, the Collective has had the energy to put into the running of the Coffeehouse, but somehow we haven't been attracting enough women to keep it operating viably. We hope that those of vou in the women's community who are int erested will evaluate what the Coffeehouse has meant to you, and if you have new ideas, new energy and a desire to re-open in a different space, please either write to Women in Focus #6-45 Kingsway, Vancouver V5T 3H7, or phone them at 872-2250. The decision to close was a difficult one for us to have to make, since the Coffeehouse has served such a useful purpose for so many years, and we sincerely hope that you will understand the reasons that made this decision inevitable. The Full Circle Coffeehouse Collective Triden Canadian and American anti-Trident demonstrators walked out of a Seattle courtroom late last month relieved that the legal battle was over. But the 176 sentenced protestors were acutely aware that the struggle to prevent the development of a Trident nuclear submarine and missile system had just begun. All but five of the demonstrators were slapped with a 45-day suspended sentence and three years probation, at about which time the first $2 billion submarine is expected to be completed. The other protestors, second and third-time offenders, were sentenced to 45 days in jail beginning February 9. Many people say they are appealing the sentence. The long and bitter struggle began last May 22 when about 4,500 people gathered at the Trident base to protest construction. Nearly 300 people climbed the barbed wire fence and occupied part of the base in a non-violent action. They were apprehended, transported from the base, and issued letters barring them from entering the base in the future. The following day, hundreds of people climbed the fence a second time and were charged with illegal re-entry. Defendants told the judge that their actions are the only effective nonviolent means of protest available. The actions, they said, are justified because the threat they are attempting to stop is greater than any harm caused by the protest. Pacific Life Community representatives say if the system is completed, the base at Bangor, Washington, 100 miles from Vancouver, will be a primary target in any nuclear exchange. The American government is planning to build 29 submarines with a total of 11,832 warheads, 10 times the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Kinesis, February, '79 Uphol Collective Bargaining Rights Rallies across the province to protest the recent amendments to the Essential Services Disputes Act are being planned by the trade union movement. The amendments to the Act were tacked on to Bill 46, and introduced by the government to end the Kootenay School dispute. Known as Section II, they were proclaimed January 5, 1979. With their proclamation, the Essential Services Disputes Act removes free collective bargaining rights from 34,000 public employees in B.C. Members of unions from the public sectors will be turning out in force at the rallies. They will be joined by private sector unions and community members who support union principles. It now appears clear that the provincial government intends to extend anti-labour legislation to its limits in B.C. Proposed rally dates include: Prince George: Saturday, February 17 Victoria: week of February 26, on the exact date of opening of legislature Vancouver: Wednesday, March 7, 8pm at the Orpheum Theatre Women Fight Inco Toronto - On December 8 a solidarity benefit was held for the United Steelworkers strikers of Local 6500 in Sudbury. Five hundred people, many of them women from local women's organizations, attended the rally which was sponsored by Organized Working Women, the International Women's Day Committee, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the NDP Women's Committee. Speaking at the rally were women strikers and women strike supporters from Sudbury. Linda Obansawin of the Wives Strike Support Committee explained that the committee was formed to pool together the resources of the striking families and to keep up morale during what promised to be a long strike. The committee did not want a recurrence of what happened during the 1958 strike when "the company got to the women" and used them to put pressure on the strikers to end the strike. Inco striker Kathy Duhaime, one of 30 women of the 100 hired by Inco who are left after 2,200 layoffs, talked about how Local 6500's fight was" not just important for workers in Sudbury but for all of Canada and all of the world. You have to take a stand, she said, "you can't let these corporations battle you down." Joan Kuyek, president of Women Helping Women, told of her committee and the Citizen's Strike Support Committee, which publishes a paper to get out the truth about the strike to the Sudbury community. She thought it was particularly important that working people realize that the company uses the differences between men and women, races and religions to weaken their struggle. She said that the strike support committees were counter-acting this tactic.(Socialist Voice) SORWUC Supports Postal Workers Support for the future struggles of members of CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) to exercise the right to full collective bargaining was expressed unanimously at the Annual Genearl Meeting January 7, of Local I of SORWUC. The meeting condemned the high-handed actions of the Trudeau cabinet, which legislated postal workers back to work during their recent strike. The Liberal government was also attacked for Bill C-14, the federal legislation which will effectively deny unemployment insurance benefits to more than 250,000. Attacks on collective bargaining at the provincial government level were also condemned. The union will participate in any action to defy Section II of Bill 46, the Socred legislation which forced striking CUPE workers in the Kootenays back to work. Other resolutions included an expression of solidarity and support for AUCE Local 2 in their current job action at Simon Fraser University; and a condemnation of the Attorney General of B.C. for political harassment of prison activists Wood and Hoon. UBW Assesses Campaign When SORWUC called a public meeting December 3.to discuss the United Bank- workers' organizing campaign of 1976-. 1978, the questions came up: "Why didn't the UBW break away from SORWUC and join the CLC?" and "Why didn't the UBW hand over their 24 certifications to another union?" Members representing SORWUC on the panel responded to the first question in the following way: The bank workers had decided that they did not want to have their organizing efforts directed from Ottawa. Further, the CLC's proposal that the UBW join the CLC bankworkers organizing committee and split from SORWUC was not acceptable because the bank workers did not want to 'carve up1 their union. In response to the question of handing over certifications, the SORWUC panel commented: To 'hand over' branches without members having a say would be very undemocratic - especially so in view of the fact that members join SORWUC precisely because it is a small independent union. Members in certified branches were free to join any other union they wished. In fact, only one of the UBW certifications chose to go with another union - the CLC's union of bank employees. In terms of future strategy for their second organizing drive, UBW panel members pointed out that the next step is to build up a dues base of bank employees in Vancouver. Throughout the first drive, the majority of the membership was scattered all over the province, with relatively few bank workers signed up in Vancouver. UBW is now preparing a booklet about their first campaign, to be published by Press Gang. From the spring of 1976 to the fall of 1978, UBW made some major gains towards their goal of a union in the banking industry. They established the legal right of bank- workers to organize, and many bank- workers gained experience organizing negotiating, and dealing with the Labour Board. The booklet will contain not only history but an assessment of tactics. Muckamuck SORWUC is now entering its eighth month on the picket line at the Muckamuck restaurant. They have maintained the picket through the restaurant closing down during the summer months, through the opening of the Chilcotin Bar 7 in the upstairs area, and finally through the re-opening of the main downstairs area, the original Muckamuck. Management has applied to the LRB for de-certification. Update in next month's issue! 'Kinesis, February '79 Daycare Parents Make Views Known Daycare parents at three daycare centres affected by the recent change in administration from the Ministry of Human Resources to the YMCA made their views known to a Labour Relations Board hearing on December 22. The hearing is dealing with the status of the B.C. Government Employees Union, which represented the previous employees under MHR. When the six daycares (four group daycare and two after-school daycares) changed in status, parents received little information on the fate of their centres. Many expected their centres to close down; some even received letters telling them to find alternative daycare for their children. Staff were offered the option of jobs within the Ministry as file clerks or the chance to compete for their old (present) jobs but without union status. Most of the staff left the daycares and children had to adjust to an entirely new staff. The BCGEU, YMCA and MHR are now meeting at a Labour Relations Board hearing to decide the status of the Union, its contract and that of the previous employees. According to an LRB spokesman, the outcome of the hearing could result in no change to the daycares and present staff, the old employees having claim to their jobs, or the previous union contract being honoured but with the old employees having no claim to their jobs. One group is not being represented at the hearing - the daycare parents and their children. Parents feel strongly about the outcome of this hearing because they are dependent on on-going daycare and because they are concerned about the effect of another staff change on their children. The Coalition for Improved Daycare Services (CIDS) was able to contact most of the parents at Beach, Pen- drell and Burrard Daycares. Over three-quarters signed a petition making the following points: 1. We are worried that the results of this hearing may cause some disruption in the operation of our Daycare Centre. We rely on our Centre for the daily care of our children. 2. We are concerned that there may be further staff changes at our Daycare Centre. We feel that any Bourget/Update more staff changes would be harmful to our children. 3. We and our children are directly affected by any changes at our Centre. Yet we have not been informed about any of the staff and administrative changes which have taken place over the last six months until the changes have occurred. 4. Daycare staff are doing essential and difficult work. We feel that the present staff at our Daycare Centre are entitled to the same wages, working conditions and benefits as the former staff under the Ministry of Human Resources. The parents do not have criticisms of the previous staff, but feel another staff change is undesirable. Janet Currie, spokesperson for the Coalition for Improved Daycare Services , commented: "This issue demonstrates the low regard the Provincial Government has for daycare parents, staff and children. It has long been the government' s intention to get out of daycare and it was aware in doing so, that workers would probably be displaced. Parents were not consulted about the changes. Workers abruptly lost their jobs and the Union its status. "It bespeaks the low value placed on daycare workers that they were offered jobs as file clerks, in most cases, at higher pay than they received as childcare workers. And, of course, the children are the greatest Victims of all. Relationships they have built up over many months with significant adults in their lives don't seem to be very important. " For" more information, call Janet Currie at 738-1863. Lord of The Flies Ex-Minister of Human Resources, Bill Vander Zalm, has labelled the federal government sponsored Inter national Year of the Child a waste of money. "In our province, we celebrate childhood every day," he commented. Year of Child In 1976, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared that 1979 would be the International Year of the Child. 1979 celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child states that the child has the right to: *affection, love and understanding *adequate nutrition and medical care *free education *full opportunity for play and recreation *a name and a nationality *special care, if handicapped *to be among the first to receive relief in times of disaster *to learn to be a useful member of society and to develop individual abilities *to be brought up in the spirit of peace and universal brotherhood (sic) *to enjoy these rights, regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, national or social origin. MEANWHILE, here in Canada: Accidents and acts of violence today claim the lives of more Canadian children than do congenital and acquired diseases. There are 631,360 children living in 300,000 single parent families. About 60% of single parent women live in poverty compared to 14% for single parent men and 12% for families. Of the 631,360 children of single parent families, 143,000 are preschoolers. In 1974, only.50,303 day care spaces were available in Canada. For school-aged children, in need of lunch-hour and after-school supervision, there were less than 5,000 spaces. Canada has an infant mortality rate of 15 per 1000 births, ranking 7th in 16 developed countries. In 1974, 38,314 babies were born to teenagers (5,504 between ages 12 and 16). Suicide is increasing. In 1975, almost 10% of all suicides in Canada were younger than 19. Last year, 80,000 children in Canada were victimized by family breakdown and abuse and required official protection. AND in B.C.: More than 40 day care centres have closed their doors in B.C. in 1978^ Why? Where are the children whose parents were forced to make alternate arrangements? There is 1 centre for baby day care in the whole of B.C., and homes willing to offer day care full-time for the nominal fee available are rare. Where are the babies of parents who must work? Note: The statistics were taken from Admittance Restricted: The Child as a Citizen in Canada. Kinesis, February '79 SEXUAL OFFENCES report issued Recommendations for changes in the rape laws in Canada are an improvement over Bill C-52, but are fraught with many problems of application. On November 30, 1978, the Law Reform Commission of Canada released its report, Sexual Offences. The report proposes two new categories: sexual interference and sexual aggression. Here, in brief, is a summary of the two new definitions and a list of the Commission's major recommendations in point form. This summary is followed by a critique of their report by Megan Ellis of Vancouver Rape Relief. Sexual Interference, Aggression Definition of Terms: "Sexual Interference" would be charged against anyone who, "for a sexual purpose, directly or indirectly touches another person without the consent of that person." Sexual interference could be treated as a summary offence or incur a maximum of five years imprisonment. "Sexual Aggression" would involve the use or threat of violence "for the purpose of sexual interference." The maximum penalty for sexual aggression would be ten years. Recommendations: 1. That the offences of rape, attempted rape, indecent assault and gross indecency be replaced in the Criminal Code by new offences of "sexual aggression" and "sexual interference". 2. That the "spousal immunity" clause, which prevents a wife from charging her husband with rape or similar offences, be repealed. 3. That the law prohibit intercourse with boys and girls under age fourteen. 4. That males and females between the ages of 14 and 17 be protected against sexual interference by adults upon whom they are dependent - parents, relatives, employers, teachers, and so on - through a law providing a penalty of up to five years for "sexual interference" even with consent. 5. That family rather than criminal law deal with cases of sexual intercourse involving juveniles between 14 and 17 by other juveniles between 14 and 17. 6. That the mentally handicapped have a right to sexuality that should not be interfered with unless they have been taken advantage of and consent to intercourse is in question. 7. That incest between consenting adults no longer be an offence; that incest should be a matter for criminal law only when dependent children or adolescents are involved. 8. That the offences of buggery, bestiality and gross indecency be repealed. 9. That nudity be considered an offence only where it offends "public decency". The consent of an attorney-general would be needed before a charge could be placed. (From Toronto Rape Crisis Centre Newsletter, Vol. Ill, No. 3.) Feminist Critique The report of the Law Reform Commission of Canada on Sexual Offences, released in November 1978, is an improvement over both the LRC Working Paper #22 released six months previous, and Bill C-52, which was introduced into the House of Commons in May 1978. However, despite the fact that it is a more comprehensive approach to this area of the law, the implementation of these proposals would leave certain problems of definition, evidence and procedure unchanged. The most important of these are: 1. DOES NOT COVER NON-PHYSICAL COERCION...The proposed new section entitled 'Sexual Aggression', which assault section will not sufficiently improve the situation for the victim, nor reduce the disparity between assault and sexual assault provisions unless they are accompanied by an additional section which would state that the threat or use of physical coercion invalidates any presumption as to consent on the part of the complainant, and that this is a rebuttable presumption. In other words, if it is shown that the assailant used violence, the onus would be on the defence to prove that the complainant consented. A comparable section is attached to the definition of forcible confinement (Section 247(3)) which reads "In proceedings under this section the fact that the person in relation to whom the offence is alleged to have been committed did not resist is not a defence unless the accused proves that the failure to resist was not caused by threats, duress, force or exhibition of force. 4. A section should be included to make explicit that the common law requirement that the jury be warned of the danger of convicting the accused if the complainant's testi- Rape Laws: Recommended Changes Do Not Go Far Enough deals with the threat or use of violence in the course of or for the purpose of Sexual Interference, is limited to any act of Sexual Interference accompanied by bodily injury or threat of bodily injury. This would not cover threats or injury to a third person (for example the victim's children) nor would it cover non-physical coercion or duress. 2. SPECIAL PROGRAMS MUST BE GUARANTEED...The maximum penalty for sexual assaults would be reduced from life imprisonment to ten years imprisonment and would thus offer women even less protection from sexual offenders, even the small percentage of those who end up in prison. Without accompanying guarantees that special programs would be set up designed to assist those convicted of sexual offences to change their patterns of violence against women, this reduction in the maximum sentence is non acceptable. 3. WE STILL HAVE TO PROVE WE WEREN'T 'ASKING FOR IT'. ..The present requirement for preof by the prosecution that the complainant did not consent is still retained. The redefinitions of the present sexual mony is not corroborated is deleted. This requirement was deleted from the Criminal Code in 1976, but since that time some judges interpreted this to mean that they are under an obligation by common law to continue to give this warning. 5. Section 142 should be amended to state that no question shall be asked by or on behalf of the accused as to the sexual conduct of the complainant with any person. 6. Section 442(2), which deals with provisions for exclusion of the public in cases of sexual assault, should be amended to state that where an application is made by or on behalf of the complainant for an order to exclude the public, the presiding judge, magistrate or justice shall make such an order. Problems While the Law Reform Commission's proposals go a long way in realizing their primary objective of 'protecting the integrity of the person', and their recommendations would serve to protect members of both sexes from sexual violence (irrespective of their marital status), they fail to deal with many of the problems of the application of this area of the law.* Kinesis, February '79 10 Pornography: Developing Our Definition The feminist perspective on pornography was the focus of two major conferences held recently in the U.S. On November 17-19, 350 women came together in San Francisco for a national conference, "Feminist Perspectives on Pornography", organized by Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM). Several Vancouver feminists attended, including two members of BCFW's subcommittee on Women Against Violence, Megan Ellis from Rape Relief and Jillian Ridington of the VSW executive; Rape Relief's Yvette Perrault; and representatives from Women in Focus, Marion Barling and Michelle Nichol. Both definitions of pornography developed in workshops integrated aspects of the definition developed by VSW's Debra Lewis and brought to the conference by Vancouver women. Two Definitions One of the definitions was: "material which represents or describes sexual behavior degrading and abusive to women in such a way as to endorse and/ or recommend the behavior described. This endorsement/recommendation is communicated by contextual features which are intrinsic to the material." A similar definition was: "sexual material depicting or supporting violent or coercive or non-consensual acts where an imbalance of power is implied or explicit in such as way as to endorse/recommend the behavior." In both cases, it is the non-sexual elements of the material that makes it pornography. However, neither of these definitions were accepted by the plenary, which refused to consider the issues of "kiddie porn" or pornography directed to male homosexuals. The plenary resolved only to "work to abolish material degrading to women". One appraisal of the conference, by Deb Friedman of Off Our Backs, gave the following overview: "The conference was 'long on' information and strategies but, unfortunately, 'short on' analysis. This was due in part to the conference format which didn't allow enough time in open sessions (and in most of the workshops) for women to discuss their assumptions, concerns and disagreements on the issues. The conference was dominated by the perspectives of the workshop leaders and speakers, most of whom were stimulating and informative. However, listening to the speakers could not be a substitute for discussing and analyzing the issues with the other conference participants." Lacking Analysis Ellis, Ridington and Perrault also noted this lack of analysis, and the relatively high cost of the conference, considering that the partici pants received nothing for that amount but the right to attend and a kit including a thick, glossy and obviously expensive program featuring photographs and biographies of "star" speakers. This was among the evidence leading these Vancouver feminists to conclude that the conference was not an opportunity for exchange of information, debate on issues, and development of a thoughtful feminist analysis of pornography. Rather, it provided a few "name" feminists with a forum; out of their opinions, pre-digested (and rather amorphous) resolutions seem to have been developed. These were presented with no time allowed for discussion. In such a forum, there was no room for dealing with important issues, such as making clear distinctions between erotica and pornography, and between feminist and civil libertarian perspectives on pornography. The problem of controlling pornography without limiting access to educational material ("Our Bodies, Ourselves") and women-oriented sexually explicit material ("Women Loving") was ignored. Porn. vs. Free Speech "At the New York conference, held on December 2nd, the question of pornography versus free speech was not ignored; it was the topic. This colloquium was held at the NYU School of Law and entitled "Obscenity: Degradation of Women Versus Right to Free Speech". Lisa Lerman, the colloquium's coordinator, in her introductory remarks, said, "The object of the colloquium is to provide a forum in which feminists and civil libertarians can discuss pornography." The debate, according to an Off Our Backs report, was clearly divided along sex lines: feminists forcefully argued that pornography contributes to the degradation of women and actively encourages woman abuse. Male speakers supported a civil libertarian perspective. Among the strong arguments presented by feminists were the following statistics, used in arguing the correlation of pornography to woman abuse; 1 out of every 3 women in the U.S. is raped in her lifetime...New York Women Against Rape 50% of rape victims are under 18 ...NARAL 25% of rape victims are under 12 ...NARAL Prosecutors are reluctant to prosecute rape cases because they are "frustrating" and "emotional", and the low conviction rate is "not good for one's career". Only 1 rape case in 60~results in conviction in the U.S. This is higher than some other countries.. .LEAA study 1 out of every 2 wives has been beaten by her husband...WEAL 50% of wives who are killed by their husbands made 5 or more calls to the police during prior episodes of violence in which the police refused to intervene. ...Ann Arbor, MI N.O.W. study 85% of wives killed by their husbands made at least 1 call to the police without receiving protection. ..Ann Arbor, MI N.O.W. study At least 1 out of every 4 female children is sexually abused in childhood, primarily by close family members or family friends. ...NARAL As many as 70% of young prostitutes have had sexual relations with their father, brother, or uncle forced upon them. . . NARAL (00B info) Conference Debra Lewis and other members of the BCFW Women Against Violence Sub-committee have researched and discussed the issues involved in understanding pornography and are attempting to develop a coherent and comprehensive feminist perspective. (See Debra Lewis: "Pornography", Kinesis, October 1978.) They invite interested, concerned women to join them for a day-long discussion of pornography on Feb- rurary 17, at Britannia, Commercial Dr. and Napier. There will be a panel, including Gene Errington, Debra Lewis, and a representative of Rape Relief, small discussion groups, and lots of time for feedback and ideas for strategy. £ Kinesis, February '79 NAC Notes by Lee Grills During the past few months, NAC has been very busy trying to deal with federal level issues affecting women. 1. Unemployment Insurance Changes - NAC immediately protested the erroneous notion that women are not serious participants in the labour force. A brief was presented Monday, November 27, 1978 to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Labour, Man(sic)power, and Immigration. The text is available from your Member of Parliament. NAC will attend a meeting with the Minister in early February. Any woman who has been adversely affected by the new regulations is requested to contact the writer c/o Kinesis. 2. Human Rights Act - NAC feels the guidelines regarding equal pay for work of equal value will negate the intention of this portion of the Act. We will be represented at a meeting with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in early February to discuss inequities in pension and insurance regulations: money purchase schemes, provisions for survivors, special provisions re the discernibly handicapped . 3. Family Allowance - While NAC welcomes the principle of refundable tax credits and the increases in the guaranteed income supplement, we are •opposed to the decrease in the monthly payments for family allowance. We would welcome comments from parents adversely affected by this decrease. 4. Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) - Last fall a brief was presented by NAC to the CRTC re the CBC license renewal. CBC president Al Johnson has convened a 2-day seminar in February of CBC officials and women's groups to discuss "the reflection of women in CBC programming". NAC and VSW will be represented. In February NAC will be presenting a brief on the portrayal of women in CTV programming on the occasion of their license renewal. 5. Federal Cabinet Meeting - NAC anticipates a meeting with the Prime ister and members of the Cabinet in Toronto late in February. Our brief will deal with the economic situation and its effects on women. Job creation; the Human Rights Act; the Constitution; family allowance; tax credits; parental leave; and Criminal Code changes re rape, prostitution, and pornography will be discussed. 6. Women as Persons - To honour the 50th anniversary of the October 18, 1929 British Privy Council decision that Canadian women are "persons", NAC is consulting with Alberta Status of Women Action Committee (ASWAC) about a meeting to be held in Edmonton this October. NAC will soon be distributing a decorative seal (like an "Easter seal") commemorating the anniversary. 7. Annual Meeting - Our annual meeting will take place in Ottawa from March 23 to 26. Discrimination— Traditional Canadian Sport? It doesn't matter how good you are at "curling, you'll never make a skip at the "national championships. If you're a woman that is. According to the Curling Rule Book of the Canadian Curling Association, men must play skip and second, while women must play third and lead during the championship. Women who have been playing skip in their own mixed leagues cannot compete on a national level in the Seagram Mixed Curling Championship of Canada. Get those regulations changed by writing to: The President, Canadian Curling Association, 406 Moorgate Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 2L7. Segregated Into Low Paying Jobs "Problems of Immigrant Women in the Canadian Labour Force", a report written by Sheila Arnopoulos for the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women was released during the Council's quarterly meeting in mid-January. This study examines the range of problems experienced by immigrant women segregated into low-paying jobs. Its puts emphasis on two areas where abuses are common, the garment industry and general domestic work. The paper points out specific difficulties encountered by unskilled immigrant women. It also fills in some of the information gaps relating to their role and experience in the labour market. The report concludes by making suggestions for policy changes at both the federal and provincial levels, which would improve in many ways the working conditions of immigrant women. Copies of the document are available upon request at the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 63 Sparks Street, PO Box 1541, Stn. B, Ottawa KIP 5R5. In Winnipeg Women's Building Opens The Women's Building, a beautiful 3- story brick building with a stage and hall, offices, social and recreational space, was purchased in October 1978 by Winnipeg Women's Cultural & Education Centre, Inc., in response to the needs of the women's community. Our very own space - a place to organize from, socialize in, share resources, exchange information and carry on our businesses. Winnipeg Women's Building makes a radical departure from the general practice of renting old houses, garages or office space for women's groups. "We wanted a large building that we owned ourselves," explains Joan Campbell, of Winnipeg Women's Cultural & Education Centre, Inc., "where we would have room to have social functions and businesses and other fund- raising activities. This way we hope to generate enough revenue to make us permanently self-sufficient, so we won't have to depend on short-term funding." Already, a second-hand store, Hedy La Wood's Thrift Boutique, has opened in the Women's Building. Plans are afoot for a bookstore, a graphics collective, a women's coffeehouse and lounge, and a women's theatre company. Many women's organizations are in the process of moving in or are already renting office space, including Women in Trades, Wages Due Lesbians, Wages for Housework, Lesbian Counselling Group, and Winnipeg Women's Liberation. A single mother's group, a group producing women's programs on public TV, and a native women's organization are among the other groups planning to use the Women's Building. The Women's Building is located at 730 Alexander Avenue, Winnipeg R3E 1H9. Kinesis, February '79 INTERNATIONAL Bodies Found In Mine Chile An undetermined number of bodies of what are feared to be disappeared prisoners were found December 1978 in a limestone mine just south of Santiago, Chile. The "grave" was covered by 12 feet of earth and stone and then a layer of cement. So far, 25 bodies have been dug out. They are clothed and bullet-ridden; some are gagged. None have been identified yet. They may have been there for two to four years. The discovery of the mass grave was made after a secret police agent went to confession. This could be the first hard evidence of execution of the officially unacknowledged disappeared prisoners. The Vancouver Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Chile asks us to write letters to: Kurt Waldheim, General Secretary, U.N., New York, N.Y., USA ...asking him to demand from the Chilean government an explanation for the bodies found. (The United Nations is planning to dissolve the human rights commission for Chile. These findings are further proof of the need for this commission to continue operating. Please ask the UN not to dissolve the commission. *Pierre Trudeau, Office of the Prime Minister, Ottawa K1A 0A2 ...asking him to pressure the Chilean government for an answer as to the whereabouts of the disappeared prisoners and for an explanation of the findings at the mine. *Israel Borques, Presidente de la Corte Suptema, Plaza Montt Santiago de Chile, Chile ...pressuring him for an answer as to what has become of the disappeared prisoners and an explanation for the bodies found in the mine. For more details, contact: Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Chile, PO Box 80593, South Burnaby, B.C. V5H 3X9 Canada.# Lesbian Mothers Retain Custody In a 6-3 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court has upheld the right of two lesbian mothers to retain custody of their six children. Sandra Lee Schuster and Madeleine Cecil Isaacson had been challenged by the fathers of the children, both of whom have remarried. The fathers objected to the openly gay lifestyle of the mothers and the rearing of the children as a single family. Schuster and Isaacson had waged a public campaign to retain their custody rights. The women and their children also have been the subject of a film distributed in several states. Superior Court Judge Norman Ackley had earlier ruled against changing the custody arrangement, and in addition, removed the prohibitions against the two women living in the same household that were included in their divorce decrees. Four justices of the Supreme Court favoured overturning Judge Ackley 's order - one short of the five needed for a trial-court decision to be changed. (Reprinted from Gay Tide)% Bank Strike One Year Old New York (LNS) - Carrying signs reading "We protest slave labor", "We'll fight 'em to the end", and "Equal work, equal pay", seven women in Willmar, Minnesota are still picketing the Citizens National Bank of Willmar, one year after they went on strike over "sex discrimination' The women tellers and bookkeepers began the first strike against a Minnesota bank on December 16, 1977, charging that male bank officer trainees were hired at $700 a month, while women were hired at only $400. In addition, women with 10 years of experience received less than incoming men, and the women were expected to train men, often for better-paying positions than their own. Commenting on the strike, bank president Leo Pirsch said, "We don't pay any attention to the pickets. There are no negotiations going on - nothing. We don't discriminate against female employees." And about their salary, which the women charge is below the poverty line, Pirsch said that it was "fair and competitive for the kind of work being done".# Harassment Targets Women Under the guise of a renewed search for fugitive Katherine Ann Power, the FBI has been harassing lesbians and feminists in a number of cities over the past four months. One of the most powerful weapons the FBI has against reluctant witnesses is the threat of a grand jury subpeona. "It's often too late to learn about a grand jury once one has started, " Jill Raymond told more than 70 people at a December 4 Washington DC forum. The meeting was called by the Coalition to End Grand Jury Abuse, the National Lawyers Guild and local feminist and gay groups in an effort to encourage non-cooperation with the FBI or grand jury subpeonas. Similar meetings are scheduled for a number of cities. Raymond was imprisoned in 1975 for refusing to give information about Susan Saxe, a radical lesbian convicted of a 1970 bank robbery in Brighton, Mass. Tower, accused of taking part in the same robbery, has never been caught. The original, search for Saxe and Power led to extensive harassment of feminists and gays in Boston, New York, Lexington and New Haven. In 1974-5, Raymond explained, "the women's and gay communities were essentially under siege. We were all very frightened. .. in short, we were totally confused. As a result, a few people were able to be singled out and picked off. " The new round of harassment has targeted many of the same people subpeonaed in 1975. In Massachusetts, Delaware, Connecticut, New York and Kentucky, activists are mounting campaigns to publicize FBI activities, inform potential witnesses of their right to remain silent and urge the feminist and gay communities to close ranks. (Guardian)^ __-,fn&' HAS 6££N (**«- S it 6fl,N PtflSOMAL NFoR- WWEAfcNT TXRSUSHOVT -^ £j" LNS RAPIER, For Men * a potent new weapon for men", is one of the latest magazines to hit the British newsstands. Rapier's publicity material says: "Women's Liberation seems to be taking a nasty turn lately. Anyone who monitors magazines for 'thinking' women, or has seen the 'sexist shit' nonsense and other grafitti in public places, knows how aggressive, devisive and militant this campaign has become..." And in the first issue: "Rapier's hunt for the world's ugliest woman; women at their very worst; are you treating your wife too well?" # (00B) Kinesis, February '79 13 How to Organize Your Own Community Much of the material in this feature was developed with a grant from Secretary of State by Community Alternatives, in consultation with Susan Hoeppner, VSW's community organizer. Time, money and energy ran out before the material could be printed and distributed. Some changes have had to be made to facilitate reproduction for Kinesis. The Start Chart in its original form is a flow chart or map that can be tacked up on a wall to help keep group discussion on target and to flag all of the factors that must be kept in mind when working on an issue. Copyright for the wallchart is held by IDERA. This article requires commitment. Remember that the Start Chart is designed to go with an organizer as a tool. Refer back to the chart throughout. We hope that Kinesis readers will be able to make use of this insert feature to organize around feminist issues in their own community. Any feedback on this approach to community organizing would be welcomed by us. Define Is your issue readily understandable by the public? Is your issue dynamic enough to catch the concern or interest of the public? From the history of this issue in your community and other similar communities, is the issue defined in such a way that it has the best chance of succeeding? Is the issue broad enough to attract the support of necessary or valuable allies? (Focus on the emotions in your issue rather than philosophical/ political positions.) Do you have control over this issue? Are you initiating action or are you reacting to an action? Can you change your definition so you are initiating the action and have more control? Is it achievable within the amount of effort and time your group can be expected to expend? What criterion/criteria will you use to determine whether your issue is satisfactorily resolved? For the purpose of communication with the press and public, write down your issue in a sentence or two. What are your goals secondary) (Primary and OPPONENTS Who is doing it to you? Analyze their best strategies! Try to think like the enemy. What motivates them? What are their alternatives? Who are their movers and shakers? Where do they get their power? Who do they influence/control? Who are their allies? Where are they vulnerable? Make a complete list showing names, addresses, phone numbers, key people. Look for inter-locking relationships and other clues that might help you discover the exact centre of their energy. Are they a branch plant or a main office? Are they private? 'Ģ Government? An alliance of both? Do you have any friends inside their organization? Are they fronting for someone else? Get all the information you can on them. 8 page feature AUTHORITIES Who makes decisions on this issue? Who can say stop/go? Do you have access to them? How? Do they recognize your right to participate in the decision? Who influences them? Do you have an inside agent? No connections? Make a complete list and arrange it according to who has first level of decision-making, ranking all bodies up to top level. Don't forget to include the courts if appropriate. Are decision makers local or remote? Do they have real power or do they only recommend/advise? Are you expected to go through all required steps? Do you have friends among authorities? YOURSELF You and anybody who might be affected How important is this issue to your group? Highly motivated, or not a gut issue? List all those people and organizations likely to be affected. Have any of them worked together in the past? Who has experience in fighting for community issues? PUBLIC Everybody within reach of the issue. List your supporters, if your support is strong and/or widespread. List the uncommitted. Can you convert them? Should you try to polarize public opinion? Would you be wise to let sleeping dogs lie? Who is likely to be sympathetic to your plight? Find organizations with clout who might be on your side. Are there other groups who might be affected in the long run but don't ^ THE START CHART: a five-step organizing guide for community action. 2. ASSESS Opponents Authorities Yourself Public Scope Timing PREDICT STRATEGY OUTCOMES... 3. CHOOSE 4. CHECK Negotiation Membership - Organization - Lobbying Alliances - Information - Demonstrating Publicity - Facilities - Money Economic Action Tricks ISSUE RESOLVED!: MONITOR ACTION 5. TAKE ACTION ISSUE NOT RESOLVED Kinesis, February '79 14 know it yet? Are there other groups in the community who are likely to oppose you because they stand to gain something or just because they don't like you? Are they awake to what's happening? If not, can you keep them asleep or divert them in some way? Choose SCOPE How widespread is this issue? Draw the boundaries as clearlv as possible. Is it a local or neighbourhood issue? Might it spread to your neighbours? Does it fit within a political jurisdiction, ie. ward, city, district, electoral district? Do you have access to your various elected people? Is the issue regional or provincial in its scope? Does it affect a special interest group regardless of where they are? NEGOTIATION IF YOU CHOOSE NEGOTIATION (where affected parties are not competing or issue arises out of misunderstanding): Conciliation (reaching agreement by repairing bad feelings, making friends out of adversaries), Mediation (third party attempts to solve issue), or Compromise (each side gives something up), check these things: *The larger your MEMBERSHIP, ORGANIZATION or ALLIANCE, the greater the credibility you bring to the negotiating table; the response of those you are negotiating with tends to be more professional and hard-nosed. INFORMATION is essential. Know what your minimum acceptable demands are, and know as much as possible about the other side's position and disposition. Information is your most impor- Petitions (a brief statement of principle or position which the affected peof pie are willing to sign), or Proposals (an alternative, more acceptable, solution to the one being proposed), then check these things: , ^MEMBERSHIP is not required. It can be an asset if it is large or influential. For petitioning, a membership can better facilitate the circulation of the petition. *No ORGANIZATION required beyond a return address. ^ALLIANCES not essential but can add considerable strength to proposal or brief if endorsed by other organizations or associations. ^INFORMATION requirements are limited to the subject matter of the brief, proposal or petition. *In almost all lobbying activities, PUBLICITY will be useful. Avoid publicity if it will tend to confront the target that you suspect will be receptive to your pleading. *For FACILITIES, a typewriter and access to duplicating equipment are usually all you need. An office generally lends credibility if you wish to establish an ongoing organizational image. ^Generally little MONEY is required unless you are anticipating a long-term struggle. March 1976: Women Rally for Action - a large lobbying action by B.C. feminists. TIMING Timetable and sequence of events. Is timing critical to this issue? How much time do you have? Who is setting this timetable? (It should be you.) If the perpetrator is setting the timetable, can you weaken their case by seizing control of sequence and timetable? If the authorities are setting timing, ie. hearings, committee meetings etc., can you make a case for delay in the name of democracy? If you can get control of timing, plan your entire campaign, including possible setbacks, before you fire your first shot. Predict List the three most likely outcomes of your action. How will you react to each? Strategy Outcomes: 1. tant requirement. *PUBLICITY is not necessary. Can be desirable to keep issue before members and public, but shouldn't be used in a manner that would aggravate negotiations. *FACILITIES include phone contact with researchers that can check on "facts" given by the other side, and a meeting place that is neutral ground for both sides. *MONEY is sometimes needed to pay the mediator or make up negotiator's pay loss. LOBBYING IF YOU CHOOSE LOBBYING (activities arising when official and semi-official bodies are open to persuasion; procedures are usually formal, lobbying strategies are acceptable to all segments of society): Briefs (a formal, reasoned argument, usually presented in writing; should demonstrate a logical argument and/or widespread support), DEMONSTRATE IF YOU CHOOSE DEMONSTRATING (either to make people and organizations aware of ^}£ the issues or to show strength; the " activity always seeks wide publicity, need to feel rather strongly about the issue to participate): Pickets (for information and display, not to be S confused with picket lines in support S of strikes), Theatre (to dramatize the ^ issue or ridicule opposition), Blockades (a temporary tactic designed to draw public attention, not be be confused with obstruction), or Marches (to show widespread support and carry message to several areas at once), then check these things: *A small and dedicated MEMBERSHIP is essential for coordination. Numbers Kinesis, February '79 15 Citizen's Lobby for Jobs, organized by the B. C.Federation of Labour, spring are important, but most participants do not need to be members. ORGANIZATION is essential to coordinate larger demonstrations designed to show strength; less important where the demonstration is not controversial or will not tend to generate conflict in the streets. *ALLIANCES are important when the purpose of the demonstration is to show strength. *INFORMATION: In order to mobilize your supporters and anticipate the activities of the target group, set up good people records, including a fast membership contact system (a telephone tree?). *A11 demonstrations are PUBLICITY events. Keep the press informed; stage visual media events; appoint someone exclusively to handle publicity. *FACILITIES include some information storage; a telephone number for instant media contact; ability to reproduce promotional material and instructions to demonstration coordinators. *MONEY: Being able to subsidize the movement of people to site of demonstration will ensure good turnout. ECONOMIC ACTION IF YOU CHOOSE ECONOMIC ACTION (you are in a position to effect economic damage to your opponents or you are trying to establish your right to negotiate; requires discipline and is often longer duration strategy): Strikes (withholding labour, fees, rents, etc. from someone who is largely dependent on your work/money), Boycotts (withholding trade from someone who is largely dependent on your trade), Obstruction (passive resistance, disruption of traffic or trade, occupying places of business, getting court orders to back you up, occupying places of work), Intervention (petitioning courts or official hearings on hehalf of a class of people, in our case women), then check these things: ^Require .^ghly committed MEMBERSHIP willing to risk loss of wages (strike), expend considerable time (boycott), or risk legal action and bodily harm (obstruction). The larger the membership, the more effective the strategy. ORGANIZATION is essential to coordinate strategies of a longer term nature and ones that require member education, financial compensation or legal protection. *ALLIANCES can multiply the effect of economic actions considerably. They are essential where other organizations have dealing with the target group. INFORMATION: Legal, financial, market research, organizational and other complex data is required. Need access to corporate and economic research skills. *PUBLICITY: Generally, if public support (boycotts, legislative change, etc.) is required, prepare ongoing situation reports to media. Requires media representation. *F ACUITIES almost always include an office to coordinate your media work, *If you are fighting an economic or legal battle, you should count on having some money. See budgeting guide, Keep your books clean and above suspicion. demand full and immediate service for all entitled), then check these things: *MEMBERSHIP: Requires a few highly dedicated and creative members who are willing to risk the consequences of the tricks they devise. ORGANIZATION is not essential and in some cases is detrimental; if tricks are designed for publicity, some organization is desirable; in some cases, front organizations should be set up to cover for you. *ALLIANCES can be helpful when tricks are employed but more often are not required, and difficult to form. Security is more difficult in extensive alliances. *This is likely to be an underground INFORMATION war. Generally, you will need to know everything there is to know about the target (especially anything they are trying to keep secret). *Control PUBLICITY so that you do not tip your hand before the event. Tricks get their own publicity if they are creative/ingenious responses, particularly against bureaucracies. *FACILITIES: Should you go underground or create a front group? If yes, keep it away from existing organization; you may need separate facility. *Be sure that MONEY used to finance guerilla tactics is clean. ^ TRICKS IF YOU CHOOSE TRICKS (your purpose is to put your opponents on the defensive by disrupting, embarassing or ridiculing them; requires extensive knowledge of your opponents and high creativity; your supporters must be highly committed; play your cards close to your chest): Discrediting (exposing information that will cast doubt on motives, reveal associations or past activities that make target group look silly or corrupt), Bluffing (threat to use tactics that in fact are not available to you), Detection (acquiring information the target wants to keep secret or planting false information), Overload (impair target's ability to function, ie. J.P.Stevens products are being boycotted across North America. It is the second largest textile corporation in the U.S. and is infamous for anti-unionism, racism and sexism. Products include the following labels: Utica, Tastemaker, Fine Arts, Meadow- brook, Yves St.Laurent, Hardy Aimes, Snoopy... 95 rallies last November 30 marked Justice Day for J.P.Stevens workers. 16 Kinesis, February '79 17 Don't fudge the books or otherwise leave yourself open to diversionary tactics by the target (their tricks). Check ALLIANCES Alliances are ideally a formalizing of an ongoing history of cooperation. Your organization should maintain contact with other community groups so you know whether their style and aim are going to allow you to work with them productively. Advantages include: *sharing of facilities, information, human and financial resources *demonstrating a widespread concern with attendant publicity value *strengthening your advocacy by broadening the base of support *elimination of duplication or the appearance of competition between like-minded groups *consolidation of fund-raising, particularly from government agencies. For planning, advocacy or direct action purposes, there are three ways of collaborating with other groups. They are: 1. Information Sharing: an informal and unstructured relationship intended to facilitate a flow of information between groups which sometimes can result in a common action. 2. Ad Hoc Alliances: when several groups have defined a common concern and are willing to cooperate openly and in a more structured manner around one specific issue. By the openness of their collaboration they demonstrate the strength of support for the issue. 3. Coalition: when a number of organ izations decide to set up a formal body to make ongoing decisions on goals and action. It is a long-term collaborative planning device. Some forms of collaboration possible in both formal and informal alliances are: a) joint programming - meetings, workshops to discuss issues of common concern; b) parallel programming by sev eral groups - particularly effective if taking place in different geographic areas of city, province of country; c) direct action - demonstrations, marches, picketing, boycotts, etc.; d) mobilizing for lobbying - letter writing and other pressure tactics; e) endorsement, sponsorship and financial support by several organizations of a specific campaign. How to Mobilize Alliances In initiating any program it is always important for an action group to know its friends - to know what kind of support it can expect from whom. A place to find information is needed to analyze probable support groups: printed records, such as newspaper articles, organizational periodicals, community surveys - mostly found in your library. Often more up-to-date and specific information is available from your own members who have been involved with or know of other groups. A chart of organizational potential to assess the type of support other organizations are likely to provide, and to help you make decisions about building alliances with them, would include such headings as: *name of organization *probably relation to project - why would they be interested *what they can be expected to do - who do they represent. Before entering any alliance with "AN ATTACK ON ONE WILL BE ANSWERED BY ALL" WORKERS CONFERENCE AGAINST BRIGGS/PROPOSITION 6 other groups be clear within your own group about the extent of collaboration you are prepared to undertake. Will it be information sharing, an open coalition such as an ad hoc committee, or a formal or legal coalition? Prepare a statement of purpose to describe: *the roles of participating groups *the specific issue on which they agree to focus *the degree of consensus necessary for a common action *the methods/tactics the coalition will use. Beware of groups who may be riding one solution so hard that they will not consider other possibilities * of groups with other axes to grind which your group does not share, who will try to restate the goals * of groups who hog the limelight: CHALL- LENGE THEIR RIGHT of power plays and INSIST that decisions made are made democratically * of methods that your groups cannot endorse (everything from co-option, ie. the coalition is committed to preserving the status quo and not change, to terrorism tactics) * KNOW WHEN TO GET OUT quietly when it is useful to others but not your priority, publicly if it's destructive. Be prepared to defend those decisions. ie. censorship of gay rights ads or deletion of key portions of a press release or interview. You should carefully investigate ownership and control of local media. A well-organized major community campaign will employ both types of publicity. Here is a brief checklist of options, not arranged in any kind of priority: Hoarding Posters: They may be artistic silk screens or simple mimeo sheets. However, keep the message brief and simple. Hoardings are only useful as display areas because people are moving past them; ergo, they won't stop to read a long essay. of town - the farther away, the better. Talk shows are hungry for stuff, but often pander to red-neck audiences; be careful. Once on the program, it is hard to avoid the heat. Paid Advertising: Don't bother unless you can afford a highly visible ad in a publication that is read by your intended target. Special-interest and local newspaper weeklies are your best bet. Newsletter: If you can build up a good-sized mailing list and if you can meet a regular deadline with reasonable copy, these are worth doing. Throw pictures, cartoons and little pieces of humour or satire or local human interest to break up the copy. Billboards: At $900/month, each location, commercial boards are out. up $10 each - if you PUBLICITY Basically, publicity is of two kinds: that which you produce and distribute yourself and that which the press and others process and handle for you. The first kind allows you total freedom in what you say and how you say it, providing you are willing to pay and work for it. The second requires you to present yourself in a manner acceptable to the people who control the outlet you are using. Total freedom in producing and distributing your own publicity also exposes you to the risk of appearing to be a propagandist for your own interests, ie. political party pamphlets or religious tracts. Expecting other people to carry your message means that they can limit your argument or comment adversely; -Lui^ctLJLUii, cuuuaerciai Duarua are i All You Ever Wanted to Know ** ^ plywood SignS can be put * a. * * —. v w —-* r <—■ jor as kittle as $10 each - if y< have help and sign locations. Some- # ^^^ . . where in the middle are bus boards About Community Organizing (°* «* outside of buses) which *^ on a medium sized bus line could cost as little as $400 for an intensive week-long campaign on selected routes. Flyers: If you can get the use of a mimeograph machine you can effectively cover a neighbourhood by hand delivery or ask your post office about a "letter carrier's walk". Hand out at meetings and rallies. Keep your message short and simple. Canvassing: Door-to-door visits in the neighbourhood by informed supporters. Don't argue at the door and keep it brief. Can be effectively combined with flyer delivery. Stuffing Pieces: Flyers added to some other group's material. Watch out who you associate with. News Release: If your activity and events are newsworthy (in the opinion of the editor) the local press will provide you with free coverage. Public Service Announcement (PSA): Radio stations and some TV outlets will run short (30-60 seconds) free announcements of events. They will not run them during prime time. Radio will also take studio tapes if they are produced to boradcast quality. Give them lots of lead time. Press Kits: Assemble a package of background material and send to key reporters and commentators and distribute at press conferences. News Conference: Invite all local media people. Make sure you have something worth covering or they won't come back a second time. Feature Story: Use for background and less timely news. Must be well written and feature human interest or other attractive stuff. (Some papers will pay for these.) Letter to the Editor: Will serve to demonstrate widespread support if lots of people write. Keep them short and stick to one or two points. Interviews: Radio, TV and newspaper reporters and commentators will be interested in doing their own stories based on an interview with some notable person associated with your issue. Best bet is anyone from out MEMBERSHIP Power in Numbers As individuals, we have very little power. As a group, we have considerably more. The fundamental element of community action is that it involves the community. With the exception of those with influence or money, change rarely takes place when advocated by an individual, and significant change never occurs unless it is truly supported by the community. The key to success for most strategies is numbers. Functions of Membership Before recruiting membership, determine what function you want that mem bership to perform. Members can provide the financial support the action requires by paying membership dues and/or making contributions. These monies are usually only sufficient to pay for operating expenses such as stationery, telephone, brochures, and perhaps office rent. Unless the membership is extensive, it is unlikely a part-time or full- time salary can be provided by this source. Of course there are exceptions . An involved and knowledgeable membership is the best means of attain ing communication with the public, and visibility in the community. Members well-versed in the philosophy and goals of the organization can effectively spread the word with the public and thereby enable the organization to cash in on positive public attitudes when the need arises. A sympathetic public permits the use of a wide range of action strategies. An active membership gives the organization vitality, visibility, respectabilit- and credibility in the community. A membership is required to take action. Whether it is a very few putting their names to a brief, thousands turning out for a demonstration, or a few blockading a bulldozer, the members are required to give the strategy support. In the authority's eyes, the greater the economic or physical risk taken by members, the greater their commitment to the cause, and the more powerful the organization. Similarly the greater the number of members participating, the more powerful the organization. ► ► Kinesis, February '79 18 the form of supporting information. Next approach those who may be uncertain or uncommitted, and may need that extra information to make their decision. Count votes before the event. Avoid those who can say only NO. Learn to speak the language of those you approach, unless it undermines your cause. Base your case on factual argument. Show where your objectives would benefit a wider community. Use emotional and value argument with caution; but come on strong if you do use emotion. Know more about your issue than your "target" does. Often politicians rely on community groups to provide them with information and "ammunition" for their positions. Feed wrong information to the enemy if you can. Study the political climate of the time. If possible quote their own speeches or party guidelines. Letter writing campaigns are often used by organizations as a lobbying strategy. For maximum effectiveness letters should be personally written by your members and constituents. When initiating a letter writing campaign, send information explaining the issue and enumerating points which the writers should make. Then ask people to write in their own words. Give names and addresses of authorities to whom letters are to be sent. Form letters and petitions have a very limited effect on authorities, unless they support other lobbying initiatives, such as delegations or briefs. Publicity is important to bring the issue to the attention of the authorities and reinforce letter writers' interest. Letters to the editor, special reports, and if the issue is timely, a press conference should be part of the campaign. Delegations can vary in size and purpose between a small lobby group and a mass rally. A delegation of a few representatives may be sent to meet with authorities, who may or may not be already sympathetic to the cause. They could present a brief, or lobby in a low- key manner, laying the groundwork for future negotiations and establishing favourable conditions for on-going discussions of the issue. As a rule publicity is avoided in such a Occupying nuclear sites has proven an extremely effective tactic TACTICS TACTICS means doing what you can with what you have. 1. Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. 2. The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your group. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the group, the result is confusion, fear and retreat. 3. The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside of the experiences of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear and retreat. 4. The fourth rule is: Make the enenry live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity. 5. The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is a most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. 6. The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your group, is not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic. 7. The sevanth rule is: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. 8. The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. 9. The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. 10. The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is the unceasing pressure that re sults in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. (from Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky) LOBBYING When your group decides that in order to achieve your objectives you have to influence decisions made by a power structure by lobbying, the strategies that you might choose would be: presenting a brief, sending a delegation or initiating a letter writing campaign, or any combination of the three. When lobbying for an issue, timing, organization and publicity are important factors to consider. Your first task is to analyze your target. Learn who has power - your elected politician usually makes the best "target". Seek out those who can say yes. Lobby those who are most favourable to your cause - give them reinforcement in Kinesis, February '79 19 case, unless the delegation proves unsuccessful, and the lobby tactics are escalated. Mass delegations, sometimes busloads of people, converging on the authorities when they have proved hostile . and unreceptive to the issue, are a show of strength. Such a rally becomes a demonstration and requires the high profile publicity, planning and organization of a demonstration. LNS Native People marched upon Washington last summer to defend their land rights. A brief is a position paper presented to the authorities, stating the problem and sometimes proposing a solution. This should be in capsule form so that it can be grasped by the reader without too much brain work or research on his/her part. Your presentation should touch basically on the highlights of the brief, emphasizing or clarifying points. Make sure that your delegation is cohesive, and have practised their roles. Varying spokespersons is good strategy. Your presentation should leave time for questions and dialogue. Practise or role-play in advance who and how to respond to questions. It is good tactics to have each member undertake to be "expert" in one specific area. Publicity is important - make sure the media have copies of your brief, but do not release it prior to its presentation. It is good tactics to have a copy of the brief for each member of the group you are addressing. Presenting Your Case 1. Introduce yourselves - give the purpose, philosophy and constituency of your organization. Keep it very brief. 2. Outline the problem - give a brief background. Try to describe it in terms most likely to be understood by your audience. 3. Propose a solution if you can describe what action you wish to be taken - if possible give a timetable and means necessary to achieve results. 4. Outline expected results - stress benefits to larger community, long term outlook, etc. Be convincing. 5. Budget - if you are asking for funds, include itemized budget showing expected revenue and expenditures. Give other sources of funds and in-kind contributions. Make your request for funds with suitable guarantee of accountability. NEGOTIATION Negotiation is a formal mechanism to resolve differences between two parties. It works best when both parties have equal power in the particular situation; you are looking for a win/win situation. Most examples of negotiation are seen in labour disputes; the union is in a strong position to negotiate better wages if the company has lots of buyers for its products and very few products on hand. Similarly, a community group is in a strong position to negotiate with an agency if that agency has a mandate to do something which it is not doing and there has been a lot of publicity about the agency's failure to act. Questions about control and accountability in the delivery of certain services can often be the subject of negotiation. 1. Preparing for Negotiation Basic ground work should include: identifying your disagreement with the other side, clarifying your objectives, gathering facts to support your position, and assessing your opponent's strengths and weaknesses versus your own resources. Practicing your negotiations with role play has proved very valuable with groups. Establishing basic ground rules should be arranged after both parties have agreed to negotiate. Establish what will be on the agenda, the length of the meeting, and where the meeting is to take place. If it is to take place on your home ground it gives you some psychological advantage, and may save travel and money. If the meeting is held on the opponent's ground you can withhold information on the grounds that it is not readily available. Neutral territory may reduce tensions between groups. It should also be established who is coming to the negotiation. Community groups are increasingly using team negotiations in contrast to one person or third party bargaining. When selecting your negotiating team make sure each team member has some function. Team solidarity is essential for successful bargaining. It is advisable to have signals to cue each other if the negotiation is important. Be sure to keep communications open between the team and the absent members. There are definite advantages to using a team approach. It not only provides negotiation experience for more members, but also presents the opponents with a larger opposition. Most importantly, a team approach ensures reinforcement in stating your position. 2. Negotiating Techniques Strategy is concerned with long-range goals and values. The basic elements of negotiation strategy are: * Making demands clearly, and making sure that your threats are believable. By making initially higher demands, your team can often manoeuvre itself into an advantageous position of final compromise. * Observing demands or studying demands can be requested when things are going Strong, stark: gay rights poster jjjs badly. It allows you to retire to consider the implications of the opponent's demands and your response. * Knowing when to stop is a useful technique. When you have scored a major point, or given an ultimatum, let the ball rest in the opponent's court. You may lose your advantage by talking too much. * Disclosing final position. Your team should not reveal the minimum acceptable position early in the negotiations as this could result in manipulation by your opponent. * Outlining solutions demonstrates your group's concern with future needs of the community. These should be made in the latter stages of negotiations. * In making concessions, the timing is most important. Major concessions ► ► Kinesis, February '79 20 usually occur in the middle phase of negotiations, smaller ones towards the end. * Limit your demands to a very few fundamental issues so as not to give opponents opportunities to confuse the issue. Go back later if more demands must be made. 3. Settlement In the final stage of negotiations, the two parties search for goal convergence. Your group should be prepared to help your opponents rationalize their change in position. The win/lose confrontation which may have prevailed in the earlier part of the negotiations will need to be abandoned in favour of creative alternatives. Concessions made in the process of negotiation by either side must be finally seen as being in the best interest of all. The end of formal negotiation may be only a beginning in the changing power structure of a community. Issue Resolved ISSUE RESOLVED.*.' Congratulations.' Consider keeping records & contacts for future actions. But first: MONITOR ACTION: What effect has your action had on the target? the authorities? your group? the public? the media? your allies? ISSUE NOT RESOLVED Do you need new strategies? If yes,', CHOOSE again (Step 3) Have the conditions changed? If yes, then re-ASSESS (Step 2) Has the issue changed? If yes, then re-DEFINE (Step 1). CHECK LIST FOR EVALUATING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES 1. How well was the issue defined? 2. Do you know what the objectives are 3. Who is the community or group that they are working with or for? 4. What research was necessary? 5. Was the assessment of groups' strengths and weaknesses completed? 6. Can you see who the friends/supporters and detractors are? 'Ģ7. What problems occurred? Could you foresee others occurring? 8. What were the results? 9. Where would one go from here? 10. What records were kept? 11. How was the program evaluated? 12. Did members of the group learn new skills? After You've Been Sexually Assaulted By Judi For over a year and a half I have lived with the fact that I was sexually assaulted and unable to deal with the total reality of it. On Sept. 8 of last year the gruelling courtroom procedures culminated in conviction for my attacker. Then I began trying to forget it ever happened. Once in awhile it would sneak back into my consciousness as I continually tried to bury it. From that process alone I should have realized that I had a long way to go in dealing with this part of me. I have been living in a small community 800 miles north of Vancouver. There is very little awareness there of what constitutes rape and what the consequences are. I was initially helped by a group of women who were organized through a local drop-in centre. They took care of me for three days and went to court with me. But after the preliminary proceedings, funding for the program was cut off and these women had to find other work to support themselves and/or their families. It was a drastic loss for the community and for me. Four days after I was assaulted, I was hospitalized and operated on because I was haemorrhaging. I missed seven weeks of work and was so traumatized that I lost my job. So I put an application into Workers' Compensation Board- Criminal Injuries Section for lost Just after Christmas I was requested to come down to Vancouver for an interview. Again I was- faced with trying to communicate my emotional, physical distress to a person with an uncaring, unfeeling attitude. This time it was a doctor and a claims adjuster. It was not that I didn't want to talk about it but these people didn't want to hear what I had to say. Secure and blindly immersed in their own familiar environment, they obviously already knew how to intimidate me and generally bully me emotionally even to the point of accusing me of being unable to control or overcome my negativity in connection with the rape. I had no physical injuries their computers could calculate. Besides, as I was told, 'it' happens to a lot of women. It was like saying that if enough women are raped then it becomes the norm. It didn't matter that I was so traumatized that I lost my job, my stability, my security. After all, what did rape have to do with it? Don't they know that emotions are only expressions of the physical self? I can't believe they sent me $200 as compensation for wages lost. I continue to shake my head in angry disbelief. I left there feeling a mixture of wanting to get. drunk to forget it all and of determination to do_ something about this oppressive society and its inherent condescending attitudes. We sisters have many similar problems but often lack the means to do anything, to focus in any direction. Sometimes all we lack is support. People are so concerned with maintaining their survival, there is little energy left to put into constructive action. Sometimes it just takes the initiative to write it down and communicate it to begin to see that there is a way. We need temporary shelter for children of rape victims, shelter and counselling for battered women, victims of rape, single young mothers, and helpless women who are for the moment at a loss. We need to raise public consciousness by demonstrating against ineffective laws, inadequate medical care, incorrect educational facilities, racism etc. No longer are we forced to tolerate attacks on ourselves by brutes in human form. We have realized the oppressive situation of women in society. Now it is our duty (brothers too) to restore the respect and dignity to the mothers, sisters and daughters of the world. As long as we remain involved in the struggle victory is assured. Kinesis, February '79 21 Dinner For Us All A three-day extravaganza is being planned to begin on International Women's Day, March 8, in Victoria. The event will include films, a sit-down dinner to coincide with the International Dinner Party to Celebrate Women's Culture, a dance, art show, benefit, concerts and theatre. Featured are local and B.C. area women in our past and present. Sponsored by the planners of the future Women's Building of Victoria. Information available from the Women's Building of Victoria, Box 4211, Depot D, Victoria B.C. V9B 4Z3. And from the originators of the "International Dinner Party" idea . (a group of women in California): "Women have never had a Last Supper, but they have had dinner parties - lots and lots of dinner parties when they facilitated and nourished people." - Judy Chicago Dear Sisters, We would like to ask you to participate with us in a worldwide celebration of ourselves.' We are asking women in many countries to host dinner parties honouring women important to their own culture. These dinner parties, held simultaneously in March, 1979, will create a network of women-acknowledging -women which will extend around the world. The occasion is the opening of "The Dinner Party", a celebration of women history and a work of art of tremendous beauty and scope. For hh years artist and writer Judy Chicago, aided by over 250 artists, designers, historians and craftspeople, has been creating this work which pays homage to 39 women who have been major contributors to Western Civilization, and lists 999 others who have left their mark. The Dinner Party is a large triangular table with 39 place settings resting on a porcelain floor, which symbolically tells the story of women throughout Western History. The exhibition opens in March in San Francisco, California and is scheduled to travel for a year to several other institutions. If you would like to join us, please do the following: 1. Pass this information on to women in other cities and countries so our network can continue to expand. We particularly need to know of women in the Middle and Far East, Africa and South America. 2. Write to us, telling us who you (or your group) are, and we will send you more detailed information about the event. 3. Gather together women in your area to plan your dinner party for March. To contact the artists, write: "International Dinner Party", c/o Suzanne Lacy, 28 Avenue 27, Venice CA 90291. Join in these Celebrations THE 1979 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY COMMITTEE AND BONANZA JELLYBEAN PRODUCTIONS BRING YOU KAY GARDNER! You probably first knew her with Alix Dobkin on Lavender Jane - Then came her own Mooncircles, and later you heard her with Margie Adam on Songwriter. She has a new record out now: Emerging - a glory of baroque, classical and Renaissance music. But most importantly, she'll be here in Vancouver on March 3rd to begin our International Women's Day celebrations. She be playing original contemporary music and jazz for flute, piano, guitar and vocals, accompanied by Mojo. When Kay isn't touring she's the prin cipal conductor of the New England Women's Symphony, and she teaches a graduate course in Women & Music at Goddard/Cambridge. Mark your calendar! *Saturday, March 3rd *Russian Community Centre *Time: 8:30 p.m. *Price: $4.00 *Beer & Wine Served - A Concert for Women Only - Tickets on sale soon at Ariel Books, 2766 W. 4th Avenue, and Women's Book- store, 804 Richards Street. "A woman, a dog, or a walnut tree The more you beat 'em The better they be!" The last time I quoted this ancient English couplet I speculated at considerable length as to why anybody would want to beat a walnut tree. The dog and the woman I can understand. Garden Notes, by M. V. Chestnut Vancouver Province us JbJ&iSL&B Kinesis, February '79 22 Bill Who? 22 What? by Kay Matusek The Socreds are still doing it to us. And for women one of the biggest guessing games in the province today is "When will Bill 22 be proclaimed?" Bill 22, for those of you who are not trying to marry, separate or divorce so don't know, is the Socred gift to the women of the province. It is the bill which is to give women some rights in marriage (the Socreds say equality) and maybe a small bit of the action should the marriage be terminated. Bill 22 was given third reading last June. Ever since that time Family Court, the B.C. Supreme Court, lawyers and a lot of women have been waiting for the proclamation. The rumours have been hot and heavy but have had to be revised every two or three months as to when this bill will finally become law. No one knows when that will be but we now know for sure it wasn't last August or September or December. The latest rumour is it may be in April, or not until June. Don't hold your breath, it could be never. There is some speculation it won't happen until Rafe Mair's divorce is final! Maybe I would be upset about this bill not being proclaimed if I thought it was the piece of legislation we need. However, it really doesn't give women equality in marriage. It totally ignores women in common law marriages which are breaking up. It gives a few concessions to try and appease us, to keep us quiet, or rather to keep us busy in the courts trying to untangle the jargon so we can really see what we are, or are not, getting. The Background There are some serious problems which are hard to overcome in trying to come up with a decent Family Relations Act. The first goes back to 1867 and the British North America Act. Unfortunately this act set up a separation of power between the Federal and Provincial Governments within the institution of marriage. The Federal Government has jurisdiction over the rules pertaining to status and capacity of the people wishing to marry, with certain prohibitions such as you can't marry your grandmother's ex, and jurisdiction over the grounds for divorce and determining custody and maintenance. Meanwhile, the Provincial Government has jurisdiction over the formal requirements of marriage, such as where, when, with what licenses and who is officiating. The Province can also make and enforce any regulations it so desires as long as these are not regulations specifically delegated to the Feds. I The Federal Government tries the I criminal offences of a familial I nature but it's the Provincial Government, mostly in Family Court, who is in charge of adoption (cases heard in the B.C. Supreme Court), change of name, custody and access (if it's not ancillary to divorce), child neglect, division of property, separation agreements, maintenance, and alimony orders (these last four are also if it's not ancillary to divorce). Altogether, at this moment, there are at least 20 separate Acts and Codes, not counting Common Law, on the Federal and Provincial levels which could directly affect a woman who has a child and who is in or ending some type of marriage. In 1972, the Provincial Government came up with the first Family Relations Act and it set out new regulations concerning custody and access and made some provisions, primarily judicial discretion, for the redistribution of property upon marriage breakdown. After the B.C. Royal Commission of Family and Children's Law made its recommendations the Unified Family Court Act was proclaimed. This has been a pilot project and not available everywhere in the province. It has made for greater access of information between the B.C. Supreme Court and the Family Court with Court Counsellors making recommendations which are sent to both courts so the courts will act in conjunction with each other, thus minimizing red tape and confusion. There are also Advocates hired to directly represent the best interest of the children. The Family and Children's Law Reform Commission made suggestions about ownership of property within a marriage. It based its recommendations on the belief that all people should be equal under the law, marriage is a partnership of shared responsibilities, the roles of provider and homemaker are of equal value to the relationship and married women are economically competent. To date, these recommendations have been successfully ignored by the law makers. Finally, in 1977, the Ministry of the Attorney-General came up with the Family Relations Amendment Act (Bill 69). This bill was tabled for discussion and generated heated debate throughout the province (see Kinesis, December 1977). By June 27, 1978, the Ministry had taken that bill and revised it, supposedly taking into consideration the comments and criticisms received from the people of the province, and the latest Family Relations Act, Bill 22, was given third reading. Bill 22, or, THE GIFT MO?U!U69 I \m. am ou me m > liUoRk- r HAm The general purpose of the Bill is to consolidate and update the provisions of the Equal Guardianship of Infants Act, Extra-provincial Custody Orders Enforcement Act, Unified Family Court Act, and the Family Relations Act. The Bill is divided into six parts. The first part defines the terms, provides for the appointment of family advocates and court counsellors, clarifies the legal capacity of a woman or young person, and ensures proper jurisdiction between the B.C. Supreme Court and the Family Courts. The second part consolidates, updates and streamlines the provisions concerning children now under the Equal Guardianship of Infants Act, Extra- provincial Custody Orders Enforcement Act, and the Family Relations Act. The third part states that when a marriage breakdown occurs, the property owned by either spouse and used by the family for family purposes shall be divided between the spouses on a fair basis. This is the concept of deferred sharing and is for those couples who have not made provisions for the property through a marriage or separation agreement. This does not cover any business assets for which one spouse made no contribution. This does not cover any woman in a common-law marriage. The fourth part deals with mainte-^. W3Rkr i me. oowiusiDtf&FpOM Kinesis, February '79 23 more on BILL WHO? nance and support obligations. The maintenance provisions are to be made on the basis of need, and not that of fault. It is also with the recognition that the spouse receiving support should become self-supporting as soon as possible. This part incorporates automatic enforcement of maintenance orders or so they claim. Part five establishes new and special procedures for the Family Court and makes provisions for necessary changes in the future. Part six sets out miscellaneous and transitional provisions. So What? And When? So what does this mean to you and me? Well, no one really knows until it is proclaimed and real cases are brought before real judges who will try and interpret the statutes. Some of the concerns were expressed by Rosemary Brown during debate in the . Legislature on that day in June. She thinks -"that it's really a lawyer's bill...there's going to be utter chaos in this province in terms of really working out this piece of legislation." She also pointed out "...that we cannot talk about equality after the marriage is over, that what we should be talking about is equality during the life of the marriage." She was also concerned about the idea that the spouse must try and become self-supporting as soon as possible after the marriage breaks up. This could be very difficult for a 50-year-old woman who has not been employed outside the home in years, if ever. Finally, she is concerned because one section gives a judge power to vary a marriage agreement. She said, "I don't know any other Act under which it's possible for the courts to vary a contract agreement that way. The provisions guarding the best interests of the children are good. The fact that the separation of property can be settled before the divorce becomes final is also good. The fact that this bill updates and clarifies statutes, making them more easily understood and more relevant to our present needs, is beneficial. But good or bad, this bill is not law until it is proclaimed. There is speculation about why this bill is not being proclaimed. Some people think it's to give all the backbenchers time to convert all their assets to business property. Others think Cabinet is waiting until after election as this bill may embarass the Socred party. There is speculation about when this bill will be proclaimed; in April or never. But we do have the answer the Honourable Garde Gardom gave "o the question posed by Rosemary Bjoyn. She said, "This is a proclamation bill. . When is it going to be proclaimed?" After a bit of discussion the Honourable Mr. Gardom answered, "In due course. "# THE PEOPLE'S FOOD COMMISSION IS HAVING A CANADA-WIDE FOOD INQUIRY. YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTAKE "Well, for one thing, we really need some good questions. Of course, We would also like facts, well-documented answers. " Mary Rawson, a long-time VSW member and a member of the People's Food Commission, is talking here about the Commission. "I am also very interested in getting information reflecting a feminist viewpoint. " Mary Rawson, one of the commissioners from B.C., is quite concerned about getting information about women and any aspect of the food chain such as: what packaged foods contain, nutrition, processing, distribution, growing, alternatives.like co-ops and farmers' markets, land trusts and land use, fishing and/or fast food services. What Is It? First Mary spoke about what it is NOT. It is NOT a Government Inquiry. The food issue is too important and too large to be left to the government. In the past, the government has collected information about the 'food problem' and yet their reports and recommendations have gone unheeded. Then she said it is NOT just for experts, but rather for people like you and me. She is interested in hearing from the people who rarely get heard and this is one reason she hopes someone will submit information with a feminist perspective. The People's Food Commission is an independent inquiry. It was originally sponsored '-. by an inter-denominational church committee in Winnipeg. It began when some people began to realize the government food policy and giveaway programs actually help no one in the third world countries and leave many injustices and inadequacies here at home. What Are Some Issues? Mary said some of the questions might be: Are women who work in canneries paid less than the men and if so, why? What happens to a lone woman on an all- male fishing boat? How are all-women crews doing? How do you move up the MacDonald ladder of success and could this happen to a woman? (Would you want it done for you?) But the problems which affect everyone are the rising food prices and their effect on the poor, increasing rural depopulation and poverty among the primary producers, food imports and the effect on Canadian producers and Third World producers, marketing boards, the fishing industry, the role of corporations in food production and distribution, wages and working conditions of those working in the food industries, here and abroad, and of course, nutrition and the quality of our food. What Happens To The Information? After we hear the evidence from the people across Canada, on their experience with, and research into, the food system, we'll identify the common interests among the food producers, consumers, workers and Third World peoples and write a popular report, synthesizing the information to make recommendations for a People's Food Policy. This will be returned to the participants so they can see how their experience relates to that of others. The report will also be forwarded to all relevant government departments, both federally and provincially, but it is be be written primarily for the participants. The Commission will then facilitate follow-up meetings for the participants to discuss the report and ways to implement the policy suggestions. A lot will depend on the participants. Can I Get Involved? You could make a presentation to the Commission. You could also get help with materials from them just by asking. You could make a donation. You could help organize hearings in your area. Where and When are the Hearings? The Commissioners have been chosen from across Canada. They are travelling to 65 communities across the country. The hearings are being held now, but submissions will be accepted through April. Where Can I Get More Information? In the Vancouver area, contact: The People's Food Commission 2524 Cypress Street Vancouver, B.C. V6J 3N5 (736-9515) * Kinesis, February '79 24 On Being Angry, Not Mad by Maria In 1955 Marie spent about six months in Crease Clinic. Ostensibly she was committed and treated for schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa, a mental and physical abnormality which causes women to starve themselves. For her so-called schizophrenia, Marie was given daily insulin shock treatments. Her insulin-riddle body convulsed and strained against the bindings. She watched as other women in the 60-patient ward pulled, tugged and unsuccessfully fought against the horrific effects of the drug. Hospital conditions were oppressive: no doors on shower and toilet stalls, rubber sheets and pillows on hospital beds and the persistent presence of the vigilant nurses. "It's worse than jail," Marie says. "There is no parole." Marie considers the hospital life, the doctors' and nurses' patronizing and chauvinistic attitudes as, "a rape of the mind...sanctioned by the powers that be in society." Doctors don't administer insulin shock treatments anymore - they use electric shocks. During a recent Women's Studies class at Langara, Marie talked about her past and the events that led to her committal. Here is an edited version of her talk: I Did Not Conform. "I've always been considered different from my peer group. I did not conform to the stereotype of a little girl who is supposed to play with dolls. I always thought that play was something you like to do, that you could pretend to do, so that when you grew up you could be allowed to do it properly, thus spreading happiness around. Even to this day, having a mind of your own as a woman seems to be regarded as insane by some authorities. I'm the product of first cousins, whose marriage was cursed from the beginning by relations and society. It's been quite a life - from one nightmare, to another. I only mention this because it's true and to give myself credit that although I have ploughed through such a Russian roulette environment under such a reign of terror, and in such bindings, I still have a song in my heart, though it sometimes has a too angry beat. Anger: Oh, that phrase, 'I'm not mad, I'm angry' is true. Oh, why don't people take time to listen to people? A little girl has womanly wisdom, you know. Mummy used to beat me out of frustration, though I knew she loved me and she was sorry. To my father I was a toy, never a person, and one could never level with him. I used to lick the white walls when I was able to stretch far enough out of my crib. My mother would beat me for it, but I craved the taste on the walls. Eventually I had to be taken to the infirmary by a neighbour, who used to interrupt the beatings. The doctors discovered I had rickets from whatever chemical was on the walls. The government sent me to a sani- torium but I went on "strike" against my parents. I was so mad, so angry, that I refused to eat. At four years of age, it was my way of getting back at my ignorant parents. However, the doctors psyched in on this, refusing my parents visiting privileges, and I eventually got fat and sassy. I was never listened to. At high school two bullies tormented me. They even made fun of my smile. I was pushed around a lot. And never being listened to, having to put up with uncalled for sexist oppression outside the home, I grew up angry. By the time I was 21, I was ill, had a heavy dull pain in one side. I wouldn't let physicians examine me pelvically. One, a fat pompous twit said I thought too much of myself. He told me to "git married" and said that having kids would be the "making of me". So I went to a naturopath who put me on a cleansing diet for two years. (Two young matrons from the Lower Mainland died from this diet and he had to move to California.) Hell, I didn't want to be ill, but he was the only one that listened. I bore the consequence of disbelief and being told to shut up. Grandma went into St. Paul's one Friday, mommv the next, hemorrhaging from one of her abortions, and I was the third to go in. I weighed about 80 pounds before surgery. I was fed intravenously at first after surgery. But you see, I was angry at all those smug people who hadn't walked in my shoes. I thought, "Oh, so at last you do_ give a damn, do you? Well, I'll let you revel in your misery a little longer." I didn't even try to eat. I thought I was going crazy, but didn't tell anyone. No one would have listened anyway. 6 Copies I received at least six copies of Power of Positive Thinking by N.V. Peale, by well-meaning visitors, but they'd never opened the book themselves. The hospital thought perhaps I could learn to eat again at home. By that time I had confirmed anorexia nervosa (vomiting., starving). I went to a ^ 25 Women In Isolation and Solidarity psychiatrist but oh, he was strange. It was most unfortunate that I happened to go to that society-climbing doctor of all people. My mother refused to sign the committal paper to Riverview so he did. (Incidentally, he sent a bill for $50 for that committal. He was very supercilious with my mother - she was obviously under- educated - but when she phoned the Medical Association about it, he personally phoned her back, stuttering away, saying it was his secretary's error.) So you see, I became absolutely powerless then. I was signed away by a strange man to a fortress that was years behind its time. A surgeon from St. Paul's came to visit me at home just before I was driven to Riverview. He was weeping, as he said it would be a punitive experience, but no matter what would happen there, he instructed me to try to eat. I Felt Bizarre. After being admitted, two huge nurses took me by each arm, looking at me in horror. (I weighed 69 pounds.) They bathed me but were watching me closely; I felt bizarre. I was given a needle to stop the vomiting and had to help one nurse sew my number on all my underwear. But my handbag and outerwear were taken away. Then I was put in a cell-like room with just a bed and table. The barred window was too high to show the outdoors. The door was closed on me and locked. It had a peep hole in it, also barred, with a little door for them to open from the outside to see me. There was a chamber pot but no bell to call for help. I had become so sick and run down that I could feel the impact of certain colours on the retinas of my eyes and I'd throw up. (That cell was all grey, though.) Each time a nurse came in with food I'd plead with her to stay or just talk to me. "Not until you start, eating," she would say, as to a naughty child. Many meals were offered but I could only vomit. Then I started to get frantic. I pounded the door, even after being told to stop it. I screamed for sedation, or to be permitted to go to a proper toilet. (It was many weeks later I learned those cells were used for ward punishment, for incoming attempted suicides so they couldn't feel coddled. They are always tough with suicidal people of dangerous patients.) At last a doctor came to see me. However, one nurse sat at the foot of the bed, and one at the head. My, I felt like a criminal. To Receive Insulin Shock Therapy. The doctor was so nice - a young, dedicated Scottish person. He said I was going to be moved to a dormitory in the 60-woman ward to receive insulin shock therapy. He said not to be frightened or surprised, that there were mostly fat women, not aware of their surroundings. He said to remain impartial and not "try to figure things out". He said it was an acute ward but to be assured that the staff were acting in the patients' best interest. I was lucky to have a bed near the window. Most of the women had postnatal psychoses. They were all young, like me. Insulin shock? It was so dreadful that those who had lost touch with reality were lucky not to remember their treatments. We were awakened at 5 am to wash, etc. Then we had to strip our own beds. I washed it every morning, legs and all, with strong antiseptic solution, then I made it as taught - thick rubber sheet under the bottom sheet, top sheet, open weave blanket, a rubber pillow. Then I was taught to place long cotton strips crossways over the body, with crossing ties pinning down arms and chest, also ones that would be pulled tight, binding the feet down. We all worked silently, someone would occasionally sob, knowing what was in store. Nurses would watch, carefully testing the bindings. Their patients were allowed to be together for half an hour either lying on the linoleum of the hallways or on the cold marble floor of the lavatory. The day room was locked. The nurses would light cigarettes, ever watchful. What Was The Use? No one talked much and never about the treatment. What was the use? We could hear carts being wheeled around in the dormitory, with the inevitable long red tubes attached to glass pitchers, the oxygen tanks, the assorted hypodermic needles, bottles full of glucose and adrenaline or camphor to increase the severity of convulsions. Then we were herded into the dormitory, to get into bed and then wait for the insulin injection to induce shock, convulsions and coma. The nurses would erect the iron railings on each bed. My, you should have seen the nurses dashing around and the team of doctors bringing us all to unconsciousness. It would be close to noon when we had all been helped up with many injections in the thighs and glucose pumped down our throats. Two nurses would help me wade across all the tubes and wailing women, to be shoved (if I managed not to vomit) into a communal shower with all sorts and sizes of women, with terror in their eyes. I remember there'd be a radio program on the loud speaker called 'Fiesta'. I once made a pun that it should be called 'Fiasco' to one of the nurses helping me stagger to the showers, but she gave me a strange look which made me go into uncontrollable laughter necessitating another needle. I never again risked joking with a so-called sane person during my incarceration. I was wheeled out on my cot sometimes when resuscitated from coma and I just couldn't stop vomiting. I'd be rushed in for electric shock. They didn't anaesthetize you in those days and I managed to ask them once before they had me bite on a muzzle before affixing the electric clamps on my temples: "Am I depressed and don't know it? Is that why I'm having.electric shock too?" But they didn't speak to me as if I had a mind. I am mentioning this because, you see, I was utterly powerless and that is one of the tenets of the social reform aimed for in Women's Studies. And I claim now, as I secretly knew then, that I was more angry than mad. No Privacy Oh, the things I saw. We had no basic privacy, stripped of every semblance of dignity. It was necessary to have no doors on lavatory cubicles as some tried to kill themselves to escape the treatment. Sometimes I'd be taken in there and put to bed with needles to stop the vomiting. I just couldn't eat for a long time though I tried. I'd be locked in the dormitory and not free to go into the corridor. Oh, there were many experiences. Some women just disappeared. The grapevine knew when jokes came true like, "She's gone up the hill" to a chronic building, East Lawn, or "around the bend" to West Lawn. But I didn't realize that quite a few died under insulin shock coma until recently. I made a special friend there called Joanie who had never had any severe emotional problems, but childbirth had apparently changed her body chemistry so she went to Riverview after giving a normal birth Joanie and I communicated well, but I could see her slipping away. Her young husband would visit, holding up the baby, but as time went by she grew less and less interested. At first she'd come up to me and press a candy in my hand, with her sweet smile. And she had a sense of humour too, at one time, before she went "up the hill". One Sunday, the day of rest from treatments, we were allowed, accompanied by several nurses toting bottles of glucose and endless keys jingling from their belts, to go downstairs to the basement tunnel and march over to the hospital cafeteria. The food was being dished out by heavily drugged inmates from "up the hill". On Sunday, with Joanie behind me, I was in the lineup and I noticed these sleepy-looking people were dishing out carrots gar-^. Kinesis, February '79 26 nished with raisins. As Joanie always followed me like a devoted shadow, I said something to the effect that the chronic patients looked like they were vegetating. "And look, Joanie, they're even raisin' carrots." Well, she started to laugh, 'ñ†especially when I said, "But we're not acute, can't you hear the men from their side of the cafeteria whistle as we go by?" She got hysterical with infectious laughter and we all started to laugh. I further said (with us acute women now smiling and listening to me for another joke): "Furthermore, no matter how much my memory is getting dimmed from the treatment, I'll always remember my number because of my purpose here - to eat again. See how easy it is? I was the third Marie (grandmother, mother, daughter) and my number here when they're raisin hell or carrots will always be 33312. Well, let's get to the dinner - three ate, (I'll) ate one too." Well, we all went into gales of laughter, and even the chronic ones smiled faintly. One of the nurses shouted, "That's enough. Ward East 3 back upstairs." So we were herded upstairs, without a meal. It had been my fault. Gee, I felt badly, but I was angry at this punishment and I tried to tell the nurses that they had no sense of humour. I started to retch so was undressed, the dormitory was opened and I was put to bed with the endless needles and slept until it was time for me to get up and have the treatment on Monday morning. (By the way, Joanie never got better. She's out there now, with purple skin from all the drugs. She was sent "up the hill" as a chronic long before I left. Now she's fat and wears a kerchief all the time. She doesn't recognize anyone and doesn't respond to her name." What's my point? I feel that if the so-called authorities had only listened in those days and not judged. We were only laughing at genuinely funny things. We felt so powerless and we strained at our literal and figurative bindings. I met some wonderful people out there and I became quite a leader. "Queen of the Nuts", that's what I was. But fellow patients looked up to me. I'M HOT /IAD 171 -* ahgM There were many psycho-dynamics among the patients - bonding, rivalry, cruelty, support. There was manipulation, pretense, dependence, all sorts of relationships between staff and patients. Though conditions have since been revolutionized, thank God, I still do very much understand the powerlessness of the female patient. Now, the treatments even for acutes are less dangerous and there's hardly any physical damage done. Some limbs were broken when I was out there back in the '50s and cranial damage - teeth knocked out, etc. I have an inoperable injury in my neck from straining and convulsing. My memory is kaput. I've been hospitalized since, under my own admission, but I've had a violent life and lived under a double bind - absolute classic background to engender terrific frustrations and anger - especially when surrounded by humourless people who really are too mentally ill themselves to consider getting help. I have been through a lot, not just by being incarcerated those many months 22 years ago, but by being black-balled by an ex-employer when I was released from hospital because he was vindictive that I had not responded to him sexually. He actually succeeded in stopping my getting employment, until he was found out. In my opinion, that man is much more insane and sick than any of those powerless angry women whose twilight time I was privileged to share when we were all locked up and locked out. Ed.note: Maria's doctor says she shouldn't take Women's Studies any more, because it makes her angry. VSW on the Move It's Goodbye 2029 West 4th Ave Here we go again. Our funding runs out March 31. Our lease at 2029 West 4th Ave. runs out Feb.28. We have not yet located another, suitable space. VSW has applied to the provincial secretary for funding for the next fiscal year. The new minister, Hugh Curtis, has acknowledged our application with the1 following remarks: Funds allocated for grant purposes have been restricted by Treasury Board and if funding responsibility for your organization remains with my Ministry or is continued, the grant increase would not exceed 5% over that amount allocated during the 1978/9 period. Your request to meet with me is noted; however, my itinery for the next two months is completely scheduled... PLEASE SEND US YOUR SUPPORT LETTERS NOW, AND WE WILL SEND THEM ALONG TO CURTIS. If you want Kinesis to continue, please send us a letter of support. In the past year, we have continued our priority of community development, sponsoring assertiveness training workshops and advocacy workshops, both free. Although we don't know where we're going, nor how we're going to pay the rent (much less produce Kinesis) we do have to move. If you could help us pack our stuff, let us know at 736 1313. Kinesis, February ' 79 27 What Do \You Do' With 1000 Lesbians?! We are a group of women from the Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT), who volunteered to organize a bi-national lesbian conference in the spring. At the Ontario lesbian conference last May in Ottawa, LOOT committed itself to sponsoring the next bi- national lesbian conference. The last time we all came together was two years ago this fall and we are long overdue for another experience of sharing. In the last two years, our lesbian communities have been growing and changing; our diversity is our strength. We are active in lesbian groups, mixed gay groups, and women's groups. Some of us are too isolated to be active and out; some of us experience different problems through our activity with gay men or feminists. It is this growth and diversity that we can share and discuss at the conference. We can figure, out in what direction we want to go, in building our communities, our culture, and our ability to fight against constant attacks on our right to exist, to love and be proud. Any- change in our movement happens on the local level, so we hope this conference will further strengthen us regionally and locally by taking back home new and improved ideas. MAKE THIS YOUR CONFERENCE! The organizers in Toronto cannot hope tc please everyone but we want to make this process as easy as possible. This is your conference; what happens will be determined by your response and practical input. Let's make it a collective effort - help each other to be there. Invent, create, bring your banners, come! For info, contact: the LCC for LOOT, 342 Jarvis Street, Toronto, Ontario. WATCH THOSE WHEELS TURN A Schools Department Circular went out recently from the Ministry of Education calling attention to the fact that B.C. schools cannot restrict Industrial Education and Home Economics courses to boys and girls respectively. "Restriction or limitation on enrolment, where sex is a factor, " the circular went on, "contravenes the B.C. Human Rights Code and must, therefore, stop. " This is of interest to us at VSW because it's an issue around which we organized last summer, when our attention was drawn to the fact that a female student at John Oliver High School had been unable to enrol in a Grade 8 Industrial Education course. Deputations at the high school were told that the student in question had not been denied access to I.E. on the basis of sex. "A major problem," the circular continues, "is in courses "+ the Grade 8 level, where study of these subjects has been made compulsory. To assist in the resolution of this problem, the Ministry is considering a new course for Grade 8, tentatively entitled Life Skills, which will combine content from both I.E. 8 and Home Ec. 8." This is precisely the course which the VSW deputation advised the principal to take. An investigation by a Human Rights Officer at the same high school might just have prompted this closing piece of good advice in the circular: "To the greatest extent possible schools should, in the remainder of this 1978-79 school year, make all I.E. and Home Ec. courses available on an equal basis to students of either sex and, in the 1979-80 and subsequent years, be able to demonstrate clearly that there is no enrolment discrimination based on the sex of the pupil. " BANNING THE BOOKS Halifax - A bookstore here has been told that lesbian books cannot be imported into Canada. Red Herring Co-operative Books, an alternative bookstore specializing in socialist, feminist, gay and minority publications, ordered a number of books from Diana Press, a California lesbian feminist publishing house. On October 4th, Denise Roberge, a member of the co-operative, went to Canada ^Customs to collect the parcel and was told by the official on duty that the books were banned. Barry Mitchell, Superintendent of International Mail for Revenue Canada - Customs in Halifax, has denied any knowledge of a ban against the books. According to him, all incoming books are examined to determine whether their importation violates Customs Tariff Item 99201-1 which prohibits the importation of "immoral, indecent, treasonable or seditious" material. Suspect titles are referred to Ottawa for a ruling. If a book is banned, the importer is supposed to be notified in writing of the right to appeal the decision. (Robin Metcalfe, Body Politic) "Les Fees Ont Soif" (The Fairies Are Thirsty), by Quebec feminist playwright Denis Boucher, is "filthy, sacreligious and blasphemous". Or so says the city of Quebec, which has issued a temporary injunction against stocking the play in the city's bookshops. The play denounced the Church's influence on education and intellectual life, and its role in the subjugation of women. The three fairies - the Virgin Mary ("I am the mirror of injustice") , a housewife and a prostitute - represent the bedrock of the oppression of women. THE RISE OF THE RIGHT "OUR BODIES, OURSELVES" BANNED The Boston Women's Health Collective reports that the widely-used guide to women's health and sexuality, Our Bodies, Ourselves, is coming under increasing attack in some school districts and communities where right-wing groups and individuals are trying to have it removed from school and library bookshelves. In at least one location, the campaign has already been successful. The Helena, Montana school district banned the book after what representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union called "an emotional attack by a right-wing, anti-ERA group." Kinesis, February '79 28 Give Birth by Caesarian, and Enjoy It. by Naomi Lis from the Maternal Health News Wherever I go, I always seem to be surrounded by a milling mass of children. People associate my very name with children...not surprising really, in this day and age of small families, for I have four. One of these is adopted. The other three I conceived, carried to term within my body and gave birth to. I like to pride myself that I bore these three children by a totally free act of choice, aided by my strong belief that parenting (social attitudes notwithstanding) IS one of the most fundamental and vital tasks and roles. Yet when I compare these three experiences, I can see ONLY TOO CLEARLY that I was not fully in control. My first daughter weighed 10 lb, 3 oz at birth, lay transverse, and after almost a full 3 days (72 hours) of unsuccessful labour, I had finally to reling'uish my strong desire to give birth naturally. I was whipped into an operating theatre, rendered unconscious, and my first child was delivered. Thirty-six hours later I was permitted to see her briefly while I lay traumatized from my first experience of major surgery and feeling a deep sense of personal failure. How she survived I often really wonder. I never really expected her to, having no faith in my capabilities as a parent, absolutely zero experience with babies and no prior training whatsoever. I did not ENJOY her babyhood and rejoiced when months of feeding problems, bouts of incessant screaming, etc. were gradually replaced by a toddler I couid almost relate to. She is now seven too scared for years I was too scared to get pregnant again for four- years, and when I finally did I was thoroughly a mess. I DREADED the birth experience and spent much of the 9 months lying on my bed feeling physically ill. It got to the point I could not and would not leave the house without my husband ...often not even if he would come. While I had not enjoyed being preg- nent the first time, and it had taken me a couple of months to come to grips with deep down feelings I had that "pregnancy=sick, weak", this time this idea took full control of me physically and mentally. I vowed "never again". I had heard in passing,someone mention that she knew of someone who knew someone, etc. who had given birth by cesarean under a local anesthetic. She had not been "put out" at all during the surgery. I asked for this and while my own doctor tentatively agreed, it was only with the final consent of the anesthetist. The evening before the surgery the anesthetist who came to see me did not wish to comply with my request for a local anesthetic. I spent that night awake in a nightmare of fear and resentment. WHY was I not to be allowed to be 'there' while my own child was born? Yet in a way I felt relief, for I was not sure it would-feel so good to be fully awake while someone is cutting into my innards! The next morning, after a totally sleepless night, I vas wheeled to the operating theatre and to omit details, the anesthetist on duty was quite another guy. He did agree to the local anesthetic and this was the procedure carried out. I was fully conscious, yet numb from the chest down. I saw M.Reece my baby girl lifted from my body and brought over to me. She looked scrawny and all tacky, yet I was moved to the depth of my being and I will never forget. I was high. I was lying awake afterwards in the recovery room chatting with the nurses, feeling starved and having to tell everyone who entered the room that I now had a new daughter. stroked his tiny hand I went through a very similar experience six and a half months ago, and after the doctor performing the cesarean cried out almost as excitedly as I, "Well, you have your boy." A most sensitive obstetrics nurse brought the little figure over to me, still strapped as I was to the table, and stroked his tiny hand on my cheek. Sentimental? Sure, but the bonding was already taking place powerfully. Why am I writing all this? Because my third pregnancy proved something very definite to me. It was a great time. I travelled across Canada and recrossed the continent via the U.S. I maintained all my pre-pregnant activities - swimming, biking, camping and working at the Richmond Women's Resource Centre. I did not feel sick or weak or even afraid. I felt great. I knew what was happening to me and understood the physical changes. I participated in my sensations and chose to participate in my son's birth as much as possible, allowing to circumstances. I was prepared and my choice was this time accepted as valid by the medical professionals involved with my cesarean. They respected my feelings and pref- No small degree of this positive ex- . perience can be ascribed to my involvement with the women's movement and its philosophy of personal integrity, right to choose, and personal strength - male or female, pregnant or not. With a new self-confidence and a feeling of the informed right to assert my own wishes, especially with regard to my own body, I was able to find a way to experience something hitherto very negative, as really positive. So many women to whom I have related my experience have responded with "I didn't know you could have a cesarean and be awake" and usually they would add with a shudder, "Wasn't it ghastly?" No, it was beautiful. The first time the sensations were a bit weird and I kept waiting for the terrible ,feelings and horrors to begin. The second time I knew what it was like so there was no fear, The horrors never did begin and I know that now. Oh, for preparation! I saw my husband and children shortly afterwards and we were all happy together. I suffered a minimum of postoperative pain and nursed and cared for my newborn myself. women taking control Women are taking control of their own lives and are beginning to assume more control (and it seems only logical that they would do so for all things) in childbearing. A pre-requisite of some basic information, and no longer a passive consumer of the medical system, women - and I refer back to myself - can ENJOY being an active participant.^ CESARIAN BIRTH GROUP The Cesarean Birth Group was formed in the fall of 1977 and is a task group of the Maternal Health Committee. It is made up of parents who have experienced cesarean childbirth. They have joined together to improve communication between cesarean childbirth parents and health professionals and hospitals in'Greater Vancouver. The CBG has worked and continues to work for changes in hospital policy and to increase awareness of hospital staff to the emotional needs of cesarean parents. The CBG has books, articles, pamphlets and the Maternal Health News available to help members and concerned individuals become better educated in issues in health care confronting the consumer. Contact: Maternal Health Committee at 736-4367.+ Kinesis, February '79 29 Women In Isolation And Solidarity i am sitting here by the ocean savouring the earth's rhythms, gentle voices. It is grey and raining and the last winter quiet clings to the shoreline. i taste each breath deeply; in 6 days i shall be in prison... prison, who gives a damn? everyone knows that only bad people get locked up; only those who break the law, who are dangerous to the rest of us, who are "criminals", only those people All imprisonment is a violation of the body. The acts for which people are incarcerated are at their roots outcries for liberation from unbearable restrictions ...Today the feminist awakening shows us how prison is the terminal station of the patriarchal rigidity. judith malina get thrown in jail - and to their just deserts, we all know this, we're told it from the time we can crawl by every means at the disposal of the state: bad guys go to priso: good ones are fine-outstanding- citizens, the mounties always get their man...so how come so many of us are still being raped and beaten and murdered? and why are most of those in prison people of colour? (ahah! only non-white persons are evil.'??) prison, there's 2 big institutions right near here: the b.c. penitentiary, a federal maximum security unit for men; and oakalla, a provincial medium security unit for women and men. and did you ever stop to think about what happens to all those bodies once they disappear into that totalitarian nightmare, all those warm, breathing, human bodies in cages, behind barred windows .. . oh well, probably don't concern you, right? out of sight, out of mind? it just happens that most of those imprisoned in Canada are poor and their "crimes" are directly related to their poverty (crimes against property like robbery; crimes without victims like prostitution, drugs), about 65% of those in b*c. prisons are native indian, victims of white man's genocidal tendencies, and of A government which perpetuates the crimes of war and repression has NO right to prescribe punishment for those who resist the continuation of worldwide death and misery ...Prisons promote terrorism by making the denial of human and democratic rights a respectable and common thing. rita d. brown course there's a growing number whose only crime is "politics" oh, but if you're nice white and middle class, and heterosexual, chances are you won't ever have to bother yourself about this whole issue, unless, you happen to want to object to something the state is doing (like those of us who committed civil disobedience at the trident base) or unless the capitalists get more uptight about poten tial revolution or anita's crowd gets more friendly with the boys at the top. let's face it: the law is made by rich white men to protect their interests from the rest of us. don't believe that? sounds too polemical? well how many rapists or wife-beaters or child abusers ever get convicted, how many multi-national corporations ever pay fines for polluting this planet, how many working people died in the struggle for a decent standard of living, according to the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, Canada in 1974 had 20,712 persons incarcerated or 95 per 100,000 population, 11th highest in the world of our "justice" system and you're not the head of Reed International/ Domtar/etc. or your daddy isn't rich. now it's been obvious for a long time that the penal system as we currently experience it just doesn't work; unless the goal is the total destruction of a human life, an exercise in sadism, yet in spite of public protests, parliamentary inquiries, civil suits brought by prisoners against various prison administrations, and the innumerable "incidents", both violent and nonviolent, the Canadian state continues to build bigger, better (more expensive) concrete vaults. - there's Thoughts While Awaiting Sentencing by Merlyn (Columbia, Venezuela, israel lead the list, the usa was 30th). the law is an amazing tangle of esoteric phrases which seem especially aimed at keeping most of us dependent on the services of professionals, the ; After the murderburgers and the goon squads and the tear gas What is left? ■ I mean, after you know that God can't be trusted After you know that the shrink is a pusher That the word is a whip and the badge is a bullet That outside and inside are just an illusion What is left? . assata shakur It may be that none of us can from the solitary confinement we've condemned ourselves to (out of fear, out of pride, out of the dying of the heart) until we find ourselves in actual prisons of iron and stone...when everything else we have put our hands to is gone, the granite and steel cemented by our pitiless morality will remain as. monument and gravestone to our time. kay boyle defendant is merely a pawn necessary for the courtroom ceremonies to begin motion, the other actors hang out in fancy clothes and talk in real fine language to each other with much pomp and importance, the accused doesn't usually get a script, and the technicians of justice find it inefficient to speak from the heart and in common words, and the prosecutors, the judges, and often the defense lawyers are paid by the same "boss", and tend to have many other things in common too, like class and racial backgrounds. this hypocrisy might seem somewhat hysterically ludicrous when your life hangs in the balance profit in them there prisons! - so there'll be 5 new federal institutions with additions and improvements to 10 existing units...not that the ones we have created are overflowing, they're about 1/5 empty in b.c. one might be led to wonder just whose bodies will sweat inside those walls. the roots of prison injustice are capitalism and do not easily lend themselves to "reform", the courts serve to punish the poor and the non- white, to avoid dealing with the real criminals, and we continue to believe in the myth of justice, avoiding our responsibility for the status quo. as george jackson said: "we must come to understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations will die or live butchered half-lives if we fail to act." • From Us Kinesis frequently receives letters from subscribers complaining about news coverage. For the most part, the letters are well thought out, and we appreciate that readers have taken the time to approach us with their concerns. However, it appears that only a few issues are involved, and perhaps a response from us is necessary. The most common complaint involves our coverage of lesbian news and issues. Readers have suggested that our coverage of lesbianism is "inappropriate" and "out of proportion", that lesbian rights is a human rights issue but not a very important women's issue, and that lesbians are a "small, non-productive group" anyway. Some readers fear that including lesbians visibly in the paper will reduce support from other women's groups, and/or alienate potential readers of Kinesis. The other major complaint stems from coverage of the abortion issue. One reader ties abortion to lesbianism and finds our "pre-occupation" with both these subjects unacceptable. Yet another reader, in a more general letter, feels "the theme of some recent articles (does not) represent the views of tlte majority of women working in the movement...we are all entitled to be feminists, regardless of lifestyle and personal philosophy." She suggests we get back to "basic" issues as outlined by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Should we 'soft-pedal' lesbianism or abortion? These comments raise some questions. Is there really a perceived need to "soft-pedal" lesbianism or abortion among feminists? When is a feminist issue appropriate or inappropriate? Who decides? When does attention to a particular issue become "out of proportion"? Is discomfort over an issue a valid indicator for censorship or avoidance of that issue? We attempt in Kinesis to maintain a balance in coverage of issues. In surveying past issues of Kinesis to evaluate complaints about coverage, we found that in fact, lesbianism and abortion have received about the same amount of coverage as other issues, not more. If any one issue has received more attention than others in the paper, that issue is unionism (something we have had no complaints about). So the question is, is lesbianism an appropriate feminist issue? Certainly lesbian rights is a human rights issue, but that does not relieve us of the responsibility to deal with its feminist implications. Lesbianism is more than a sexual preference, it is - it must be - an available option for every woman. When we present the case for feminist support of the lesbian cause, we are talking about the freedom of women to choose this particular lifestyle to You without retribution and the incredible societal resistance lesbians now face. Feminism is about self-determination for women. The very same case exists in our coverage of the abortion issue - freedom to choose. Whether or not some feminists feel uncomfortable with the issues of lesbianism or abortion, we will continue to give these issues the same kind of attention that other feminist issues receive in Kinesis. As for getting back to "basic" issues, we should remember that the Royal Commission on the Status of Women researched their report between 1967-70, in the early days of the current feminist movement. Women continue to read this report today partly because it was a substantial and well-documented expose of sex discrimination, but also because until recently, no comprehensive update of the Royal Commission's report had been done. This static situation may have led some to feel that issues documented by the Royal Commission were somehow more "basic" than others later activated by feminists - issues such as lesbianism. But though the Royal Commission did provide damning evidence of discrimination against women by governmental institutions, it did not touch private enterprise, or our private lives. It would be selling ourselves slightly short as women to look only, or primarily, at the issues the Royal Commission dealt with. One particular problem we at Kinesis face in connection with news coverage is access to Canadian news, even provincial news from outside the lower mainland. Currently, there are few major feminist journals we can look to for news from the prairies and eastern provinces. We maintain what contact we can with Upstream in Ottawa, and with many smaller journals within B.C. and across Canada, and look forward to a new feminist paper in Toronto. Given that we always have access to more American news sources than we do Canadian, we can only try to keep our national news coverage in proportion to international news. We hope that readers who feel uncomfortable with some of Kinesis' coverage will consider these points. At the same time, feel welcome to continue to give us feedback when you feel so inclined. ^= From You to Us I am finally renewing my membership/ subscription to VSW and Kinesis. I've really missed Kinesis. After borrowing a friend's November issue, I have to say, it's great! Better than ever Congratulations on an informative, well-structured magazine. We have been wondering for many months where our copies of Kinesis were going - finally a rather timid lady came in saying her husband had been throwing 'this garbage' where it belongs. She confiscated it, read it, and brought it to us, thinking wt^ might be able to use it! Thanks for the many stimulating and aggressive articles and good luck with your numerous projects at VSW. to improve the status of women. KINESIS: We were pleased to see your December- January edition carry a report on the position statement on midwifery adopted by the Registered Nurses' Association of B.C. in February 1978. Because of the apparent interest in birthing at home, Kinesis readers may also want to know about one part of the RNABC position statement that wasn't covered in your report: The RNABC also endorses the following statement on home deliveries approved by the Western Nurse Midwives Association in 1977: 'We as an association are aware of a growing consumer interest in home confinements, but recognize that the Canadian health care delivery system is not presently developed to support this type of maternity care, ie. back-up support services for emergencies. ' May you and your readers have a happy, healthy new year. Jerry Miller Communications Officer Registered Nurses' Association of B.C. last minute news / e eop Vancouver city hall's controversial Equal Employment Opportunity Program headed by Shelagh Day was squashed by a seven to four vote at a city council meeting Feb. 6. The majority of council members voted to abandon the $58,000 program despite pleas from about 18 community organizations and private individuals including the B.C. Human Rights Commission, Vancouver Status of Women, B.C. Federation of Labor, the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, Inc., B.C. Assocation of Social Workers, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Society for Education Action Research and Counselling on Homosexuality, Asian Canadian Assoc, for Cultural Co-operation, School of Social Work, UBC., Vancouver Municipal and Regional Employees' Union and the Society for Political Action for Gay People. Tim Walker, a representative from the society for gay people won a loud round of applause from the standing-room only crowd when he told council: EEOP has had barely 12 months to try and reverse decades of questionable hiring and promotional activity. More time is needed to continue this work. 'ĢGeorge Puil pointing to the..' scores of program supporters crowding the council chambers: A.H these T^ft- wingers here, they are the cces who fan the flames of discrimination. I am Romanian so I know what discrimination is all about. Warnett Kennedy: This program is nothing but a make work program. Doug Little: We must consider ~he cost of facilities for females if we hire women fire fighters. Aid. Mazari objected adamantly to the suggestion that the personnel department handle the mammoth task taken on by Day's office. She said: The personnel department has neither the people, the competence nor the mone: to handle this job. She blasted council members for their uncaring attitudes and said that to get a job through a city hall department, you have to have the -right father. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Mazari pointed out that when Day investigated the hiring practices of the fire department she found that of a waiting list of 40 applicants 26 were friends or relatives of fire fighters already employed at city hall. She said council should be ashamed of the hypocritical and deceitful manner in which members sought to DAY AXED! Ms. Day and her staff has been doing an admirable job of confronting discrimination considering the limitations they must work within. We applaud her work and agree with the city manager (Fritz Bowers) in his endorsement of the continuation of the program. The foundation of fair employment practices has just been started. Inevitably this has angered those who find it more advantageous to maintain the status quo. We are not just talking about a few thousand dollars here or there, we are talking about real people whose potential for a better life is in jeopardy. Your action is going to affect those lives; please think carefully about the responsibility of helping women and minorities fight a battle they cannot win without your help. But Walker failed to sway the seven NPA council members. They argued that city hall's personnel office could handle any incidences of alleged discrimination and they actually disbelieved that discrimination against minorities, women and the handicapped is a problem in the hiring practices of city hall. The EEOP, a program introduced through the efforts of Aid. Darlene Mazari, the former Equal Opportunity Committee of the Vancouver city council and the Vancouver Status of Women, went down in defeat. Here are some choice one-liners from council members: abandon the office and Day's position. This is a bigotry court, she said. Vancouver Status of Women president Lee Grills was rudely interrupted by Mayor Volrich when she mentioned the millions of dollars council is pouring into the multi-complex sports and convention centre. He told Grills to stick to the issue at hand. Other aldermen who supported the program brought the matter up again and again. Mike Harcourt said the well-publicized belief that this council is a fiscal restraint council is a myth. Mazari also said in her six years as alderwoman she has never seen a council spend so much money so freely. City council is spending more than one billion dollars this year yet they couldn't see fit to spend $58,000 to arrest discrimination against women, minorities and handicapped people. As one community representative astutely pointed out, the programs costs about 15c per Vancouver citizen, or .034 per cent of the total budget. A cheap price to pay to restore some dignity and self-respect to thousands of oppressed groups. For the record those who voted to dismantle the one-year-old program are: Warnett Kennedy, Bernice Gerard, George Puil, Don Bellamy, Doug Little, Helen Boyce and Jack Volrich. Those who voted to continue the program are: Mike Harcourt, Harry Rankin, Darlene Mazari and Marguerite Ford. activist, foam shot in tbe back st^tzxiecL Iticee. KINESIS 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 to 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 and production crew. CORRESPONDENCE: KINESIS, Vancouver Status of Women, 2029 West 4th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6J IN3. Membership in Vancouver Status of Women is by donation. KINESIS is mailed monthly to all members. Individual subscriptions to KINESIS are $8.00 per year. We ask members to base their donations on this and their own individual financial position. SUBMISSIONS: VSW welcomes submissions to KINESIS from the feminist community and in particular from VSW members. We reserve the right to edit. Submission does not guarantee publication. Include a SASE if you want your work returned. DEADLINE: The 15th of each month. CHARITABLE STATUS: As we now have the status of a charitable organization and as we are unable to pay for KINESIS from these funds due to government regulations, we will be issuing tax-deductible receipts for the balance of all donations over $8.00/ WORKING HARD on this issue were:Janet Beebe, Jean Faguy, Kay Matusek, Joey Thompson and Gayla Reid. RENAISSANCE RESUMES...I offer a customized resume service for the woman in transition. If you are setting your sights higher than your present position or changing your direction entirely, a good resume can be just the impetus you need to move on UP. For personal interview and skills evaluation, call Margo at 689-9376 from 10am to noon weekdays, anytime weekends.