"6b25aa36-4047-4f71-9639-3dd0cf920394"@en . "CONTENTdm"@en . "http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=1213576"@en . "Kinesis"@en . "2013-08-15"@en . "1980-09-01"@en . "https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/kinesis/items/1.0045467/source.json"@en . "application/pdf"@en . " vmjid\u00C2\u00A3 2 Poster campaigners are challenging city hall stupidities and winning 3 The only organized group of workers in the private insurance industry in Canada are on strike. Support OTEU Local 15 4 Pro-choice defeated in Surrey, Victoria, but triumphs at Lions Gate 6 Marion Barling went to Copenhagen for the UN conference. Here's an interview with her O Male guard goes on trial for assault of woman prisoner in Oakalla 9 Telling the real story of RitaSilk-Nauni, Native woman sentenced to 150 years 1 0 Does labour unity mean smashing women's unions? Read all about it \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 4 Reclaiming \"gossip\" from the garbage ' can of sexist etymology 1 6 Massage: Susan Westren tells us why we feminists might have a feel for it 20 My Brilliant Career: everything is brilliant, except the feminism Cover: a Chilean wall mural. September 11 was the seventh anniversary of the military SUBSCRIBE TO JC/AfWJXJ Published 10 times a year by Vancouver Status of Women 1090 West 7th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6H 1B3 Subscriber $10 Member/Subscriber By donation Institution $20 \u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Sustainer $50 Payment Enclosed Phone Please remember that VSW operates on inadequate funding \u00E2\u0080\u0094 we need member support! K) SEPT/OCT1980 Oi KfMESIJ news about women that's not in the dailies \u00C2\u00A3\u00C2\u00A3; C tr1 O / \ 5 Kinesis Sept/Oct'80 FREEDOM OF SPEECH Poster campaigners are challenging city hall harassment By Kinesis staff writers The right to poster is brewing up nicely as an issue in this November's municipal elections. By the time voting day rolls round the contenders for city power will be wishing Volrich and his pals had left well enough alone. For it's the city authorities who are coming out of this one with the egg dripping down their faces. The city began its ill-timed harassment in June, issuing a notice announcing that the \"attachment of posters to poles and street furniture is becoming widespread, making the fixtures unsightly.\" Everyone \u00E2\u0080\u0094 press to protestors \u00E2\u0080\u0094 had lots of fun pointing out that the fixtures are themselves thoroughly hideous. They can only be improved by postering. \"Persons convicted of postering,\" the notice continued, \"will face a maximum fine of $2000 or three months in jail.\" The class and corporate bias is abundantly clear. \"They don't want anything that distracts from consumer advertising\" says protestor Don Stewart, \"and that's very greedy.\" Bylaws outlawing postering on the streets are currently on the books in most Canadian and U.S. cities although they are not often enforced. Vancouver has had such laws since 1912. But now the bylaw has been tightened and the penalties upped. Those of us who cannot afford TV, radio or newspaper advertising \u00E2\u0080\u0094 feminists, theatre companies, music societies, community groups, religious and political organizations \u00E2\u0080\u0094 are cut off from our audiences. As well as being muzzled, we are being tainted with an air of illegality. The city has sent letters to businessmen asking them to inform on people they see postering. And many music and political groups have been threatened with prosecution. In defence of our right to free speech, 80 community groups, including Rape Relief, Vancouver Status of Women, Press Gang, and the Health Collective, have mobilized. The opening round got under way on a fine Tuesday afternoon in July, when the protestors converged on city hall. One highlight was the taping of a poster to the wall right behind His Worship Mayor Volrich's throne while His Worship bleated: \"you are interfering and trampling on the rights -\u00E2\u0080\u0094 the democratic rights \u00E2\u0080\u0094 of people . \" The other highlight was getting a ticket for postering around city hall, thus clearing the way for the test case in court. Here's where the egg really an to drip. City's bylaw was a dud The bylaw was found to be invalid. City lawyer Derek Creighton had to admit that his bylaw was a dud. The charges went be- for B.C. Supreme Court Justice K.E. Meredith to be formally quashed. Convinced that the person charged, Don Stewart, had been acting in the public interest, Meredith made the city pay his $700 in costs. A fine old farce: the city having to pay $700 for its own bylaw to be given the boot. The legal flaw, by the way, was that the authority for bylaw enforcement went to the city engineer. He would have been the one to decide who could poster and who could not: discrimination would have been inevitable. End of round one. It was September 8. The very next day, however, city council rammed through an amendment to plug up the hole. This they did without notice and without any opportunity for public input. (\"You are trampling on the rights \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the democratic rights \u00E2\u0080\u0094 of people.\" Remember?) Aid. Darlene Mazari moved that the motion to amend the bylaw be deferred to allow public discussion. Nobody seconded her proposal. Then everyone except Mazari voted for the bylaw as amended. Aid. Harry Rankin voted for it. Aid. Mike Harcourt, the man who would be mayor, voted for it. The hastily-amended bylaw removes authority from the city engineer and specifies which posters are okay. Traffic and parking notices are okay; so are signs authorized by bylaws or government legislation. So are advertising signs covered by special agreement with the city, such as advertising on bus kiosks. Clearly, it's still discriminatory. Those with the bucks get the special agreements. Those without get the fines and go to jail. After this shabby display of city hall democracy, the protest groups had to go in search of another ticket for another test case. This was to prove quite difficult. One hour's solid postering at Broadway and Commercial failed to draw police attention. This despite calls on the special police line for poster crime. The cops that did drive by zealously looked the other way. In their efforts to win a ticket the protestors were forced to re-locate \u00E2\u0080\u0094 this time right outside the cop shop at Hastings and Main. Even there they had to endure the yawns of at least half a dozen cops before a policewoman offered to do her duty. Now it's on to an appearance in B.C. provincial court on November 7, just one week before the..civic elections. What direction will the legal defence take? The groups can't tell all at this point, but explain that the city, in its rather indecent haste to cover its error, has goofed. Again. The recent Saskatchewan precedent in which a provincial court judge ruled that Saskatoon 's poster bylaw was discriminatory could well add fuel to the flames. In Saskatoon, one Bob Fink was busted for putting up two anti-nuclear posters on a city utility pole. He was charged under the Saskatoon bylaw which has many similarities to the Vancouver one. Judge Marion Edge found the bylaw discriminatory, commenting, \"city council appears to have unfettered discretion in deciding what persons or groups will have access to city property for postering...! am satisfied that a bylaw has merely to have the potential or power to discriminate ... to be declared discriminatory.\" The protestors are prepared to take the issue all the way, if need be, to the Supreme Court of Canada. That's going to be expensive. So the groups have been raising funds to see them through They've had two benefits so far, and more are being planned. They've received donations from civil-liberties minded people, and would welcome more. If you: \u00E2\u0080\u0094 care about freedom of speech in this country; \u00E2\u0080\u0094 realise city council is a huge embar- assment to the citizens of Vancouver; \u00E2\u0080\u0094 like a community organizing issue with tons of visual flair, don't just sit there. Phone 681-7654- and find out the next meeting time for the coalition which is working to defeat the bylaw. The coalition meets weekly and operates by consensus. Give them a call. You'll find yourself among friends. Donations, which are sorely needed, should be made out to \"Ad Hoc\" and mailed to 2250 West 4th Ave, Vancouver B.C. \u00C2\u00A3 Women aoyoss the world are taking back the night \"Vfomen Unite, Take Back the Night\" was chanted by over 350 women as they marched along East End Vancouver streets on the night of August 2. On that night across Canada and in many places around the world women marched or held information sessions to focus attention on the appalling increase of sexual abuse and of all kinds of violence against women in the streets and in our homes. The organization of the march was excellent. Incidents with, by-standers were handled firmly and quietly. Credit goes to Rape Relief, the organizers, for their planning. There is something wrong, however, with the title \"Take Back the Night\", as Leslie Timmins illustrated in her opening remarks, There is something seriously wrong with the title of our maroh. We cannot merely take back the night. We must remake it, recreate it, non-violently. And not just tonight but for many, many years to aome. By standing together in solidarity with each other and with all women around the world marching tonight, Timmins added, we shall seize and recreate the night. There will be another march next year. Rape Relief is hoping that more women's groups will be involved with the planning for that one. J Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 LOCAL LABOUR Insurance industry workers strike Crown Life for living wage Fifty-six members of the Office and Technical Employees Union employed at Crown Life Insurance have been on strike against the company since July 9. VSW has been co-operating with the union to provide support for the strike. As in most insurance companies, the vast majority of the Crown Life workers are women. The certification at Crown Life represents the only organized group of workers in the private insurance industry. Since the cert- ifiction and first contract was signed last year, the company has spent almost a quarter of a million dollars in its attempt to halt the organizing drive. There can be little doubt that the threat to the insurance companies presented by a successful union local is reflected in the company's refusal to bargain in good faith. The last offer made by Crown Life contained an average 5.7$ wage increase. Efforts to re-open negotiations through a mediator have to date proved unsuccessful due to the company's unwillingness to bargain. It is clear that Crown Life hopes that a lengthy strike will weaken the union to the point of wiping it out of existence in the industry. At a press conference on September 17, VSW's Debra Lewis joined OTEU business agent Bert Mitchell, local member Aileen Dorington, B.C. Federation of Labour Coordinator of Women's Programs Astrid Davidson and Opal Skilling of the Vancouver and District Labour Council in urging support for the strike. Lewis emphasized that the strike is not only a labour issue, but Diana Kerr and Linda Kunster on strike at Crown Life one that is of fundamental importance for both organized and unorganized women. Working Women Unite and BCFW have also offered statements of support for OTEU Local 15's struggle, and have joined with the strikers on the picket line. The issue is wages. Speaking at the press conference for VSW. Debra Lewis commented: \"V/e have no legislation in this province guaranteeing equal pay for work of equal value. The trade union movement has a key role to play both in organizing unorganized workers and in insuring that equal pay becomes a reality for women in clerical and other employment areas. \"Studies such as the Washington State Comparable Worth Study have shown conclusively that when jobs performed by women and men are compared on such factors as skill, mental demand, accountability and working conditions, those tasks performed by women are paid at a rate as much as 70$ below those performed by men.\" You can join in the action Picketting continues at the offices of Crown Life, housed in an office tower owned by the company and occupying the entire block of the south side, 1500 W. Georgia. If you are able to give an hour or two to support the picketters, please do so. It is extremely important to women workers in the local, and in the insurance industry in general, that this strike not be lost. For more information, contact Nadine or Debra at VSW. 0 Union report recommends more flexible work patterns for B More flexible nursing patterns are needed eluded: policy she C. nurses More flexible nursing patterns are needed to help meet the staffing requirements of the health system and to keep highly educated nurses in the system, according to a union brief to the Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council (CEIAC). The brief was prepared by the Registered Nurses' Association of B.C. (RNABC) Labour Relations Division, which operates completely separately from the professional association. CEIAC is an advisory body to federa]. Employment Minister Lloyd Axworthy. It had asked for the union's input to a study on whether or not part-time employment should be encouraged in Canada. \"This union endorses the concept of part- time employment for nurses, so long as traditional full-time patterns of nursing employment are not eliminated,\" says the brief. \"The goal of the health system must be to establish an appropriate combination of flexible job patterns that include part- time, casual and full-time nursing employment. Each has its place, but full-time employment must be considered as the keystone of professional nursing.\" The brief charges that existing nurses job patterns are unnecessarily rigid. Easing inflexible and outmoded scheduling requirements would allow more nurses to meet family responsibilities without sacrificing their careers and help meet the 24- hour-a-day staffing requirements of most health agencies. A health system facing chronic nursing shortages must look at the problems created by permanent shift rotations, little or no choice of shifts and lack of variety in work experiences and clinical settings. The union cites a 1979 RNABC survey of nurses who had left the profession. The results indicated that family responsibilities and dissatisfaction with work schedules were \"among the most important factors in the decision to stop nursing,\" according to the brief. In its submission to CEIAC, the union con- * That part-time employment in nursing is desirable, in that it can be an effective way of meeting staffing requirements of the health care system; * that for nurses, the majority of whom are women, part-time employment may be the only way to stay in the profession while meeting family responsibilities; policy should foster more flexible employment patterns in nursing, including encouragement of part-time employment to supplement but not displace traditional patterns of full-time employment; '\u00C4\u00A2 that the 20-hour-per-week employment requirement for UIC benefits should be eliminated, as it discriminates against nurses employed on a casual or part-time basis. Nancy Schute/Women Press RNABC endorses the concept of part- time employment for nurses, so long as traditional full-time patterns of nursing employment are not eliminated * that health care employers should develop greater flexibility in shift patterns and job settings in full-time work, in order to accommodate the many nurses who presently must restrict themselves to employment on a casual basis; * that health care employers should provide casual workers with improved accessibility to contractual benefits like medical, dental and long-term disability plans; * that legislative actions and government The union urges that nursing employment patterns \"should be modified to incorporate for all nurses the advantages of part-time and casual work. These advantages should be built into full-time nursing because they can never be replaced by part-time and casual nursing.\" In concluding, the RNABC comments: \"Our concern is that this liberalization process be a coordinated one, taking into account the needs of the system, our members and their patients.\" 0_ Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS Pro-choice defeated in Surrey, Victoria, triumphs at Lions Gate By Kinesis staff writers There will be no more abortions at Surrey Memorial Hospital. There will be no more abortions at Victoria General. But there will be abortions at Lions Gate, which serves North and West Vancouver. That's the abortion update for September. It's been a month of nightmare disputes at hospital board annual general meetings. Nothing has been proven except that the federal abortion laws of this country are an extremely sick joke. On September 24, Surrey Memorial Hospital became the first hospital in the province to be completely taken over by anti-choice advocates. They now have a majority of six on an 11-member board. And at Victoria General's annual general meeting September 25 a motion to abolish that hospital's therapeutic abortion committee was swept through at the end of the evening. How we could have won in Surrey The Surrey Memorial meeting, which took place at the Cloverdale racetrack, was a bitter experience for pro-choice organizers from the Surrey-Delta Association for the Right to Choose (ARC). ARC had worked all summer long to sign up 3,000 pro-choice people. They'd phoned them all to remind them of the meeting. With those numbers, the pro-choicers could have handily won a majority for another year. But they didn't show. At the voting, pro- choice candidates received only 800 votes each. Where was everybody? Betty McClurg of ARC told Kinesis, It was apathy that killed us. Last year we just made it. Pro- choice candidates were elected by a narrow margin. This year there were hundreds and hundreds of people who should know better \u00E2\u0080\u0094 who realise what happens to women forced to bear unwanted children, who realise what happens to unwanted children \u00E2\u0080\u0094 who weren't there when they should have been. McClurg concluded, You can't fight this thing all by yourself. During the voting for Surrey Memorial a statement was delivered by the medical staff in full support of their therapeutic abortion committee. To no avail. The anti- choicers had 30 more supporters out than they did last year and that was enough to take them over the top. What does all this mean for the women of Surrey seeking abortions? Increased harassment, says Dr Silvia Glen, who works at Surrey Memorial. Women will have to go to other Lower Mainland hospitals, where they will need referrals from local doctors. Probably it will mean increased demand at Vancouver General, which has the least stringent residency requirements. It's an equally dismal situation at Vic General. We were out-numbered and out-organized, says Maxine Boag of Victoria's CARAL. For the annual general meeting of Victoria General there were 1,500 people out, compared to 500 in 1979. The anti-choice candidates came in with a 500 vote margin, taking all three seats up for election. Vic General has nine elected seats on a 13-mem- ber board. The three new members are the only anti-choicers on the board so far. At the Royal Jubilee the annual general meeting takes place October 9. Should the anti-choice faction ever take over that board, the women of Victoria would be completely without access to abortion. And how we won a victory at Lions Gate On the evening of September 17, the communities of North and West Vancouver elected pro-choice persons to all four vacancies on the Lions Gate Hospital Board. 2955 people (700 more than last year) tried to crowd into the North Vancouver Recreation Centre's ice arena. The overflow had to watch the meeting on closed circuit tv from the nearby curling rink and Centennial theatre. Just over two-thirds of the crowd voted for choice on abortion. Cordinator of the North Shore Association for Choice on Abortion (NSACA), Carol Bruce, said of the vote: I was very grat- ifed with the way people came out. But I also realised that we are going to have to do it all again next year. I just hope people realise that. One of the pro-choice candidates, Hilary Clarke, told the crowd of her own experiences with Lions Gate. When she had a mastectomy there the surgeons gave her the relevant information and the, respecting her right to choose, left the decision to her. This is what should be given to the people of the North Shore, Clarke told Kinesis, North Shore people got out and voted for freedom of choice on abortion. They don't want people telling them what to do. Maurice Fellis, Jim Warne and Peter White were the other pro-choice supporters elected. The 17-member board of Lions Gate has 12 elected members. The pro-choice sweep of this election reduces the anti-choice number to four. The 1979 election saw five anti-choicers elected. But one of their seats came open this year and was taken by a pro-choicer. It was a splendid victory for the women of the North Shore. But as Carol Bruce cautions, the war is far from won. 0 Now tampons are toxic, shocking? By Chris de Long The discovery that tampon use may have been linked to the deaths of 25 women in the U.S. has spurred the Canadian federal health department to investigate four brands of tampons \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Playtex, Tampax, Carefree and Rely. The head of the U.S. Center for Disease Control, Dr Alastair Clayton said Canadian research is being encouraged in order to determine the prevalence of toxic shock syndrome. Fourteen non-fatal cases of the syndrome have been reported in Canada, ten of them in B.C. In the U.S., Proctor and Gamble suspended production of Rely tampons when the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that women afflicted by the syndrome used it two times more often than any other brand. Rely is not marketed in Canada. In a CBC Morningside interview, a spokesperson for the CDC stated that three out of one thousand women who use tampons experience the syndrome to some extent. When the shock occurs (that is, failure of the major body organs) supportive care in the form of respirators and replacement of body fluids is the only available medical treatment. Kinesis spoke with Dr Christopher Wong of the New Westminster Royal Columbian Hospital, who has diagnosed two cases of toxic shock syndrome related to tampon use. Dr Wong states emphatically that the tampon itself does not cause the disease. Vagina offers growth medium for bacteria In his opinion, the combination of menstrual blood and the retentive quality of the tampon in the moist, warm vagina creates a perfect growth medium for the bacteria. Staphylococcus may be the culprit in question, but this is yet to be clearly established. Wong describes the press coverage of toxic shock syndrome as \"sensationalist\", saying that the mortality rate of 15$ applies only to those women whose symptoms advance to the level of true \"shock\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that is, body organ failure following a drop in blood pressure. \"Partial manifestation\" of the syndrome may result in the symptoms of fatigue, muscle pain and/or diarrhea. The prevalence of the disease in women under thirty may cultural rather than physiological. Women under thirty are more likely to use tampons exclusively. Furthermore, the presence of the suspected staph bacteria in the vagina is not related to personal hygiene. Two to five per cent of women already carry the bacteria. The toxins may be washed out of the vagina with a simple water douche, but this in itself will not cure the disease. The recurrence rate for staph infection is 40$, and the staphylococcus bacteria has developed some resistance to penicillin. Vancouver doctor Liz Whynot points out that the incidence of the syndrome in the 70$ of North American women who use tampons is extremely low. Information concerning the association of tampon use with the syndrome is only three or four months old. It is difficult to prove statistically that tampons alone are responsible for the disease. Women who wish to minimize their risks of exposure, however, may either use sanitary napkins for the entire cycle or alternate use of napkins with frequently changed tampons. This program is based on the assumption that staphylococcus bacteria give off toxins and become more dangerous the longer they have a chance to do so; for example, by being held up close to the cervix by a tampon. Drs Whynot and Wong agree that sea sponges, now used by many women as an alternative method, are functionally similar to commercial tampons. Says Dr Wong, \"Any foreign body combined with menstrual blood becomes a culture medium.\" For further information on toxic shock syndrome, see the Women's Health Collective files under menstruation, tampons and sea sponges. (The Health Collective is at the corner of Granville and Broadway, phone 736-6696). Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 ACROSS CANADA Native people protest the stealing of their children It's one of the most crippling issues the Indian people have to contend with : the stealing of their children. The apprehension of Indian children is oc- curing ac eight times the national rate: over A0% of the children in care with the Ministry of Human Resources are of Indian ancestry. So on October 13, B.C. Indians will march to protest child welfare conditions on the reservation and the apprehension of Indian children by the ministry. Native Indian people want to create and build a system of child welfare based on their own customs and traditions. A caravan of protestors from all over B.C. will converge on Vancouver October 12. There will be a rally at Oppenheimer Park, at Dunlevy and Cordova, before the march. One of the protest organizers told Kinesis that Thanksgiving Day was chosen \"for the sake of contrasting the splitting up of Indian families, while non-Indian families reunite and gather around a roasted turkey .\" Chief Wayne M.Christian of the Spallumcheen Band tells the story of what's happened on his reserve: \"the Spallumcheen Reserve has a population of about 300, yet since the mid 1950's almost 100 of our children have been apprehended. These figures do not include times when parents voluntarily released their child to the Superintendent of Child Welfare because of the coercion of social workers. In some cases, these children may have benefitted, but I know of many who have suffered. One of my Band members who has been fostered experienced 25 different home. I was lucky; I only had three.\" October 12, the day the protestors gather in Vancouver, is internationally recognized as a day of solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the western hemisphere. Support the issue by taking part in the protest. Quebec Human Rights Commission exposes RCMP role in firing of women at Pratt and Whitney The Quebec Human Rights Commission recently revealed that visits to the company by an RCMP agent were \"decisive\" in the political firings of Suzanne Chabot, Katy Le Rougetel and Wendy Stevenson from their jobs at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft last November. The commission's summarized report accompanied by its recommendations constitute the only information released by the commission so far. The document discloses that from the women's fourth week of employment at Pratt, the RCMP \"carried out an investigation.\" The federal cops \"communicated\" the names of the three women to the vice-president of Pratt's personnel office and the director of industrial relations. They were asked to single out the three for surveillance. Neither foremen nor general foremen were informed of this action. . Industrial relations counselors were assigned to watch the women. The commission's report stresses that among the 190 probationary employees at Pratt during that time, the three women were the only ones to be watched in this manner. These findings make mincemeat of the company coverup concerning the firings. The \"personnel surplus\" Pratt claimed as a reason for the three \"layoffs\" is pure fiction. The commission report states that 24 new employees started work the Monday following the firings. Some of them filled positions identical to those held by Chabot, Le Rougetel, and Stevenson. The commission, on the basis of its findings, says the three women should be rehired immediately and demands that Pratt pay almost $30,000 in back-pay and damages to the victims. The commission is now investigating additional firings of the women. On April 11, 1980 Chabot and Stevenson were fired from their new jobs at Canadair and Le Rougetel was \"laid off\" from her new job at Canadian Marconi \u00E2\u0080\u0094 two different companies, on the same day] Company explanations of these firings are flimsy to say the least. The RCMP and Pratt have been caught per- pertrating a monstrous breach of democratic rights \u00E2\u0080\u0094 rights enshrined in the Quebec Human Rights Code. Chabot, Le Rougetel and Stevenson have been found guilty of no crime. By the company's own admission they were exemplary workers. Yet they have been deprived of their livelihoods, according to the Human Rights Commission, because of their political activities and their socialist political views. \"V/e are socialists, members of the Revolutionary Workers League,\" explained Katy Le Rougetel to a May 24 solidarity meeting for the three women in Montreal. Those wishing to contribute or simply desiring more information on the case should contact: Committee to Defend the Pratt Three, 4271 Chambord, Montreal. Tel. (514) 521-2791. In Vancouver, you can obtain more details by calling M. Jones 437-0373 Socialist Voice Anti-choicers peddle grisley propaganda Bernadette Russell, Manitoba president of the Catholic Women's League, says she simply doesn't remember. Did she tell a Halifax reporter the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg is currently conducting research on live aborted fetuses? \"I may well have said it; I may well not have said it,\" she commented in a recent interview. \"I don't know.\" Regardless of what Russell told the Halifax reporter, she and others in the Manitoba delegation to the league's annual meeting in Halifax presented a resolution urging \"the government of Canada to ban all experimentation on live aborted babies.\" The resolution was passed. Allegations that experiments on live fetuses were conducted at the Health Sciences Centre between 1973 and 1975 were made last year by Winnipeg-based anti-choice groups, Right to Life and Physicians for Life. The Health Sciences Centre and the provincial and federal .governments launched Investigations into the allegations shortly after they were made. After a four-month probe ending last March, Manitoba Attorney-General Gerry Mercier said that the 200 fetuses aborted at the hospital between 1973 and 1975 were not killed by experiments in which they were used. A report prepared by the Health Science Centre said the experiments were done no sooner than half an hour after the abortion. The federal study concluded that there was no evidence the fetuses had been alive at the time of the experiments. Russel and her colleagues describe these conclusions as \"cover-up jobs.\" The Manitoba Women's Newspaper Federal employees struggling for maternity provisions The Canadian Union of Professional and Technical Employees is in the midst of a struggle for maternity leave. Representing the Translation Group \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the translators, interpreters and terminolog- ists, mostly women, who work for the federal government \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the union is demanding maternity leave of 17 weeks at 100$. The Treasury Board, with which they are negotiating, has commented at the bargaining table: The leaders of our government are not willing to accept paid maternity leave under any conditions. Despite pressure from women's groups all over the country, the government feels there is no justification for it. The Translation Group has been without a contract since March 1979. After negotiations broke down, a conciliation board was appointed last December. The Treasury Board has refused to accept the recommendations of that conciliation board. That brings us up to date with the current stalemate. The union comments: They want us to drop the maternity leave demand before they will negotiate the other items. We need your support to win this crucial demand. They are asking the movement to create as much noise as possible: write or phone your MP and demand to know what's going on; send messages of support to the Translation Group of the Canadian Union of Professional and Technical Employees at Suite 505, 77 Metcalfe Street, Ottawa. Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 INTERNATIONAL Vancouver feminist went to Copenhagen for UN conference The United Nations Decade for Women Conference, held in Copenhagen from July 14- 30, marked the mid-point in the UN Decade for Women established in 1975 as a follow- up to International Women's Year. The Mid-Decade Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations ,(NGO) \u00E2\u0080\u0094 designed as a place for a presentation of views not necessarily articulated on the Conference agenda \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and the First International Festival of Women Artists \u00E2\u0080\u0094 ran parallel to the UN Conference. The following is an interview with Marion Barling of Women in Focus who attended both the NGO Forum and the Arts Festival. The interviewer is Elaine Auerbach. How many women from Canada attended the Mid-Decade Forum? There were 28 NGO delegates from Canada. Four were from Alberta. I was the only delegate from B.C. If we had had at least four of us there representing Women in Focus and our work, let alone anybody from western Canada, it would have been more meaningful. I don't mean to say it wasn't meaningful for me, it was. But it was very difficult to participate in the proceedings of the Forum while I was engaged in giving workshops. So you had specific duties to perform as an official delegate, such as conducting workshop presentations? Actually, no. To be a delegate was to be present at seminars and different activities of the Forum. I wanted to exchange information Women in Focus had collected by presenting workshops for the NGOs and for the Festival of Women Artists. I was interested in presenting our group as a feminist alternative media and arts centre in an international setting where I could make contact and share information with women from other countries. \"tow our situation was different from other groups who represented social service agencies in that they did not have a product where they could say \"this is what we do\". In our case, and in the case of many women there, we had a product. As a media and arts centre, we operate a women's art gallery and also produce and distribute film, video and other materials. I felt that our work would be of interest and use to women and could be a basis for discussion groups. As a representative from a group that operates without core funding, how did you obtain the funds to make the trip? After I found out about the event, I started to talk to Canada Council. The Council gave Women in Focus funding to send a representative of the group for the purpose of doing curatorial work for the gallery. Because the Council could only manage half of the expenses, we also applied to other places \u00E2\u0080\u0094 you have to understand that Copenhagen is quite a distance away and the air fare alone is significantly high. So we applied to the Secretary of State in both Ottawa and B.C. who provided us with the additional funds to send a delegate to the NGO Forum. Our remaining expenses were covered by funds we received from the Provincial Secretary and private donors. Could you describe the presentation you gave? I gave presentations at both the NGO Forum \u00E2\u0096\u00A0and at the Arts Festival. At the Forum I gave two workshops utilizing our slide- tape production Reclaiming Ourselves: A Feminist Perspective on Pornography, two presentations of the film It's Not Your Imagination \u00E2\u0080\u0094 about sexual harassment \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and one showing of an historical tape on Caroline Herschel, the astronomer. At the Glyptotek Museum, where the Festival was held, I did.another presentation of the Herschel tape. I also did a joint workshop on Canadian women artists with Nel Tenhaaf from Powerhouse in Montreal, where I used slides of all the women artists who had exhibited at the Women in Focus Gallery. How would you characterize the audience you had and what types of responses were generated by the film on sexual harassment? The audience was composed mainly of women from various European countries and from North America. For the sexual harassment film, the women were primarily from Canada and Europe. The film stimulated discussion like \"this happened to me too\" and started women talking to each other about different cases of sexual harassment that they had not considered to be sexual harassment before. There were some women from China and from Africa (although I don't know which African nation) who saw the film. They thought sexual harassment happened in some industrial cities but that it was not a problem Marion Barling Aleta Walsh of New York in performance in Copenhagen during the International Women's Arts Festival. The piece is called \"Woman Bound and Unbound.\" in rural areas. They did not relate to it as a problem of theirs in the Third World countries. Would you agree that sexual harassment is mainly recognized in industrialized cities.? Judging by the responses I received from Third World women to the film, I would say yes, I think it is. I am aware that our film starts from a place that is directed towards a North American or European audience where the idea of feminism and some feminist theory has been articulated for quite a while. I think African and Chinese women are not encouraged to view themselves as women and to explore their experience of the world as women. There seems to be far more emphasis placed on exploring the reality of living as part of a Third World country that has been colonized and oppressed. My impression is that any understanding of the oppression of women as a class is secondary to other considerations. What kind of discussion developed from your workshop on pornography and from the Herschel tape? The response to Reclaiming Ourselves was \"I never thought of that before\" or \"of course this is violence against women but I have never quite thought of it as violence\". The audience had a theoretical familiarity with channels of feminist thought criticizing sexist advertising and whatnot, but the connection between soft-core pornography and advertising \u00E2\u0080\u0094 which is so often acceptable to women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and the blatant violence, degradation and humiliation of women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 was \"new\" to many. My presentation \u00E2\u0080\u0094 which used material that can be found on. record covers and in the corner grocery \u00E2\u0080\u0094 was \"hard\" enough so that women got the message how even the so-called \"harmless\" porn is just a milder form of the spirit of hatred and oppression of women that goes on in the world. Denmark is known for its liberalized attitude towards pornography. Did you have any exchanges with Danish women regarding their views on the issue? Unfortunately I was not aware of any Danish women in the workshops I gave, but I did have an interest in making contact with them in order to find out what they thought. I spoke to Lone Backe, the author of a book on kiddie porn called Lustful Lolita. She concurred with what I was saying and was very angry about the male Danish \"experts\" who were going around the world acting as ambassadors for the liberalization of porn. Their line is that porn is good because it allows men to take their aggression out in their fantasies and does not affect the real women. Of course, our slide tape on pornography draws the opposite conclusion. The Danish women were not organizing against porn except on an individual basis. I think that pornography is so all-consuming that women hardly know where to start with it, which was one reason why we did our production. We felt that more work needed to be done on the topic from a feminist perspective. I don't mean to imply that we were the first to do the work, we were not. V/e just joined the groups who were already working in the area. What are some of the priorities or strategies of the Danish women's movement? Well, there seems to be in Europe and North America a developing network of transition houses. The women of Denmark have made use of their \"minority status\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 by this I mean not that women are a minority, but that they have been locked in with minority groups \u00E2\u0080\u0094 by squatting buildings which they then claim for women. The Danish women now have two buildings they have obtained through squatting. Their newest acquisition is a shelter for women called The Grevinde Danner House. Grevinde Danner was a poor woman \u00E2\u0080\u0094 an ex- dancer \u00E2\u0080\u0094 who married one of the kings of Denmark. After the king died, he left her an inheritance and she built a huge castle-like structure in his name where she lived until her death. The house remained vacant for many years until some women from the movement squatted the building. The government decided to sell the building over the women's heads, whereupon the women said to themselves \"we'll buy the goddamn thing if this is their game\" and they started a huge funding drive. Now the Danish people have a history of acknowledging, funding and giving space to \"minority\" groups, and when they heard about the action of the government, they were outraged. As a result, millions of kronas poured in to the women's movement and they were able to buy the Danner House. This is the kind of thing the Danish women are doing. They also have a women's camp on one'of the islands in the area that is for women only. It is both a recreational and educational camp called Kvindehojskolen, The object of the camp is to live and understand your life with and about women. I would like to change the subject now and focus on the theme of the NGO Forum which was employment, education and health. How were these issues addressed either at the Forum or the Festival?^- Kinesis Sept/Oct'80 7 INTERNATIONAL There were workshops at the Forum on these topics which were working sessions where women voiced their opinions and exchanged information. But there were many, many things addressed at t2je Forum other than those topics. The organization was very loose. If you had another Interest, for example, you were able to form a group or workshop that was more suitable. The way I directed myself toward the topic of health was that I took with me a collection of slides and resumes of women artists from B.C. who had exhibited at the Women in Focus gallery, two of which were on the theme of health. One was called Anti- Psychiatry and was assembled by Portland Frank and Persimmon Blackbridge. It was a very powerful exhibit and made clear statements about women's relationship to the field of psychiatry. The other was by Corinne Kingma called Born and Begotten of Women which came out of her experience of the birth of her daughter. Her exhibit concerned women's relationship to obstetrics and gynecology, part of which was her analysis and historical research on midwifery. Both exhibits were very powerful statements of women's relationships to male doctors in terms of how doctors exercise control over women's minds and bodies. Would you say that there was a general emphasis placed on crimes of violence against women that was incorporated in the theme of the Conference and Forum? I think violence against women was addressed but it was not a predominant topic. There were women like Kathleen Barry, author of Female Sexual Slavery, who were talking specifically about violence against women. When you have an international gathering of women from different cultures you are going to have different perspectives, naturally. One instance of this was on the topic of infibulation. As I am sure you know, North American women have been doing research and work on the subject of infibulation, and some of the African women were offended by American women taking up the problem. They felt that American women should not dabble in something they have not been part of, in a cultural sense. I think that oppression of women is oppression cross-culturally, but I found out from the conference that that isn,'t an assumption that everyone has. When I work from that assumption, then I am interested in hearing from other women how their oppression takes place. I don't know what to do with the inference some women make that this is \"our form\" of oppression so keep back. I feel we have to reach out to each other cross-culturally without being accused of ethnocentricity or cultural imperialism. I think feminism cuts through \u00E2\u0080\u0094 or has a potential for cutting through \u00E2\u0080\u0094 ethnocentricity, based on the belief that we have a common bond as women throughout the world. What do you think you gained by going to the Forum? For me it was very rewarding to meet other women from other countries who were working in the same area as myself \u00E2\u0080\u0094 in film, video, slide and in political analysis, and to find my work was validated by other women. I made quite a few contacts throughout the world. It is really good to know that there are women's galleries in Denmark, Berlin and Amsterdam and there are feminist film makers and video-makers throughout Europe and North America. There are feminist groups such as CINEMEIN from Holland who distribute women's films and COW-Cinema of Women\u00E2\u0080\u0094a group that is just starting to do video and film distribution in England. I was happy to see that the work of the women who have exhibited in the Women in Focus Gallery was received with interest and acclaim. The standard and quality of B.C. women artists was not lacking in any way and the content and the work of combining feminism and art was one of the best on a world wide comparison. Q Watch for these upcoming events: FESTIVAL '81 A Celebration of the Arts, By, For, and About Women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 June 19, 20, 21 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 London, Ontario. Contact: Womanspirit, 237A Dundas Street, London, Ontario, N6A 1H1. 1981 Feminist Video and Film Conference Amsterdam. Contact: C.O.W. 156 Swaton Road, London, England E3. 1983 Second International Festival of Women Artists Vienna, (in the planning stages. Contact: Helen Lait Klunge, Leerbjerg LOD 15, NY Hammersholt, 3400 Hiller Denmark) 1985 End of Decade Conference \u00E2\u0080\u0094 NGO Forum Tentatively planned to take place in Tokyo. International feminist anti- nuclear network formed A worldwide antinuclear feminist network was established when 8000 women from more than 150 countries met at the recent UN conference on women. Representatives from nongovernmental organizations and women activists from around the world attended workshops, participated in panels and exchanged information. They established networks on issues of concern to women including nuclear power, women and development, multinational corporations, ecology and feminism, peace and disarmament and a nuclear-free Pacific. Several marches and demonstrations were organized spontaneously in opposition to the Bolivian coup, against nuclear power and in support of Danish Women for Peace. In six weeks, the Danes had collected 500,000 signatures to support disarmament. Outraged at the spiralling arms race they declared that \"500 million people go hungry in the world \u00E2\u0080\u0094 we will no longer live on other people's misery!\" Before returning to their respective countries, several hundred of the antinuclear feminists gathered to discuss plans for a European women's antinuclear meeting this fall. First priority of such a gathering will be to give support to Austrian women who are faced with a referendum in November designed to overturn the antinuclear referendum passed in 1978. Q The Guardian Feminists display Democratic clout Despite heavy Carter opposition and without official Kennedy support, the feminist movement passed the strongest ERA and reproductive rights planks in political history at the 1980 Democratic Convention. Women, for the first time in American political history were 50% (49.23% to be exact) of the voting delegates. And the 50-50 representation did make a difference for women. When it came to women's rights, Carter and Kennedy delegates alike voted for the feminist positions. One of the most striking elements of the women's rights victories was that women activitists from a wide variety of groups and backgrounds worked exceedingly well together. Women activitists and feminist organizations formed the Coalition for Women's Rights only one month before the convention. The coalition supported the open rule for the convention's nominating process; equal representation for women at the national and state levels and other structures of the Democratic party; Minority Plank #10 (putting teeth into the ERA plank by requiring the Democratic Party to withhold financial and technical support for candidates who do not support the ERA); and Minority Plank #11 (supporting Medicaid funding for abortion and declaring reproductive rights a basic human right). Minority Report #11 was supported by Voters for Choice and NARAL in addition to the Coalition. Coordinated efforts to pass the minority planks withstood massive pressure to withdraw Minority Plank #10 and substitute substantially weaker language. Feminists held strong and did not compromise. Q National NOW Times N.Z. ruling: rape if woman withdraws consent In Auckland, the Court of Appeal has decided that a man is guilty of rape if at any time after intercourse has started he continues once the woman withdraws her consent. This ruling was made when the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a man previously convicted in the Auckland Supreme Court of rape. At the trial the man's defence had been that he \"honestly believed that the woman had consented but he had stated that after he became aware that she was not consenting following penetration he did not desist. The two judges who agreed to dismiss the appeal said: \"Sexual intercourse is obviously a continuing act and there is no novelty in the concept that a continuing act may (become) criminal during its progress as a result of a change in the state of mind of the complainant.\" Q Mother Jones Prostitutes abused as children The first-ever government funded study of prostitutes by the Delancey Street Foundation for the National Institute of Mental Health has released its findings. Interviews with 100 ex-prostitutes revealed that over 50 percent had* been abused sexually by their fathers. Ninety percent had lost their virginity through sexual abuse as children. Only two percent of the cases were ever brought to professional attention. 75 percent of the women were white and most came from middle-class backgrounds. Spokesperson for the project, Teri Lynch, said that for most of the women this was the first time they had told their stories. A majority of the women were 16 years old \u00E2\u0080\u0094 or younger. Lynch says that the foundation will be setting up a hotline and counseling service for San Francisco prostitutes. 0_ Her Say Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 WOMEN IN PRISON Male guard goes on trial for assault of Oakalla woman prisoner By Yvonne Chesimard The struggle for justice around the incidents of last December at the Oakalla Women's Unit still continues. These incidents all involved the use of extreme disciplinary measures \u00E2\u0080\u0094 women removed from the general population and placed in solitary confinement cells; denied legal attention; their water turned off; taken to their court appearance in pyjamas; forcible stripping and assaults \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and caused the anger of all the women there to build up and explode with the riot of New Year's Eve. The riot is over now but the fight has been continuing in the courts. Geraldine Ferguson brought a charge of assault against one of the male guards as a result of a scene in the isolation unit on December 4. On June 2, we had the first day of this assault trial and then on Sept. 15 the trial continued for a second, and final, day. The first day of the trial ran through testimonies of the prison administrators and guards involved in the incident in which Geri Ferguson was assaulted and stripped by Don Stevenson, one of the male staff at Oakalla who are supposedly \"only brought in as standby to be used in case of violence.\" (Stevenson was transferred to the men's unit in January as a result of the incident. Pie is limited to working in the supply stores there because the male prisoners have promised to \"pay him back\" if they can get near him.) Geri was in a cell in the isolation unit when three male staff, and four female guards entered telling her that she had to strip and move to another cell. Obviously, the presence of the three men does not serve to calm a situation but rather intensifies the fear and animosity and brings on the \"emergency\", thus justifying their presence there. All of the seven guards testified that they felt it was an emergency situation because a fire had been lit the previous night in one of the adjoining cells, so they were searching for fire-lighting materials. What is questionable is whether it was necessary for them to harass Geri, and the specific manner in which they enforce their policies. Guard testified to witnessing assault The guards agreed on the details of Stevenson entering the cell and approaching Geri, who was standing on her bed backed into the corner. They agree that he grabbed her legs pulling her down onto the bed causing her head to slam against the wall, where the struggling continued forcing Geri off the bed, onto the floor, where she received more injuries hitting her head against the metal frame of the bed. And they agree that the male staff held her down and stripped her pyjama top off, and then slapped the handcuffs on her. The point of contention is that they approve of this as a necessary and fine procedure, whereas Geri knows that the moment that the three male guards entered her cell, it was an assault! Astounding all of us in the courtroom, one of the seven guards present during all this, Lesley Delaney, gives evidence of the crisis point of the assault \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the essential ingredient that all the lackey guards conveniently and obviously ignored. Delaney testifies that, she saw Don Stevenson remove Geri's top and then strike her in the face with his fist at least twice, this while she was handcuffed and subdued. As he struck her he said, \"this one's for hitting Johansen (referring to the assault on the Oakalla nurse that Geri returned to Oakalla to do a forty-day sentence for). These punches produced visible injuries to her face. Geri was then dragged into another cell where Stevenson held her face-down on the floor while a matron pulled off her pyjama bottoms. She was locked into this cell, and left naked and handcuffed with no bedding for over 24 hours. It is necessary to understand the operation of a prison to realize the magnitude of these happenings. Delaney was very fearful of giving such truthful testimony against a fellow guard (she has since left the prison) because her life would be endangered by the dominant regime there. But it was important enough to her to take tilat risk of getting \"paid back\"! As for Geri, her situation is much more pronounced. This society is violent against women, prison is the extreme in this violence against women. They are inside the walls, locked into cells, vulnerable at every moment to whatever kind of assault and injury the guards strengthens both this case and Geri herself. The facts aj-e out and they are obvious. We have the corroborating testimony of Geri Ferguson, the plaintiff, and Lesley Delaney, a guard. The rest deny it all! The trial was almost laughable with the blatancy of the lies from the prison staff and the obvious collusion between the prison and the state legal arbitrators. When both the prison system and the court system are so bound up together, each keeping alive the existence of the other, and when both have the same employer, the state, you can't really expect any justice when you're prosecuting one of their people But Geri's role in this case has been more than symbolic. She has got them sweating because when someone resists their power want to lay out. And there is no-one there who can help to stop an assault, or even know that it is going on. The prisoner is always held captive by the prison system, even when they are released. Geri has been back inside since that first day of the trial, and the staff there tried to break her. Threats of repercussions from this trial were always present, and she was told that \"she had better shut- up\" and \"they would be a lot happier if she just 'disappeared'\". After being released in August, she has been intimidated by cars parked outside her home, being followed around the city by people, and having her home broken into in an obvious attempt to make her feel vulnerable. Still, Geri has been consistently brave all through this fight, knowing she believes in the need to expose conditions inside. On the witness stand, she was strong in keeping to her story of what happened and why it had to be said despite the attempts of both the prosecutor and Stevenson's lawyer to discredit her. They couldn't abide the idea of a prisoner charging a guard \u00E2\u0080\u0094 it's contrary to all norms and rules. As Geri kept trying to bring in other incidents in which this guard is known to have assaulted, abused and manipulated women prisoners, the judge brought down the legal axe which requires her to stick to the facts of this charge alone. She knows that she has laid this charge for all the other women who have had the same treatment inside; the court attempts to break this common spirit and common cause because they know it is what particularly Dan Zedek/WIN and refuses to be passive even when the odds may be against her, their morally illegal system gets exposed to the whole population and it encourages others to resist. Her testimony showed her strong will to say what she thought was relevant not what the court thought was. 3ecause of her persistence in what she thought was fair, she was able to speak to the courtroom at the end of the trial after the lawyers' concluding statements. Here she explained the tricky position of danger she is in as a result of these charges, and her dissatisfaction with the court's investigation Decision coming down October 24 The judge has postponed the decision on this case. It is important to remember when the decision comes down that Don Stevenson is the one charged and he certainly is guilty of it. He is also guilty of being the perpetrator of an inhuman system but remember always that it is the prison system that is to blame and must be destroyed. The male guard assaulting women is an enemy but the warden, Marie Peacock, gives the approval, the orders, and the behind-the-scene control. We must also remember that Geri is not doing this for self-satisfaction but for every woman who has been through this treatment or may go through it in the future. To keep up her bravery and resistance, she needs continued support. The verdict comes in on Friday, October 24 at 9:30 a.m., at the Burnaby Courthouse. Be there! Q Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 NATIVE WOMEN The true story of Rita Silk-Nauni, sentenced for 150 years By Cole Dudley Rita Silk-Nauni is a woman charged with murder. She is also a woman who suffers the double oppression of being an Indian and a woman. At the Black Hills Survival Gathering, July 1980, Frances Weis, a member of Women of All Red Nations, spoke at a plenary session of over 2,000 people and told all of Rita's story. The events leading up to the tragedy are important: Rita's oppression forced her into a situation that was out of her control. The following is an edited version of the speech given by Frances Weis. I have heard many speakers here tell of the strength of women and the role that women have played (in the struggle). It touched me because there are a lot of times when people do hard work and there's no one around to say you are doing a good job. I salute all the women that are here today and I stand with you in sisterhood for the betterment of mankind. We have a sister who is sitting in the Oklahoma County jail right now. Her name is Rita Silk-Nauni. She's from Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. She's 31 years old. Rita to me is the epitome of every Indian woman or minority woman living in this modern day. I don't know if all you brothers realize how hard it is to be a woman living in the modern day. What a struggle it is for us to maintain dignity; what a struggle it is to keep our families together; what a struggle it is to work and fight by your side for the survival of us all. Our sister Rita is a woman like any of us here. The problems Rita has suffered in her life, many Indian women and many women across the world have suffered. Rita is an Indian woman who went through the trauma of being re-located from her reservation area to a heavy urban centre, Los Angeles. She's a woman who suffered as a battered woman. She has a small child and has basically raised that child by herself. She's a woman who has faced financial problems and racial discrimination on the job. Rita left Standing Rock Reservation in 1966. She lived in Los Angeles and worked at a variety of jobs: factory worker, assembly worker. She married a Comanche man from Oklahoma. They both lived in L.A. at the time, and had a son named Derrick. That marriage fell apart and she later became involved with another man. This second man was the man* who abused her, threatened her life, pulled a gun on her, and shot around her house over and over again. Her husband was threatening to kill her Out of all the trauma that was happening in Rita's life, she started suffering psychological problems. She wasn't insane; but sometimes she would come to a point in her life where she would feel like she was going to break. Well, in late August 1979, everything just started becoming too much for Rita in L.A. Her husband was threatening to kill her. At one point he broke into her home and knocked her to the floor. Her son Derrick, came running out of the bedroom and saw the man holding a gun on her. Derrick threw his body over his mother's to protect her, and Rita knew then that she had to get that boy out of there. She decided that she would take the boy back to his father in Oklahoma. She left L.A. on September 18 and arrived in Oklahoma City early the next morning. She was having a lot of problems and it was hard for her to hang on. She didn't know, what kind of reception she was going to get once she got to her ex-husband's home in Lawton (outside of Oklahoma City). He was already re-married and there was friction there. She landed at Will Rogers Airport, just outside of Oklahoma City. The buses were on strike at that time and she couldn't get a way out of there. It was a two hour drive from Oklahoma City to Lawton. It cost $60 to take a cab there; she had $56 on her. She sat in that airport for two hours and finally reached a decision. She told her boy that they were going to hitchhike down to Lawton. She had to get out of there. When they started walking, Derrick was carrying a flight bag which got too heavy for him. Rita took some of the clothing \"A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. \" \u00E2\u0080\u0094motto of Women of Ail Red Nations out of it and laid it down beside the road. They contined walking and got two miles from the airport when two airport security officers stopped them. Now these security officers were professionally trained people, trained by Oklahoma City Police Academy. Those two officers stopped Rita and Derrick. There was a female officer driving and a male officer riding shotgun, and the male officer had Derrick's clothing. He got out and handed them towards Derrick and asked if they were his.- Derrick said they were. When Derrick reached for them the male officer grabbed his arm and Derrick got scared and started trying to fight. All this time Rita was telling the security guards to go away and leave them alone; that they haven't bothered anyone. The officer then threw Derrick to the ground, jerked him up, slammed him into the side of the police car and proceeded then to try and put him into the police car. While all this was happening Rita started moving \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that was her child. As she started moving towards the male officer, the female officer intercepted her and they got into a fight, a wrestling match. The result of the fight-was that the female officer was wounded. Now we have to remember here that Rita was unarmed. In interviewing Derrick, he found it hard to remember things because it all happened so fast. He couldn't remember if the male officer had his gun all the way out of the holster and had it levelled at his mom or if it was only part way out. But the next thing he knew, he heard three shots. During the scuffle with the female officer Rita lost her glasses, and without her glasses she can hardly see. She fired three shots, three wild shots, and one got the male officer through the lung. He died about twenty minutes later. Rita got her son and jumped into the squad car; she was still reacting as any mother would. She was still trying to get her child out of danger. She drove about five miles from that airport, down busy streets in Oklahoma City. By that time there was an APB out on her. Police cars from all over Oklahoma City were converging on that area, plus the entire airport security force. When they finally caught up with Rita, one of the police cars rammed her off the road, across the street from an all-night restaurant. When the people in this restaurant saw all this commotion going on, they came outside. They witnessed the Oklahoma City police officers pull Rita out of the car, knock her around, handcuff her hands behind her back, take her to the back of the police car and knock her to the ground with six to eight officers beating her and stomping her. It was brutal. It was so brutal that four people who didn't even know Rita went down to the Police Department and filed police brutality complaints with the Internal Affairs Division of the Police Department. I salute those people. They didn't have to get involved. They saw something wrong and they wanted something done about it. But we have to remember how the man protects himself. The Internal Affairs Division is the only mechanism set up in most cities to handle police brutality complaints. \"Internal Affairs\" means the police investigate the police. So, they investigated themselves and they cleared themselves. The charges that were filed on Rita were first degree murder, with the state asking for the death penalty, and assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill. Rita went on trial June 2nd in Oklahoma City. V/e had an all-white middle-class jury. We had a racist judge, a racist prosecutor, and racist media coverage. That all-white jury came in with a guilty verdict. I must tell you that we had a victory. Rita beat murder one and the death penalty. The jury came in with a verdict of guilty of first degree manslaughter, which was a lesser but included charge. They came in with guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill. They recommended 100 years on the manslaughter and 50 years on the assault \u00E2\u0080\u0094 a total of 150 years. I feel good about being able to talk to this kind of gathering about this case. This is a Native American case, but it's broader than that \u00E2\u0080\u0094 it's a women's issue. We are all blessed in that we are able to touch Mother Earth today and come together to help her and protect her. We can also do the same thing for our sister Rita. I stand with you in solidarity to free Rita, I hope. 0_ On August 15, 1980, Rita Silk-Nauni was sentenced for her charges of first degree manslaughter and assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to kill. The judge went along with the jury's recommendations and sentenced her to 100 years for the manslaughter charge and 50 years for the assault charge, to be served consecutively\u00E2\u0080\u0094a total of 150 years. The appeal bond was reduced from $150,000 to $100,000. The day before the trial, August 14, the LA. Women's Health Collective staged support demonstrations for Rita. Other feminist groups in California are organizing campaigns to free Rita. The Rita Silk-Nauni Defence Committee is appealing to the State Court of Criminal Appeals. Financial help is needed for this work which is estimated to take from two to three years. The committee is asking for letters of support to be sent to Rita in jail and for letters to be sent to the judge urging a suspension or reduction in Rita's sentence. HOW YOU CAN HELP. There is a need for financial support for appeal work. Also Rita can be free during the appeal if the $100,000 bond can be raised. Send letters to: Rita Silk-Nauni Oklahoma County Jail Oklahoma City, OK 73102 Write letters, send telegrams now urging the judge to suspend or reduce Rita's sentence: District Judge Joe Cannon Oklahoma County Courthouse Oklahoma City, OK 73102 Kinesis Sept/Oct'80 Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 AUCE DEBATE Does labour unity mean smashing women's unions? As feminists and clerical workers, we are writing to answer the article \"Moving Out\" which defended the present attack on AUCE. AUCE is the kind of organization that will make the potential power of working women a reality. The loss of AUCE would be a serious defeat for the women's movement. Women workers with the right to strike have the power to win the demands of the women's movement - child care, maternity -benefits, economic independence. Women workers potentially have the power to shut down the banks, insurance companies, telephones, retail trade and the administration of government and industry. But the overwhelming majority of women are still unorganized, and most of the minority who are unionized are in bureaucratic unions dominated by men who discourage any fight for women's rights. In order to exercise our power, working women must build.organizations that we control ourselves. The fight for immediate bread-and-butter demands is essential to feminists. Independence is economic, and women can't afford to be independent on women's wages. Women stay with men they might prefer to leave because they cannot support themselves and their children. We cannot be independent, or even struggle effectively, so long as we are economically dependent. In North America women earn on the average 55% of what men earn. Women do 2/3 of all the world's work, earn 10%. of the world's income, own 1% of the world's property. We need better wages, paid maternity leave, better working conditions and child care. We need more money here and now. We need more control of our working lives. The organization of women is necessary to win the liberation of women. An essential place for organization is at our workplaces. The authors of \"Moving Out\" claim there are no fundamental differences between their objectives and ours, and that we all share the same feminist objectives. But our objective is to build unions 'of working women controlled by working women, whereas they are prepared to destroy one such union in the interests of being able to participate in women's caucuses, committees and conferences within male-dominated unions. This is the same argument that is traditionally used against the women's movement and its right to exist. Whenever we demand our cwn organizations we are accused of splitting the working class. It is a critical question for feminists: Is it necessary for us to have our own organizations, our own independent power base, or can we win by influencing and infiltrating established male- dominated organizations? The authors of \"Moving Out\" opt for the latter. They confuse the argument by using words like \"merger\", \"joining forces\", \"sharing AUCE's history and experience\", which suggest AUCE would continue to exist as an independent union, when in fact they propose that AUCE cease to exist and be replaced by CUPE. The writers of \"Moving Out\" deplore the fact that debate on this issue has become increasingly heated. They patronizingly admonish us to \"be sure we understand where and why we disagree\". As women who have been on the left, the women's movement and the trade union movement for many years, we have all heard this \"Now, now, let's be reasonable\" kind of argument before. Well, we are full of rage. We see our struggle for fair wage rates as clerical workers, for benefits when we get pregnant, our very livelihoods, getting lost in an uncaring bureaucracy. We see control over our lives being handed over to a male power elite. We see losing hard-won gains and starting our struggle over again at the bottom. We see standing up in union meetings to speak and being harassed by wolf-whistles from men union members. This is not just an intellectual or abstract debate to us, but a'fundamental and gut issue, The only way we can organize clerical workers into a force strong enough to win the contracts that we need and deserve is to organize and build unions that clerical workers control. Leftwords AUCE and SORWUC formed as independent women s unions AUCE and SORWUC are independent feminist unions founded in the early seventies. They are a concrete example of women's struggle for liberation. Clerical workers at UBC had already tried to organize through OTEU and through CUPE. When organizing with OTEU in 1971-72, they found that the professional union leaders assigned to UBC were a hindrance rather than a help. UBC clerical workers wrote leaflets about their pay and conditions and the need for a union at UBC, handed them to the OTEU business agents for distribution and never saw them again. The OTEU refused to give the UBC organizers a copy of the union constitution. When they finally got hold of the constitution, they were shocked at the powers of the international president and the provision that the international could replace elected local officers with appointed \"trustees\". When the OTEU campaign failed, the organizers looked at CUPE as an alternative. But CUPE's constitution is almost as undemocratic as OTEU's, and its record at UBC in representing its own women members was poor. The wage gap between men and women who were covered by the CUPE contract was even greater than between unorganized men and women support staff! UBC clerical workers concluded that our only hope for success was to organize our own independent union. We didn't want a union where power would fall to an elite few, where the majority of members are women but the appointed officials are men. AUCE succeeded where CUPE and OTEU had failed. AUCE organized UBC, Notre Dame University, Simon Fraser University, Capilano College, College of New Caledonia and the Teaching Assistants at SFU. We won some of the best clerical workers' contracts in the country. We spent our time building our union without having to fight to convince conservative business agents or a male-dominated executive in Ottawa or New York. The conditions that led to the formation of AUCE still exist. Most women workers are still unorganized and the CLC is doing little to change that. \"Moving Out\" gives a false impression of the actual organizing of women being done by The CLC can *t organize women the CLC. Nearly all the growth in union membership among women is a result of public employee organizations achieving union status. The increase in the number of women union members has had no effect on the fact that the average woman earns just over half of the average man's wage; the wage gap between men and women is actually widening. The CLC can't organize working women because the people who run the CLC don't want to challenge that wage differential. They have no respect for our skills as clerical workers, and no respect for our right to run our own organizations. Democratic unions of women workers are a threat to the stability of the organizations these bureaucrats administer. Often they actually oppose equal pay. For example, a CUPE representative giving a stewards seminar said that to demand that clerical wages be brought up to the base rate for general labourers would be an insult to general labourers. This is not just theory, either. In the last CUPE agreement with the District of Surrey, the mostly male outside workers got a second- year increase of 1.5% while the lower-paid clerical workers got only 7%. The CLC takes the position that wages are not an issue for bank workers. They say it makes sense to sign lousy contracts to get \"a foot in the door\" or \"a base to build from\". But in fact their contracts are used as an anti-union argument by management in unorganized bank branches. Contracts like that can't be an organizing tool or a base to build from. As long as bank workers see that union branches get the same wages as unorganized branches, they will not join a union in large numbers. Clerical workers will join unions that fight for equal pay. The hundreds of thousands of women workers in the job ghettoes of the private sector have the power to challenge the wage differential, but it is a difficult battle. Some of the most powerful corporations in this country depend on the cheap labour of women for their profits. It's been estimated that in 1974 women workers in Canada lost about $7 billion in potential wage and salary income due to male-female inequalities. Our employers won't give up those profits without a fight. And the only organizations that will take on that fight are unions controlled by working women. Of course we support the struggle of women within CLC unions, but we fail to see how the absorption of AUCE by CUPE would benefit that struggle. AUCE and SORWUC have records second to no other union in fighting for women workers in unorganized industries. The total bargaining\" power of clerical workers would be substantially reduced if AUCE and SORWUC were to disappear. We should not have to give up our democratic constitutions and traditions, our feminist goals and our control of our own collective bargaining objectives, to meekly \"merge\" into CUPE, BCGEU or OTEU, in order to gain admission to the \"House of Labour\". As CLC supporters, the authors of \"Moving Out\" should demand that the CLC allow AUCE and SORWUC to affiliate as AUCE and SORWUC. While we support the struggle of women within the CLC, our immediate tasks are different. Our goals in AUCE and SORWUC are not the establishment of women's committees and caucuses within our unions. These are important and necessary in institutions like CUPE which are male- dominated, where women must struggle to T- have their voices heard, but they are not the final goal of feminists. Indeed, our whole union (AUCE) has been referred to contemptuously as \"just a women's caucus\". We will have more impact on the labour movement as a women's union than as part of a CUPE women's committee. The reason for the creation of AUCE and SORWUC is the same as the reason for the creation of the present women's movement - we learned that in the trade union movement, as in the male-dominated left and in society at large, our concerns are treated as secondary. I The message of the women's movement has I always been that \"nobody can do it for \"; that women have the skills, compe- I tence and ability to organize to fight I our oppression. It is in the interest \" of the employer to devalue the skill and ^importance of their employees. It is in j.the interests of working people to join 'together and negotiate the value of our ^'labour collectively. This'is what :unions are about; men's labour has more fy. value because more of them are organized g5 than women. Clerical workers are not inherently less valuable or less skilled \u00C2\u00A3\u00C2\u00A3 or even less powerful. When clerical fm workers have the courage to organize and '&. to strike, we have the power to win. : But to clerical workers, our employers a '?\"\u00E2\u0096\u00A0 still look awesome and all-powerful, and \u00C2\u00BB**. we are \"just tellers\", \"just typists\" and \"just women\". The example of AUCE \u00E2\u0080\u00A2 > is important to unorganized working women because only democratic, feminist unions will organize large numbers of clerical workers in the private sector. AUCE's Success proves that women can organize and fight and win. Who controls those resources? One of the more seductive arguments of the pro-CUPE forces is the question of \"whether we have the resources to defend ourselves\". They go on to attack what they call the AUCE tradition of volunteering, and state that this \"excludes the involvement of working mothers\". In fact, AUCE locals encourage membership participation by holding union meetings during working hours, rather than in the evening, and (in Local 6) providing child care during union meetings. Rather than proposing ways to make it easier for working mothers to participate effectively in decision-making in the union, the authors of \"Moving Out\" propose that we throw up our hands in despair and turn over the decision-making to experts appointed by National Office. There is no reason to believe that the use of highly paid \"professionals\" to do the work of the union will encourage membership participation. One of the reasons that so many people distrust and dislike unions, and see them as corporate concerns just like \"big business\", is that union members have little or no say in the running of things. Members become alienated and cynical when they realize that their input is actually discouraged by the paid officials who have the \"expertise\". This is hardly the situation in which the involvement of working mothers is \"encouraged. AUCE's union representatives are elected by the membership and paid at the same rate as their regular job. In contrast, CUPE, which is held up to us as an example of democracy, hires its business agents through its national headquarters in Ottawa. The members of the local have no say in the hiring process. Being in CUPE doesn't necessarily mean more paid union staff; it-does mean losing membership control over the paid union staff. For all of the 136 CUPE locals in B.C. there are only 17 staff reps. Of these 17, only two are women. In Canada, CUPE has 160 staff reps of whom only nine are women and 151 are men. As examples of gains made by women workers, the authors of \"Moving Out\" point to the wonderful motions and resolutions passed at CLC, B.C. Federation of Labour and CUPE conventions calling for the inclusion of women's rights clauses in union contracts. Instead of going to conventions to fight for resolutions, AUCE and SORWUC feminists have been able to spend our time organizing our workplaces and fighting our employers for these rights on the job. AUCE has contract clauses giving women full pay for the period of UIC maternity leave (the employer is required to pay the difference between UIC benefits and the woman's regular salary). This clause was challenged by UIC and AUCE fought it, through to the Federal Court of Appeal and won. The newest AUCE local, the Teaching Support Staff Union at, SFU, has just signed a f'.rst contract that, includes compassionate leave for the death of a worker's \"homosexual companion\" and a clause giving members the right to fight sexual harassment through the grievance procedure. AUCE at UBC has won a two-hour lunch break with no reduction in pay for union meetings, in recognition of the fact that most of our members have two jobs - one on campus and the other at home - which make evening meetings impossible to attend and make membership involvement difficult. Those advocating CUPE will tell you that it is worth -it to trade off control for \"access to greater resources\". It is dangerously naive to assume that because these resources (strike funds, professional staff, etc.) exist, they will be used in the interest of the local union membership. When the highly paid male business agent who has never done clerical work in his life negotiates a contract for low-paid female clerical workers, is it likely that he will effectively represent their concerns, or even understand them? Is it likely, if they reject the deal he has negotiated, that he will recommend to the regional and national union executives, also well paid mostly male professionals, that strike funds be released to those workers? It is no wonder that AUCE's contracts are so much better than CUPE's. Ultimately, the best and only effective resource that a trade union has is the unity and militancy of its members. The biggest strike fund in the world will not help if the members are not willing to fight, or if their union representatives sign sellout agreements behind their backs. Star Rosenthal AUCE 2 Jean Rands SORWUC Jackie Ainsworth SORWUC Sheila Perret AUCE 4 Lou Nelson SORWUC Michele Pujol AUCE 6 Ann Hutchinson AUCE 1 Mary Mabin AUCE 6 Susan Margaret SORWUC Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 AUCE LETTERS \"Moving Out\" misleads Dear Sisters: As a feminist, a nurse active in both the RNABC and SORWUC and a long-time reader of Kinesis, I would like to comment on \"Moving Out: an open letter to feminists and trade unionists\" which appeared in the August 1980 issue of the paper. First, the RNABC is not and never has been part of the CLC or of the B.C. Federation of Labour. To credit the CLC with our recent wage increase is incredible. We owe whatever gains we have made to our unity and our militancy. In fact, John Fryer, a recently re-elected member of the CLC executive, publicly attacked our contract as being excessive and a good excuse for government to reimpose wage and price controls! Second, to cite the BCGEU and the Communications Workers Union as examples of organizations which have recently organized \"in some of the most exploited sectors\" is very misleading. Both of these unions have grown almost exclusively as a result of mergers and changes in legislation. Third, as a working mother (who isn't?) I take strong objection to the statement \"volunteering for union work that has played such a large part in AUCE's history effectively excludes the involvement of working mothers...\" What kind of cheap rhetoric is this? \"Volunteering\" is the only way most of us can ever be involved in the union movement. Or are the authors suggesting that all working mother activists will become paid union bureaucrats after the proposed merge with CUPE? The negotiating of paid two-hour lunch meetings by AUCE at UBC came out of the need for working mothers' participation in their union's activities. Further, it is condescending to feminists inside CUPE to suggest that they are incapable of struggling successfully without you. Of course work inside the CLC is important, but so are examples of successful feminist unions. And what are the reasons for SORWUC and AUCE's coming into being? Has the need for organizing the unorganized in women's job ghettoes diminished? Feminist activists in AUCE should be pushing for a closer relationship with SORWUC because only when downtown office workers become organized and well-paid will AUCE members also receive just wages. I agree that AUCE does need to take a more active part in the labour movement; their activists should be helping with the all-important task of organizing our unorganized sisters. AUCE's money and efforts must be used to this end, not to sink in the bureaucratic swamp of the CLC. In Sisterhood, Bernadette Stringer. CUPE members advise AUCE independence Dear Sisters and Brothers: We are members and officers of CUPE local 1341, Selkirk College. Some of us are former members of AUCE local 3. We hope you will excuse our intrusion into the AUCE affiliation debate. We do so only in the interests of democratic trade unionism, and in the belief that we may have some useful insights into the workings of CUPE and the CLC. In the winter of 1978, CUPE local 1341 absorbed AUCE local 3, by order of the BC Labour Relations Board. The LRB had ruled on an application by Selkirk College for a \"clarification of certification\" attendant on their assuming management control of the former Notre Dame University campus. The day before the LRB ruling, 1341 went on strike against Selkirk College and became participants, with four area school board locals, in the strike-lockout which culminated in the back-to-work legislation known as the West Kootenay Schools Bargaining Assistance Act. The two key issues in this strike-lockout were: * a calculated and concerted declaration of war on the wages and working conditions of public sector workers. Thanks to the special interest of the then- Minister' of Education, Pat McGeer, educational institution employees were given the honour of being the first to be dumped into the trenches. The instrument chosen to prosecute this war was an accredited employer's organization, the British Columbia School Trustees Association. * a determined stand by the locals in the area to resist this attack and in particular to resist the attempt by the accredited employer's organization to impose a master contract. In short, a fight to preserve local autonomy. This fight against accreditation was in complete accord with national and provincial CUPE policy which had passed numerous resolutions condemning accreditation in the public sector. Imagine our embarrassment when, after seven weeks on the picket lines, the B.C. Division Director informed us that the anti-accreditation stand had been \"received for information only\" at the last B.C. Division convention. We began to detect a certain ambivalence on this matter. At the height of the strike lockout, the leadership of all the locals involved were summonsed to Victoria and treated to a classical big union pressure session. After the wining and dining, officers of the CLC, CUPE national, and CUPE division delivered their message: get your asses back to work. The government is preparing back to work legislation. This is heavy politics now, we have to provide the NDP with ammunition for a legislative fight so give up your battle with your employers. The net result of all this was Bill 46, with the famous extension of the Essential Services Disputes Act attached as a rider. The response of the B.C. Federation of Labour and the CLC was instantaneous and meaningless. A province-wide series of rallies was held, condemning the legislation and calling for an all-out effort to elect the NDP next time around. Not one call for job action and not one call for support to the striking locals. To this day the B.C. Division holds the West Kootenay locals, and 1341 in particular, responsible for the enactment of this anti-labour legislation.' The soldiers marched a little too well to suit the generals. Binding arbitration was the result of the foregoing. We must.say that the local received first-class assistance from the area staff rep. (who had been the vigorous coordinator of the anti-accreditation fight) and from the CUPE national research department which helped prepare the arbitration briefs. The B.C. Division remained ominously silent. The arbitration \"award\" left the most contentious issues between 1341 and Selkirk College unresolved, particularly the matter the matter of the clerical and cafeteria workers' pay rates. To the present, the former AUCE people retain their superior pay rates, while their counterparts in Castlegar (the original members of CUPE 1341) work for up to two dollars an hour less. The reluctance of the (binding) arbitrator to intervene was really an invitation to the employer to continue a war of attrition which we are still engaged in, one and a half years later. Within two months of the arbitration local 1341 filed some 115 grievances. We appealed to the CUPE Div. leadership for assistance in getting the arbitration enforced. (Management was claiming that there was no collective agreement) No response from the Division. The staff rep. was kicked upstairs to Alberta. The national research department person was recalled to Ottawa. The CUPE giant was beginning to stir. The CUPE local 1341 Bargaining Committee was called to Vancouver for a meeting with Selkirk College management, CUPE Division Officers, and the arbitrator. This meeting is very difficult to describe. We went expecting the B.C. Division to pressure the arbitrator to enforce his own arbitration. Pushing up the daisies What we faced at the table were three like- minded groups, united in their disgust with us. We didn't grasp the realities of the situation. We had been legislated back to work and subjected to binding arbitration. We were supposed to confine our activities to pushing up the daisies above our cemetery plots. Several months later, a team of job evaluation experts flew in from Ottawa and Vancouver. They told us that job evaulation was probably the answer to our problems. They flew back to Ottawa and Vancouver. Time passed (as in a dream). The director of the B.C. Division of CUPE and several of its executive officers visited us and set up a meeting with Selkirk College management. We were not permitted to attend that meeting. We will probably never know what transpired at that meeting. We speculate a lot. We have recently be advised by the Division, that a meeting between the B.C. Division Officers, and the Deputy Minister - of Labour, has taken place. The meeting was ostensibly to determine whether or not our situation warranted a meeting with the Minister of Labour himself. The decision was negative. Since no reps of the Local were present we have no way of knowing how this decision was arrived at. Credentials challenged By the time this summer's CUPE (B.C.) Division Convention rolled around, our local had come to the conclusion that the best we could hope for from the CUPE apparatus was to be left alone. We were not to be so lucky. At that convention our credentials were challenged. Almost all of our 15 resolutions were challenged, by the resolutions committee. The right of one of our officers to stand for Division office was challenged on procedural grounds; it took a half hour floor fight and a vote of the entire convention to overturn the ruling of the chair on this question. We were generally treated like pariahs, dis- ruptees, and all around nuisances. We have read with interest the argument put forward in AUCE's debate concerning the opposition with CUPE, and AUCE's chances of strengthening that opposition after a merger. Based on our observations of the last B.C. CUPE convention, and elsewhere, we have a few comments. First, there is independent opposition in CUPE and we admire and respect it. We think this independent opposition draws great strength from the independent trade union movement of which AUCE is now a '\u00C3\u00B1\u00E2\u0088\u00AB Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 13 AUCE DEBATE part, particularly in regard to women's issues and issues of union democracy, which AUCE and other independents are free to fight for in ways undreamed of by those caught in the CLC labyrinth. We would go so far as to say that the more control the official \"house of labour\" has over the labour movement at large, the worse off its internal opposition will be. All opposition pots on one stove Put another way, if all the opposition pots are boiling on one stove, they are a lot easier to switch off. Then there is the not-so-independent opposition. In CUPE it is sometimes referred to as the official opposition. At the last Division Convention, on its last day in fact,a slate of opposition candidates for Division officers appeared out of nowhere. No program for this slate appeared. No speeches explaining why the convention should vote for this slate and oppose the incumbents were made. They quite simply just stood for office. Cautious inquiries led us to the conclusion that this opposition slate consisted of a portion of the \"left\" in loose alliance with aspiring career diplomats. The roughly 30$ of the vote won by this slate provided a tidy outlet for the anti apparatus feeling at the convention. The toleration of this \"opposition\" by the CUPE bureaucracy is traced to their basic agreement on some fundamental issues: they both yearn to play the part of labour statesmen on the tripartite boards they see in the future. They favour regional and master bargaining strategies. They believe that control and manipulation of the union membership is their entre to the corridors of power. They get very hostile when anyone mucks around with their ability to exercize that control. It is this opposition which is now busy pinning the label of \"adventures\" on CUPE local 1341. Some adventure! This has been a rather tangled tale. We thank you for taking the time to thread your way through it. We hope that the point is clear. Does AUCE really need to voluntarily immerse itself in this kind of slime? We, and hopefully other opposition groups in the CLC, look forward to a long hard fight in alliance with a truly independent and honest labour movement. We hope you decide to survive as AUCE, and continue to be part of that alliance. Yours in solidarity, Roger Cristofoli; Sigrid Shepard; Louise Soukeroff; Steve Geller; Mickey Kinakin; Dee Engleman; Jeanette Poty; Shirley Bonney; Ross Klatte; Marilyn Strong. 0 CLC hostility hurts women Dear Kinesis: I would like to throw my two cents worth into the AUCE affiliation debate. In particular, I want to respond to \"Moving Out\", an open letter written by four AUCE members and published in the August issue of Kinesis. The Utopian nature of the letter disturbs me. I for one believe that it will be most difficult for AUCE members to continue the good fight within the CLC. I am a member of the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) Local 31. It's the fifth union I've been in. The others are: CAIMAW, IBEW, SORWUC and the BCGEU. Of all these, only two \u00E2\u0080\u0094 SORWUC and CAIMAW \u00E2\u0080\u0094 are striving for and actively having a democratic union. SORWUC is in truth a feminist union. My views are shaped by my own experiences and the experiences of others as they have told them to me. No one that I have talked with who is a member of a CLC affiliate union has any warm feelings for the CLC or for the unions they are in. Rather, the feelings are a conglomerate of frustration, YOU! GETBAOCK) WORK! sadness and anger. I am not belittling the feminist women who are struggling to bring about changes in their unions and in their workplaces. Theirs is Indeed a difficult task. I remember hearing about what happened to the women's rights committee within the Letter Carriers Union. Where was the B.C. Federation of Labour's Women's Rights Committee during the struggle of these women? I recall hearing that there was no support from the B.C. Fed of Labour for this group of women. Instead, support came from various feminist groups in Vancouver. Yes, the B.C.Federation of Labour's Women's Rights Committee recently had a conference on sexual harassment and made some very fine recommendations. However, I cannot remember reading about them in my own TWU union newsletter. Is it true? Have unions gone beyond lip- service to feminist issues. Are concrete improvements being made? If they are, they need to be discussed and publicized more widely. I do not believe that AUCE and SORWUC are outside the labour movement. Unless, that is, the CLC is what is meant by \"the labour movement.\" I ask myself, where are all those bankworkers the CLC was going to organize? I don't imagine that if AUCE merges with CUPE, for example, that (as \"Moving Out\" promised)'hundreds of public sector women' will be actively engaged in helping unorganized, private sector sisters to unionize. I cannot see those 'thousands of workers on the first picket line of bank- workers' or 'a demonstration of thousands of trade unionists for abortion or against sexual harassment' or 'a feminist conference of several thousand CLC rank-and-file delegate women from across the country'. What is preventing all these fine events from taking place? \"Moving Out\" implies that only when AUCE ceases to exist as AUCE and the feminists within AUCE are active in the CLC will all these splendid things come to pass. Why can't they happen now? For me, the impossibility of these dreams being realised in the here and now is a sad comment on the labour movement. The hostility of the CLC to independent unions only hinders the organizing of the unorganized. This hostility makes its difficult for feminists in various unions \u00E2\u0080\u0094 CLC affiliates and independent unions \u00E2\u0080\u0094 to work together. Sincerely, K. Gabriel/Graphically Speaking Solidarity needed with Peruvian women's strike A group of Peruvian women has been defending the basic right to work by occupying the plant of Consorcio Electronico S.A. (CONEL) since last December. They urgently need financial support and a show of international solidarity if they are to persist in their struggle. Central America is not the only region of Latin America currently affected by major political upheavals. In the Andean area, the Bolivian military is refusing to relinquish cower, while in Peru, Fernando Belaunde Terry has recently assumed the presidency after 12 years of military rule Belaunde has promoted himself as the leader of a new Peru, but his actions since the May elections have indicated that he will continue the previous regime's harsh repression of the country's trade unions. The plight of the CONEL workers clearly illustrates this fact. CONEL managers stopped production in May, 1979, and informed employees, most of whom are women, that there was no demand for the company's product. The women were not convinced by this argument, because CONEL is one of the few Peruvian firms that produces components for radios and televisions. Since they occupied the plant, they have found orders from clients in company files, and evidence that CONEL is continuing production at another location. The CONEL closure is a blatant attempt to break a militant union. During the past few years, many Peruvian firms have used the same tactic to dispose of workers and their organizations. They simply shut the operation down and reopen when they find it convenient. The women occupying the plant remember that three workers were killed when police stormed the worker-occupied Cromotex factory early in 1979, but they have not been deterred by the possibility of violence. They have already successfully resisted two attempts to dislodge them. CONEL workers are currently facing heavy fines and prison sentences of six months. They need money for basic survival within the plant, as well as for legal expenses. Cheques should be made out to the Latin American Working Group, and directed to the CONEL Appeal at the address below. Contributions will be sent directly to the union. Send letters demanding that their right to work be respected to Fernando Belaunde Terry, Plaza de Armas, Lima, Peru. Latin American Working Group Box 2207, Station \"P\" Toronto, Ontario M5S 2T2 Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 MOVEMENT MATTERS Reclaiming \"gossip\" from the garbage can of sexist etymology By Dome Brannock Gossip has traditionally been associated with women and, like most things associated with women, it has negative connotations . Feminists have been cleaning up words that have negative connotations and making them into beautiful words with positiveness oozing out of them. \"Woman\" was a word that man tried to make ugly \u00E2\u0080\u0094 but feminists triumphed and now there are millions of women not only proud to be called women but fighting to be called by their proper name. \"Lesbian\" is another word that has been take out of the male garbage bag and shined to make it look like it should. Mary Daly in her book Gyn/Ecology does a beautiful job of reclaiming words whose true meaning was buried deep in male history. So I in true feminist fashion want to help with the cleanup \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and the word I want to clean up is \"gossip\". When do people gossip and who is said to gossip? People gossip when what they are told is different from what they see, and when they don't understand what is happening around them. They gossip to help themselves see if other people's reality fits with theirs and in general to help themselves understand the world they live in. The people who are said to gossip are usually people who do not have power to control their own lives, e.g. women, servants, and \"uneducated\" workers. Bosses are not said to gossip \u00E2\u0080\u0094 they discuss, have meetings, or just plain talk, make decisions and act. The male \"uneducated\" workers are seen as gossipers only in the framework of their job, whereas women are seen as gossipers, period. This is because when the men are not at their job they are in their families and communities and within the framework of their families they have power. A worker will talk about her or his boss more than the boss will talk about her/ him. Women traditionally have talked more in g., thing as true as g. gds'- pellep n., reader of g. in Communion service (hot gospeller, rabid propagandist), [good, spell] g-dss'amer. 1. n. Filmy substance of small spiders' webs floating in calm air or spread over grass; thread of this; flimsy- thing; delicate gauze. 2. adj. Light, flimsy, as g. g6ss'a- mepy a. [ ] m gdss'ip. 1^4lr(Arch.)rataiiliar acquaintance^ esp. woman*? idle talker, tatferai esp. woman,: idle talk; informStH^wHf^B^^vriting esp. about persons or social incidents. 2. v.i. Talk or write g. goss'ipya. (-iness). [E,= related in God, fellow godparent] Oxford English Dictionary about their husbands than men have about their wives. The reason for this is that it is important to figure out and understand those who have physical and psychological power over your life. It is the people for whom society holds little regard who are said to gossip. Why is this so? Is this because those people are stupid, spiteful, and harmful, and what they have to say unimportant anyway? If so, is what the bosses say brilliant, well-intended, and helpful? The answer to all the above questions is, no \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"women gossip, men talk\" is just another way of putting down women and making light of their reality. \"Bosses talk, workers gossip\" is just a way of the bosses saying, \"you stupid people don't know anything, you are just stupid women.\" Gossip is talk, and like all talk it can be positive or negative. It can be called discussing, fact-finding, or thinking out loud with friends. Likewise fact-finding, discussion, or thinking out loud can be called gossip. Words and sayings that have positive or negative connotations have these connotations for a reason. If you look closely at the reasoning behind the connotation, you will more often than not discover that somebody else is benefitting at your expense. For example, you might be told not to gossip but take your complaint straight to the boss. And recently in our women's community the saying goes, \"don't gossip, go to the source\". If you do either of those things when you are confused about what is going on or don't understand the implications of what is happening, you are putting yourself at a great disadvantage. If your perception tells you one thing and a group or a person is telling you another, check it out. Check it out with a lot of people; in other words, gossip. Gossip with people who left the group, with people who are friendly towards the group, and with people who don't like what is happening. Talk to people who like the individual and to people who don't. Gossip, like talk, is healthy so long as you are not misusing it to hurt others. Check your intentions and state them, where possible, to the person you are gossiping with. When you have the clarity, the strength, or the desire, go to the source of the contradiction or the misunderstanding and see if you can work things out to mutual satisfaction. Q Taking action on occupational health Women's Action on Occupational Health is a feminist resource group in Vancouver which has begun to collect information on occupational hazards, legal procedures and organizing ideas around women's occupational health issues. They are also undertaking research on pesticides and clerical work, as well as a public series on issues of concern to women workers. They plan a regular bulletin on women workers' health issues. Don't miss their Women Workers Health series, taking place during October. See the Bulletin Board of this issue. They seek your input \u00E2\u0080\u0094 health issues in your work, your organizing experiences, questions and ideas. Contact the Women's Action on Occupational Health at 1501 West Broadway, Vancouver B.C. Phone 736-6696. Introducing Aikido By Sharon Burroughs In a positive, supportive atmosphere we would like to introduce Vancouver women to the practice of Japan's most refined martial art \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Aikido. Aikido is uniquely appropriate to the life- affirming stance of feminist women, teaching a concrete physical way the arts of blending with the environment, affirming our right to personal space and integrity while doing the least possible harm to others. In class, we will stress mind-body coordination; centering and balancing; unblocking energy; self-discipline, awareness and focussing techniques, and ways of affirm- I ing female power and performance. We will also validate and support the extraordinary difficulties for a woman studying any martial art in a male-dominated environment. The pratice itself will focus on physical self-defence techniques, demanding the most intense effort each person can develop. This is not a course in self-defence (which we also recommend you do) but a lifetime discipline of transcendance, resulting \u00E2\u0080\u0094 over the years \u00E2\u0080\u0094 in a balanced personality, powerful and directed, able to face conflict, physical and emotional threat in an active, affirmative and harmonizing way. We believe that living out the alternatives requires dedication, self-discipline and high performance standards and that Aikido can be a physical and ethical model for feminist women. Join us at Britannia : 10:00 am Sundays; at Kerrisdale : 6:00 Wednesdays and at the Fraser Boys and Girls Club TBA. (The Bulletin Board has fuller details.) For more information, call Sharon: 324-4216 or Lidia : 324-8890. Bino's boycott ends; management apologises Charging discrimination against women customers, Project Taking Action (PTA), a Vanccuver-based women's organization, called for a city-wide boycott of Bino's Restaurants this summer. Their campaign quickly won a public apology from a Bino's spokesperson. Project Taking Action charged that the management of Bino's had allowed male customers to insult, harass and assault women not in the company of men. Lesbians and women suspected of being lesbian were particularly victimized by management and male patrons alike. Connie Smith, a PTA organizer, was slapped across the face July 12 by a male customer while she and five other women were waiting to be seated. Neither customers nor management came to assist her. \"It looked to me like she was asking for it,\" said the manager. PTA uncovered at least 43 other incidents of discrimination against women in Bino's restaurants over the last four years. But Bino's doesn't wish to offend \"any part of the population\" said the apologetic spokesperson, referring to lesbians. Project Taking Action will continue to monitor Bino's as well as other Vancouver restaurants. All women who have experienced discrimination in this area are asked to contact PTA at 2417 Trafalgar, Vancouver B.C. V6K 3T2. Women willing to speak up for choice on abortion Last spring an ad hoc group of women, concerned about the anti-choice invasion of high school classroooms, came together to form Speakers for Choice. While this group has no intention of debating with anti-choice organizations, they do want high school students to hear the pro-choice perspective and to be aware of accurate information on birth control and abortion availability. The group is now getting ready for the new school year, and would welcome contacts In schools through staff and students. For further information about Speakers for Choice, phone Pat at 251 - 1555. 0_ Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 MOVEMENT MATTERS Now's the time to join the women's building committee Get involved in the Women's Building: \u00E2\u0080\u0094 do we want a house with a few offices or a large building with an auditorium? \u00E2\u0080\u0094 do we want City Hall or any other government body as landlords? Under what conditions? \u00E2\u0080\u0094 should we consider renting at all? \u00E2\u0080\u0094 what is women's culture? These are a few of the .important issues being discussed within the planning comit- tee of the Women's Building Society of Vancouver. Our meetings are open to all women. Presently we are trying to concentrate our efforts in certain areas such as: fund- raising, obtaining a tax number, carrying out a building search, establishing by-laws and planning for an upcoming general meeting. To do all this we need a larger action group. If you have ideas, time and energy, the Planning Committee meets every second Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at VSW offices, 1090 West 7th. For more information call Gillian at VSW \u00E2\u0080\u0094 736-1313 or Marg at 434-6767. The Women's Building Collective would like to thank those individuals and groups who wrote letters in support of our efforts to obtain the Fire Hall #1. Although we did not get the building, meeting with City Hall was a learning experience. And we did make the top four in the final selection process! Chilean women abducted by right-wing thugs The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Chile is appealing for support in their urgent campaign to protest the abduction of six relatives of political prisoners. Five of the six are women, and all were active members of the Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners in Santiago. They were abducted by the ultra right-wing terrorist group known as the \"Martyrs' Avengers Commandos.\" This terrorist act was carried out just when the political prisoners of the Santiago Penitentiary and their relatives ' were on a hunger strike to protest the inhumane conditions in the prison. The names of the six are: Genoveva Villalobos; Isabel Pizarro; Mel- ta Grebertt; Eugenia Villalobos; Malda Dominguez and Martin Hernandez. Please send telegrams and letters to the following, demanding the release of the six: General Augusto Pinochet Edificio Diego Portales Santiago - Chile Ministro del Interior Sergio Fernandez Edificio Diego Portales Santiago - Chile Ministro de Justicia Monica Madariaga Compania 111 Santiago - Chile Horatio Arce 56 Sparkes Street, Suite 816 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Joaquin Grubner Chilean Consul in Vancouver 1124 Lonsdale North Vancouver B.C. Send copies of your letters to the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Chile at P.O.Box 80593, South Burnaby B.C. V5H 3X9. n Island Women's Festival Battered women support services is training group leaders Battered Women Support Services (BWSS) is currently running a training program for leaders of support groups for women who are, or who have been, in physically abusive relationships. BWSS hopes to have its support groups in operation by the end of October. If you, or someone you know, needs this kind of group, you can phone Debra at 736-1313N for details. Battered Women Support Services is also involved in education and advocacy around issues of concern to battered women. See next month's Kinesis for a report on the group's work. BCFW bash coming up at Trout Lake The seventh annual convention of the British Columbia Federation of Women (BCFW) will be held this year at the Trout Lake Community Centre in Vancouver on November 7,8,9 and 10. This year the convention is inviting unaffiliated women to participate in the workshops on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Any woman can register as an observer, although space is limited. Observers have voice but no vote and are expected to follow the same guidelines as delegates. All delegate and observer registration must be submitted by October 17. Registration fee is $10:00. Here is a sample of the workshops which are being planned: * Accountability * Burn-out * Constructive Criticism * Feminism and the organized left * Outreach * Organizing paid women workers * Rape Relief shelter * Starting up a women's group * Spirituality * Violence against women * Wages for housework * Welfare workshop Some of the workshops are for delegates and affiliates only, but most are open to all women. Delegates this year will be considering some basic structural changes which could improve communications, maximize impact and at the same time conserve energy and involve more women. Details can be obtained from the BCFW Convention Planning Committee, Box 24687, Station C, Vancouver V5T 4E2. All out-of-town participants in this year's BCFW convention will be billeted. If you live in Vancouver and you're able to provide floor or bed space contact Marie Ar- rington, 793 West 69th Ave, Vancouver, phone 324-1454. Diaphragm fitters explain themselves Faced with the dangers of birth control pills and the IUD, a choice for concerned women is the diaphragm. This is a much safer and equally effective method (97% - 98.5%). The diaphragm fitters collective is a group of lay women who fit diaphragms. The collective wants women to be fitted accurately and to fully understand diaphragm use. Two fitters work as a team, allowing for full discussion on the method and collaboration on the size. Fittings are done in homes, and at the Health Collective . They take one to two hours. The group consists of about a dozen women who meet monthly to discuss their fitting experiences and to update their information. Every three to four months they hold all-day workshops. These include discussior of the politics around birth control, and practice sessions. The workshop ensures consistency among the fitters. About once a year the group begins a training program to include new members. Of the more than 200 fittings done this past year, slightly more than half have been for women whose previous method has been the pill. About 15$ were former IUD users; 20$ were diaphragm users needing rechecks; about 20% were using foam and/ or condom, rhythm or no method at all. The interest in diaphragms indicates an awareness of women's need for a less hazardous and more user-controlled means of preventing pregnancy. As more information is available on the unhealthy effects of tampons (such as shock and vaginal ulcer-, ation) more women are using diaphragms as a menstrual cup. There's a growing interest in another safer and alternative method, the cervical cap. The diaphragm group is now researching and discussing the cap. Plans to begin fittings in January are in the works. To book a diaphragm fitting and for further health information phone the Women's Health Collective at 736-6696. 0 Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 OUR BODIES.OURSELVES Massage: why we feminists might have a feel for it By Susan Westren I'm writing in response to the interviews with massage therapists which were printed in the April issue. Because the focus of that article was on how the women being interviewed has become interested in doing massage, and on how they enjoyed their work, there was only brief mention of the benefits of massage and no attempt to deal with the theoretical basis for the work. As there is such a growing interest in massage, this article is my attempt to provide some of this information. There are a wide variety of massage techniques being introduced or reintroduced and I will deal with some of these quite superficially. I hope to provide a deeper understanding of the theory with which I have been most personally involved. Massage has a long history. Methods such as Shiatsu, acupressure and reflexology (sometimes called zone therapy) are based on ancient eastern traditions dating back to at least 1800 BC. One of the assumptions made in the first two of these methods is that energy moves through the body along defined pathways and massage is done to stimulate or unblock the flow of this energy, thus aiding the natural healing abilities of the body. Reflexology is based on the belief that massage to particular points on the feet and hands aids the functioning of corresponding parts of the body. Western methods are based on the use of massage by the Greeks and Romans and on more recent techniques developed in Europe in the nineteenth century. These systems tend to deal exclusively with the physical manifestations of trauma which may occur through injury, disease or stress. Healing is assumed to take place on this physical level in that massage stimulates the circulation, encourages the flow of lymphatic fluids, stretches muscle tissue and promotes over-all relaxation. A third trend in massage, seen in systems such as \"Touch for Health\", Holistic Massage and Polarity Therapy, attempts to draw on both eastern and western methods in that it incorporates western medical knowledge and techniques with concepts of energy exchange, psychic healing and self- awareness. Each of these systems has its own particular set of assumptions and techniques. There is also the massage which focuses primarily on the connection between mind and body. This kind of massage is based on the following assumptions: that though we are generally not well connected to our bodies, we can be; that once this connection has been remade, we have access to important information about ourselves; that we hold and move ourselves in particular ways which reflect our emotional history and that working through the body we can begin to free ourselves from restrictive and habitual patterns of response. Western patriarchy developed a mind/body split The patriarchal intellectual tradition, which in western culture culminates in the identification of the ego as the seat of individuality, has progressively cut us off from our bodies and hence from the kinds of knowledge of ourselves which can be had through our bodies. A significant split has developed between mind and body/ head and body: life is lived in the mind (experienced by most people as being behind the forehead) and our bodies are viewed only externally or simply as a vehicle for movement in the physical world. We don't in fact have a language to express the kind of knowing which is based on body experience. We have words such as intuitive, empathetic, psychic, but these all suggest mind functions rather than body awareness and these are all reaching out words rather than ones that suggest reaching in and down to our own reality. How many of us know where or how our caring is felt on a body level? How does strength, confidence or power, feel in our body? Once we have contacted the body space from which any of these feelings flow, we can learn to reopen them, relocate their source and draw on them. I remember the surprise and delight I felt when I found strength in my legs, strength which I had not felt before and which helped me to believe I could make changes, take risks, and these legs would hold me up. Coincidental with the move away from the body and into the mind, patriarchal values have not legitimized our emotions, in Susan Westren fact have devalued emotional experience. Emotions are body reactions, \"gut\" level responses to external reality. When we connect with our bodies, we can begin to connect with our emotional experience. Emotions felt at a body level are only later interpreted or analyzed at an intellectual level, if indeed we allow ourselves to be aware of them at all. We have become so good at denying them, at smothering them, often using our bodies to block bur knowledge of our feelings (holding the breath, for instance, or tightening the shoulders). When we are able to recognize and identify our emotional responses, we have the choice as to whether or not we express them. In this way we have a better understanding of ourselves, and our needs, and we become more effective in the world. For example, if I am able to recognize that a particular situation always makes me angry, I can either express that anger in an attempt to change the situation or I can avoid that situation. This may sound obvious, but for years I did not recognize my anger, until bottled up for too long, it tended to explode, often uncontrollably; or I directed it at the wrong person. As I began to be more connected to my body, I became more aware of how I had controlled and masked my anger, how I had held my stomach and diaphram in fear of it, how I had stopped its expression with my shoulders and throat. As long as my anger went unrecognized, I could make no choices about how to deal with it, and ended up with tense shoulders and an aching gut. Another example: if I become adept at tensing my shoulders and neck in an effort not to let any emotions surface, my muscles will become very tight; in a short time my neck and shoulders will be very painful. When I am able to let that knowledge through, when I am able to recognize and identify my emotional responses, I can choose how and when to express my feelings. The tension is released and the energy used for holding is made available for use. The way in which we hold our bodies and move them, the way we are in the world, is indicative, I believe, of patterns of response we have developed throughout our lives. These patterns of response to particular kinds of situations, to language, to our feelings, can become habitual and automatic. We can be trapped inside responses which may become ineffective for us as circumstances change or may be self-destructive or self-defeating. These patterns are reflected on the physical level and are manifested in muscular tensions which may become chronic and can lead to illness. How we learn to live without our bodies, or outside them If I have learned to be passive, unassertive and afraid, in response to my specific personal situation and to societal pressure, I also have learned to collapse my chest, and hunch my shoulders. I may have withdrawn my energy so far inward that I have lost all sense of my physical presence. People do not take me seriously, nor do they engage with me. In some real sense, I am not there. As I begin to connect with my body, I can experience this holding, this collapsing and withdrawing and can begin to change this physical attitude if I choose to do so. By opening my chest, rolling my shoulders back and moving my energy to create real boundaries for myself, I and then others can see and feel my growing power. By contacting our bodies, we can remove ourselves from the intellectual process which for many of us can become an entangled one. It's not that we want in any way to eliminate the mind function, but my own experience is of winding myself higher and higher in the process of thinking, especially when dealing with problems or major decisions. I can too easily loose contact with the physical reality of my being. Contact with my body brings me a sense of ground, of centre, and this helps to clear the tangle and the anxiety generated by it. If we experience ourselves in terms of body as well as mind, our sensations are more concrete. Rather than simply thinking about sensation, we can experience sensation, and we become grounded in a more complete reality. Most of us are used to living without our bodies, or outside of them. We are not familiar with this aspect of ourselves and the process of re-entering what has become an alien place can sometimes be difficult and painful. There are parts of the body which we may remove ourselves from because we are carrying traumatic memories there, or perhaps we simply do not know how to incorporate the information found there. If I am used to seeing myself as closed and experiencing myself as protected and I find I have a strong sense of vulnerability and softness In my chest, I may have trouble adjusting this new sense of myself in the old view. The new information may threaten to shatter the self I have known and that can be very frightening. I may simply choose to distance myself from my chest but I may choose to risk this incorporation, trying to feel my vulnerability again and allow my softness to be seen. As feminists we are trying to find and have the use of more than the \"traditional\" ways of expressing ourselves in the world, of being in the world, to have a range of possible reactions to situations we may find ourselves in, to be able to draw on more than what has been defined for us as feminine. I believe that one of the ways we can begin to develop this range of choices, can begin to free ourselves from the patterns we have developed in response to social pressures, is by re-connecting with our bodies. Experiencing massage is one of the ways we can begin to remake this contact. > > > Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 MOVEMENT COMMENTS It is extremely difficult to talk about how this process of connection happens during massage as it happens in such a variety of ways for each individual. I cannot say that if a woman doing massage does a particular set of strokes, then a specific thing will occur. Each of us experiences ourselves and our bodies in a unique fashion and the results of each particular manipulation or stroke, the response to various kinds of touch will be different for each woman, different even for a particular woman depending on her situation. But the touching is the important factor. Massage is touching, is contact. When I am touched physically, I can more readily focus my attention on the areas being contacted. The hands of another, especially if they are confident and caring, will reinforce or define my body boundaries. In the security of the contact I can allow myself to be there, in my arm for instance, under the touch. I can find the density of my physical self and begin tentatively to make sense of myself. Does my arm feel large or small, light or heavy, weak or strong? I may have a visual image, a clear memory, a feeling, Susan Westren a dreamlike fantasy, even a smell. Any of these may trigger an understanding of what I am holding or carrying in the tension in my arm. In focusing on myself, I learn also to give attention to myself, to give to myself, to accept myself. ;e is also essentially relaxing. As particular muscle groups are worked on, the tension begins to release. This in itself may bring with it the release of emotion or the recognition of emotion. As I relax, I can begin to let go of the way I normally structure myself, and can begin then to experience the possibility of structuring myself differently. For example, if I am normally somewhat belligerent and hence hold my shoulders high and my hands clenched, ready for a fight, so to speak, work done on the shoulders and hands brings a relaxation of the normal attitude. How does it feel to be a woman who is not always on guard? Massage, then, can be an exciting process of discovery. In connecting with our bodies, through massage, we can gain an awareness of how and where we hold our tension; we can learn to recognize and express our emotional responses, thus freeing ourselves from the tension so often associated with holding back these responses; and we can begin to have more use of ourselves and our capacities, drawing on resources we may not have been aware of before. 0 Wake me when it's over By Jen Moses and Mamie Maser Although we weren't at the Lilith performance, we would like to respond to the attitude relfected in Nan Gregory's comments about children and, more importantly, open up some general discussion about our children at community events. Let's imagine that everyone is the same age. What would have happened then, at the Robson Media Centre? A few people become tired and bored, one in particular becomes disruptive. What would we do? As a group, we often deal with this situation. But when we are not all the same age, we don't take group action. When some people in the group, or audience in this case, are children, people often assume that they are \"with someone.\" That \"someone\", because they accompanied the child/children to the event, is responsible for the \"behaviour\" of that child/children. Because of this assumption, ushers, performers, and other people in the audience do not deal with the children. Nan talks about an ideal society. But how does she envision this society coming about? She talks about sharing responsibilities for children, but she is not prepared to be inconvenienced by someone else's child. Ideally, we must all take more active responsibility for all of our children. But building the ideal takes immediate and constant collective actions and responsibilities. We all deal with inconsistencies and contradictions in our lives, but we- cannot afford to let others do all the work to make the ideal society. We must all look at ownership of children (\"my child is sitting quietly in my lap\"); we must discuss creative childcare, the integration of children at \"adult\" events, the need for equal and direct interaction with children. n Festival sexism critique By M. Wallace Having just read the article concerning the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, I felt a need to express a somewhat different opinion of what happened that weekend. On the whole it was good. The workshops gave the opportunity to pick and choose what kind of music one wanted to listen to. Unfortunately this wasn't true of the evening concerts. The Friday and Saturday concerts both contained music that I, as a feminist, would have preferred not to listen to. But the worst was saved for Sunday night. With Odetta and Holly Near slated to appear that night, there were many feminists in the audience. All was going relatively well until Robin Williamson hit the stage. One of the songs he chose to sing was a blatantly violent, abusive song of the rape-the-virgin-make-her-bleed-and-love-it variety that really grossed me out. Yes, there were women booing him and when he chose a second song that mirrored the same sentiments we booed him again. Thankfully he didn't come out for an encore. If women + music = power you could say that I was powerfully angry with having to listen to such garbage. Maybe I was still too high from singing \"Fight Back\" earlier and I overreacted. But from talking to other women I know I wasn't alone. Going back to the equation of women + music = power, I'd like to see us center our power in writing to the organizers and expressing not only our positive feelings of their recognizing our community and their trying to meet our music tastes but also our negative feelings. A little consciousness raising wouldn't go amiss. The address is: Vancouver Folk Music Festival, 401 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C. Quadra disputants meet, reach tentative solutions By Anita and Roxanne This is a follow-up article on the one in the last issue of Kinesis entitled C.O.M.B.A.T. Q. We don't have a title for this month's article because we were hesitant to repeat our last month's creative attempt at forming a word by using initials. This spurt of creativity (in the midst of a gruelling political meeting in which the committee was originally formed) almost defeated our purpose. Our purpose was to bring women to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve some of the conflicts between the management of the Quadra and the women's community. The word combat has obviously antagonistic implications and started off our meeting on a (to put it mildly) defensive note. We realize that it also gave an antagonistic tone to the article which was not intended. The article was intended to inspire controversy and even emotions around the issues raised. Which it did. It also inspired eighteen women to come to the meeting. As those of us who frequent meetings know, that is an impressive showing. At the meeting, interestingly enough, exactly half of the women who came were representing the Quadra. We used a speakers ' list and a chairperson in hopes of maintaining a solution oriented meeting. It began with a lot of tension, friction and defensiveness but soon people began to realize that they would be heard and the atmosphere slowly relaxed. The women who came to the meeting with grievances were heard. The management's position on these grievances was heard. What we heard from the management was that running a women's bar in this city is neither easy, profitable nor fun. We heard that the women running this bar are open to working with the women's community, They are open because their social lives are somewhat at stake. They also expressed fear for their physical safety. They do not want to be seen as monsters in this community and they acknowledged that to work with us and not against us is to their benefit as well as ours. They do have power over our social lives but it has become apparent that this community has a parallel power over theirs. What we heard from the women who came with grievances was that they want some recourse to being barred from the club. They also want a place to air their grievances. It was agreed that there should be a series of regular meetings held at the Quadra during the day where management would hear grievances. It was also agreed that a set of rules would be drawn up and posted at the club advising people of the regulations and policies regarding the laws, access to the telephone, restrictions and consequences of breaking restrictions (i.e. length of time of being barred from the club). It was proposed that another meeting be called in which the management, in cooperation with any women who are interested would draw up these rules and set up the grievance meetings. This meeting will be held at Brittania Community Centre, Sunday October 12 at 7:30 p.m. Room L-5. Please come and contribute your ideas and energy. If the management of the Quadra and the women's community can work together perhaps some of the problems can be minimized if not avoided altogether. 00 J Kinesis Sept/Oct '80 BULLETIN BOARD Just Out IN HER OWN RIGHT, essays on women's history in B.C. is due for release this month. Edited by Cathy Kess and Barbara Latham, this anthology costs $6:00. Order it from: In Her Own Right, Liberal and Applied Arts Division, Camosun College, 1950 Lansdowne Road, Victoria B.C. V8P 5J2. HEALTH COLLECTIVE GROUPS are forming around such topics as : - menopause - pregnancy over 35 - patients' rights - hysterectomy - infertility and more. For information about these and other groups, call the Health Collective at 736-6696. LESBIAN/LESBIENNE, a publication by and for lesbians will be on the stands this fall. Co-ordinated and published by a Toronto collective,\"Lesbian/Les- bienne\" aims to reflect the needs of lesbian women from coast to coast. Subscriptions are $5:00 a year and are available from: \"Lesbian/Lesbienne\" 530 The East Mall, Apt. 312, Islington Ontario. FEMINIST ISSUES, a new journal of feminist social and political theory began publication in August 1980. It is the English-language edition of the French journal \"Questions Feministes\", which is edited by Simone de Beauvoir. \"Feminist Issues\" will have two English-language editors: Mary Jo Lakeland and Susan Ellis Wolf, directors of The Feminist Forum in Berkeley. Canadian subscriptions are $17:00 for individuals and $27:00 for institutions. Order from: Transaction, Inc., Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903, U.S.A. 1981 EVERYWOMAN'S ALMANAC is out.* Theme for 1981 is \"friendships\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 in the workplace, with men, with women of older and younger generations. To supplement the interviews, descriptions of support services for women are included, as are listings of women's centres across Canada. Fine original illustrations, as usual. $5.95 in your favourite feminist bookstores. TWO NEW VIDEO PRODUCTIONS from Women in Focus: \"A Respectable Lie\" examines pornography from a feminist perspective. Four women express their feelings about pornography and encourage other women to examine their own reactions. \"That's Not Me They're Talking About\" examines the restrictive stereotypes of women perpetuated by the mass media. The tape encourages more positive images by looking at women's own depictions of ourselves. Both are available on 3/4\" colour cassette. Rental $35. Purchase $110. From Women in Focus, 6-45 Kingsway, Vancouver B.C. V5T 3H7. Phone 872-2250. THE FLECK WOMEN is a unique video tape of the Fleck Manufacturing strike in Huron Park, Ontario (March - August 1978). It traces the personal and political struggle of 80 women strikers during the bitter five-month strike, exploring the bonding process between them as well as the courage they found collectively. Rental : $50:00 from the producers, Women's Workshop, P.O. Box 7083, Station E, London, Ontario, N5Y 4J9. Groups THE PORT ALBERNI WOMEN'S RESOURCES society is a newly-incorporated group concerned with the situation of battered women. They hope to open a transition house in the near future. Any input or relevant information would be welcome. Write to them at : Room 8, 4965 Argyle Street, Port Alberni B.C. V9Y 1V6 SINGLE PARENTS GROUP FOR VANCOUVER EAST is being organized by Single Parents Group, c/o Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier Street, Vancouver V51 4X4. Phone 253-4391, local 57. Classified WOMEN'S WORK GALLERY.' Women artists interested in the formation of a co-operative artist group and gallery call Robin at 255-5363 or Valerie at 986-5443. WOMEN AND PREGNANCY. I am putting a book together on women's experiences in pregnancy. I'd like to talk to a woman who gave her baby up, either for adoption through an agency, or to relatives. Her identity can be anonymous in the book. Contact: Daphne Morrison, 1358 Graveley Street, Vancouver B.C. V5L 3A2. Phone 253-9320. NEXT LESBIAN CONFERENCE event will be a Halloween Dance, Friday, October 31 at the Teamsters Hall, 490 East Broadway. Phone 253-6415 for more details. OPEN SHOWINGS: The first in a series of monthly concerts featuring Vancouver independent artists in dance, music and theatre will be held at the Western Front Lodge, 303 East 8th Ave at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 12. Tickets are $2:50 at the door. For more information, call Nan Vie at 874-7166. PARENTS WANTED. As a child, were you physically punished/maltreated, e.g. received non-accidental injuries which required medical care; were hit with an object; received beatings, etc? Do you as a parent not physically abuse your own children? A research project in the department of psychology at Simon Fraser University is interested in interviewing, confidentially, parents who have been successful in breaking this pattern of violence. Parents interested in participating please contact Lesley Joy at 291-3354 or 733-8652. Graphically Speaking, a collection of graphics and cartoons from the past five Everywoman 's Almanacs is a new release of the Women's Press. $2.95,64 pages, black and white. WEN-DO, Women's Self Defense: Classes can be arranged for groups of 10 or more women. For information, contact Wen-Do West, 2349 St Catherines, Vancouver. Phone 876-6390. FOUR PARENTS and two three year olds seek other kids and parents to share in childcare. Non-sexist, non-authoritarian health conscious. Call 327-6457 or 736-1800. AIKIDO SELF-DEFENCE for women. Courses are offered at Kerrisdale Community Centre on Wednesdays, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. (at 42nd and Arbutus) and at Britannia Community Centre on Sundays, 10:30\u00E2\u0080\u0094 12:00. For more information call 324- 8890 (p.m. ) or 266-8331 (days). A FEMINIST is looking for a woman to sublet her apartment for six months to a year. Small but pleasant, at 12th and Cambie. $200 for everything. Call 873- 4143. SUPPORT GROUP FOR GAY WOMEN with Marsha Ablowitz. Thursdays, October 9, 16, from 7:00 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 9:00 p.m. Sponsored by Family Services of Greater Vancouver. Call Robbie at 731-4951 for details. CATS!: three timid yellow kittens are immediately available. Call Chris at 251- 3671 after 9:00 p.m. WOMAN MECHANIC will do qualified repairs on most imported and domestic cars for $15 an hour. All work guaranteed. Call Jeri at 251-2893- SETTING UP A TRANSITION HOUSE? Any group interested in setting up a transition house please write to the newly-formed Society of Transition Houses of British Columbia, Box 213, Port Coquitlam, B.C. V3C.3V7. HOUSING FOR WOMEN urgently needed. Call the YWCA Housing Registry at 683-2531, Local 220. LESBIAN DROP-IN meets every Wednesday night at the Vancouver Women's Bookstore, 804 Richards at 8:00 p.m. LESBIAN INFORMATION LINE (LIL) is open to calls two nights a week. Thursday and Sunday, 7 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 10 p.m. Call 734-1016. DROP-IN FOR YOUNGER LESBIANS meets each Thursday night, 7:30 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 10:00 p.m. 1501 West Broadway. FACING YOUR FAT is a new approach to dealing with weight loss which emphasizes self-acceptance, enjoyment and fulfilment. We will explore what fat means to you and what alternatives you have through the use of fantasy, movement, gestalt, body awareness and group discussion. Three evenings and one weekend session in October. Fee: $100. For further information call Doris Maranda M.A. at 736-7180 or Sandy Friedman M.A. at 731- 8752. LESBIANS OVER 40 meet Monday night at the Women's Bookstore, 804 Richards, at 7;30 p.m. GET YOUR CLASSIFIEDS IN by the 20th of each month. Phone 736 1313 for details. THE BELLE OF AMHERST, a play based on the life of Emily Dickinson, opens October 23. Produced by Westcoast Actors at the Waterfront Theatre, 1512 Anderson Street, Granville Island. For ticket details call 689-3821. BULLETIN BOARD Kinesis Sept/Oct'80 Events RAPE RELIEF WOMEN'S DANCE, Saturday October 11, 8:00 p.m. at the Eagles Hall, 748 Kingsway (at Fraser). Admission is one hour's pay if you can; less if you can't. Taped music. All proceeds go to Rape Relief House. Childcare provided. Call Carol or Krin at 872-8212 for information. Tickets are available at the Women's Bookstore (804 Richards), at Ariel Books (4th and Mac Donald) and Rape Relief (4-45 Kings- way). \"If I can't dance I don't want to be* a part of your revolution.\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Emma Goldman. PRESERVING LIFE ON EARTH will be the core concern when peace-oriented anti-nuclear women and friends gather: Thanksgiving Weekend, October 10, 11, 12 at Squamish Easter Seal Camp. All are welcome to attend this event, which includes the annual general meeting of the B.C. Voice of Women. Call June at 687-6510, Joan at 929-1377 for more details. DANCE OPEN TO ALL WOMEN. The BCFW Convention dance will be held November 8 at the West End Community Centre, 870 Den- man, 8:00 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 midnight. Sponsored by the Women's Building Committee. Tickets are $3:00 for non-delegates and are on sale at Ariel Books, the Women's Bookstore, VSW, Rape Relief, Octopus Books East (1146 Commercial Drive) and Passac- aglia Books (1230 Davies). Daycare will be available. Call 434-6767 to register. FEMINIST VIDEO SERIES at Women in Focus: October 14: \"Losing: A Conversation With the Parents\" \"We Will Not Be Beaten\" October 21: \"The Fleck Women\" \"It's Not Your Imagination\" October 28: \"It's Not My Head, It's My Body\" \"That's Not Me They're Talking About\" Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. at Women in Focus 6 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 45 Kingsway, Vancouver. All women welcome. Donation: $2:00. -TASK FORCE ON OLDER WOMEN sponsored by the NDP Women's Committee has set up the following public hearings: October 10, 11 October 24, 25 November 7, 8 November 14, 15 November 21, 22 November 28, 29 December 5, 6 For more details, NDP constituency office. \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Terrace \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Kamloops \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Campbell River \u00E2\u0080\u0094 North Vancouver \u00E2\u0080\u0094 New Westminster \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Vancouver \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Victoria contact your local WOMEN ONLY group takes place on Galiano Island October 25-26. For more information call Sara David at 539-2547. FEMINIST COUNSELLING AND THERAPY. The Women's Resource Centre at Capilano College and the Feminist Counselling Association of B.C. have organized a one- day seminar with Judith Bardwick, the author of Psychology of Women. Wednesday, November 5, 9:30 am to 3:30 pm at Robson Square Theatre. Cost is $35 (lunch is included). To register, contact the Women's Resources Centre,' Capilano College, 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver B.C. V7J 3H5. DAY OF PROTEST on all B.C. campuses November 6 to draw attention to the dismal state of childcare for student parents. Call Jean Bennett of the Students Federation for more details. She's at 291-4677. Teresa Reimer TERESA REIMER is the featured artists this month at the WOMEN IN FOCUS ART GALLERY #6 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 45 Kingsway. Her series of documentary drawings are on display Mon \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Fri: 10:00 a.m. \u00E2\u0080\u0094 5:00 p.m. and Sat from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., October 2 through 30. SINGLE MOTHERS SYMPOSIUM sponsored by the Vancouver YWCA takes place October 18 and 19 during Single Parent Week in B.C. Subsides are available. Call Sharon Willms for details: 683-2531, Local 251. WOMEN WORKERS\" HEALTH SERIES is being presented by Women's Action on Occupational Health, a feminist resource group for women workers' health issues. Three evening sessions, 7:30 p.m. at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, 535 East Broadway, Vancouver. Call 736-6696 for more information and childcare for the series. OCTOBER 15 : WORKING FOR OUR LIVES An hour-length colour film focusing on the hazards faced by today's working women. Filmed in 40 different workplaces, highlighting both traditional and non-traditional jobs. First ever showing in B.C.! A discussion will follow the film. OCTOBER 22 : PESTICIDES An issue for farmworkers and for the community. OCTOBER 29 : CLERICAL WORK Offices are dangerous places! Back problems, noise, lighting, stress, chemicals, and VDTS (video display terminals) will be discussed. All women are workers! Come and bring your friends! KINESIS KINESIS is published ten times a year by Vancouver Status of Women. Its objectives are to enhance understanding about the changing position of women in society and work actively towards achieving social change. VIEWS EXPRESSED IN KINESIS are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect VSW policy. All unsigned material is the responsibility of the Kinesis editorial group. CORRESPONDENCE: Kinesis, Vancouver Status of Women, 1090 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6H 1B3. MEMBERSHIP in Vancouver Status of Women is by donation. Kinesis is mailed monthly to all members. Individual subs to Kinesis are $8.00 per year. We ask members to base their donations on this, and their own financial situations. SUBMISSIONS are welcome. We reserve the right to edit, and submission does not guarantee publication. Include a SASE if you want your work returned. DEADLINE: 15th of each month. VSW updates VANCOUVER STATUS OF WOMEN, 1090 West 7th Ave, Vancouver V6H 1B3, phone 736-1313 is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon-Thurs. GUIDE TO THE B.C. WOMEN'S MOVEMENT is now ready. Comprehensive,.annotated list of B.C.'s women's groups, including phone numbers. To receive your copy, send $1:50 to VSW at 1090 West 7th Ave, Vancouver V6H IB3- THE B.C. FAMILY RELATIONS ACT. Our 12-page appraisal of the new B.C. Family Relations Act, covering such areas as custody, separation and property settlements, has been reprinted and is available for 50 cents from VSW at 1090 West 7th Ave, Vancouver V6H IB3. Written by feminists Jillian Ridington and Ruth Busch, it's invaluable. NEW ASSERTIVENESS TRAINING GROUP is starting on Tuesday, October 14 from 7:00 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 9:00 p.m. at South Vancouver Family Place, 4932 Victoria Drive at 33rd ave. Fee is $5:00 for four weeks. Phone Cat at VSW for details : 736-1313. WOMEN WORKERS IN THE HOME is now holding a speakers' series in a dozen family places, community centres, moms and tots groups etc Topics include Shared Parenting, Assertiveness Training Techniques, Welfare Rights, Housework, Single Parenting.... If you'd like to get a series going in your neighbourhood, phone Gillian at VSW: 736-1313- GROUPS FOR WOMEN OVER 50 will be starting soon. Here group facilitator Ima Kraya- noff offers some thoughts about the group: \"I have never led a group with an upper or lower age limit-. My thinking has always been and still is that human problems are basically the same for adults of all ages. The impact of the problems may be similar for all adults but in my experience the frequency and intensity of the types of problems change according to age and.maturity. \"Moreover, the turmoil in younger women who must make decisions about directions in their lives is more readily accepted than the mental and emotional agonies about equivalent decisions for older women. The emphasis shifts from decisions about marriage, career, having children and so on to other areas, such as: death, divorce, retirement. \"Older women are expected to have reachea their life goals, to be serene and wise. These expectations are unreal and in themselves constitute a problem. \"Women over '50 are often dealing with a profound loss: \u00E2\u0080\u0094 loss of a partner through death, divorce or separation; \u00E2\u0080\u0094 loss of focus with the departure of the last child from the family home; \u00E2\u0080\u0094 loss of a job through retirement; and the most common loss for women over 50 in this society: \u00E2\u0080\u0094 loss of youthfulness. \"This society values women for our youtn- fulness. When I told a friend, 'this summer I became 60 years...', she interrupted and filled in 'young'. Mo! On my 10th birthday I became 10 years old. Now I'm 60 years old. A willingness to experience sorrow and anger with the loss is essential for forward movement. In a group you will find other participants who are struggling with similar or identical problems. That in itself can diminish the feelings of loneliness. As facilitator I create opportunities for growth by helping you deal honestly with pain and loneliness on a practical, emotional and mental level. GROUP FOR WOMEN OVER 50 starts OCTOBER 27 and runs to DECEMBER 1, from 2:00 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 4:30 or from 7:00 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 9:30 p.m. Call VSW for more details about signing up: 736-1313- Kinesis Sept/Oct'80 CULTURAL WORK This film may be brilliant, but is it feminist? By Helen Mintz My Brilliant Career is touted as a feminist film. The film portrays a woman who defiantly refuses the roles foisted on her by family. Sybylla, the woman in question, refuses to accept a job as a servant despite her mother's pleas that her\"contribution is indispensible in maintaining them on their backwoods farm. Sybylla is then shipped off to her mother's wealthy relatives 'who are determined to make a real lady of her and marry her off to a wealthy suitor. But Sybylla refuses to swallow the tempting bait; she is unflinching in her determination not to marry until she has successfully pursued a career. At the end of the film, Sybylla \"has become\" a writer, describing the conditions of poverty in which she grew up and to which she has returned. We would expect a film about a woman struggling to realize her objectives as a writer. We would expect to see her struggling with the demands of the craft, with the frustrations of getting her work published and before an audience. We would expect to see her dealing with the questions of how she will support herself while writing, of how her writing can actually serve the people whose conditions she is describing. What we would expect is a film about a woman and her career. Forget it. This is not a film about a woman and her career. My Brilliant Career concentrates instead on Sybylla's relations with her suitors. More than any other theme in the film, the majority of footage has the audience following Sybylla through scenes in which she flirts provocatively and daringly with men. It is true that she refuses to play the passive female but insists instead on enjoying herself, drinking, dancing, laughing uproariously, and generally carrying on in a way that allows her to express her desires for fun and frivolity. Sybylla also makes demands on her men. When the man on whom she has fixed her eye fails to contact her as he had promised, Sybylla is angry. And she lets him know it. So we have here a woman who makes demands on her men; a woman who insists on her right to self-expression. But the area we see Sybylla choosing for her self expression is the area of flirting and frivolity. She acts the child, sharing her impetuous- ness. The career, to which Sybylla alludes throughout the film, remains, until the very end, an idle dream. And so, in fact, we have one more film about a woman and her romantic relationships. One more film which reinforces the stereotype that the central aspect of a woman's life is the manner in which she carries on her romantic life. The film never shows us Sybylla involved in the painful work of plying her career. By the end of the film she has become, as if by magic, a writer. Sybylla is a woman caught between two classes; her immediate family who are poor subsistence farmers on the one hand and her mother's wealthy relatives on the other. Sybylla's identification throughout the film is with the world of individual possibility, the world of wealth and privilege. She wants a life where she does not have to worry endlessly about the harsh realities of survival on the farm. She wants to think about music and art; she wants a better life for herself. When Sybylla is told that she can go to stay with her wealthy relatives, she is ecstatic. This is understandable. However, Sybylla's identification with the privilege of her wealthy relatives means that she stands against the women of her own class. Her first meeting with the man with whom she eventually \"falls in love\" takes place when he sexually molests her, mistaking her for a servant girl. The embarassing joke they later share is that he did not recognize her as his neighbour Is granddaughter. For the understandable error of failing to recognize her claim to status and respect, they are both willing to laugh. We can only assume that they both share the assumption that it is his right to sexually molest women in \"lower positions\" than himself. In fact, the world of the poor is used in this film as a. backdrop to depict the lives of the wealthy. The characters who are really developed are all, with the single exception of Sybylla herself, individuals from the \"upper classes\". We know Sybylla's grandmother, her wealthy aunt and uncle, her suitors. Sybylla's immediate family are shadows in the distance. Moreover, the poor are depicted in a manner that is almost unbelievable. Because of her refusal to settle down and act like a proper lady, Sybylla is sent off to teach in a secluded peasant outpost. The people who she teaches are so slovenly and boorish written about the poverty in which she is living. With this information, we are to believe that Sybylla is involved in activity that is beneficial to the people about whom she writes. We are never shown that the disdain which characterized Sybylla's attitude toward her immediate family at the beginning of the film is altered. Without knowing about either her relations with the subjects of her writings or the content of her work, we can make*no such assumption. To describe poverty is not necessarily to struggle effectively against it. And so, with the information we are given, we must see Sybylla's achievement as the success of an individual. Yes, My Brilliant Career tells us that individual women can resist the expectations which are placed on them by family and environment. This, in the abstract is an important and strength giving message for women. However, My Brilliant Career as to be barely more civilized than animals. They are depicted as lacking in all human dignity. They are there to show the audience the extent to which Sybylla is willing to go in her determination not to marry. Sybylla's desire to pursue a career is shown, at the beginning of the film, to be in conflict with the immediate survival needs of her family. We see a woman at odds with her environment, a woman bent on pursuing her.individual needs for self fulfillment despite the conditions of those around her. The film opens with a scene where the family farm is under attack from a violent storm. While everyone rushes frantically to save what they can, Sybylla stares dreamily out the window. The question remains at the end of the film. How has Sybylla reconciled her desire to be a writer with the needs that poverty has created in those with whom she, lives. This question is never really dealt with. The audience is told that Sybylla has gives us women's strength with one hand while showing us women's insignificance with the other. For, in the end, this is one more film which tells its audience that the most important aspect of a woman's life is her romance. This is one more film placing other aspects of women's lives in the background, as a backdrop to the romantic activity. One more film shows us a picture of a woman who is ready to ally with a man without struggling with his assumptions that it is his perogative to sexually molest other women. And this is one more film which tells us that it is the lives of the rich that are really worth knowing about while the \"lower classes\" parade insignificantly behind the scenes. Without getting into an argument about what is and isn't feminist, it would be well worth our while to examine what films like these are telling us about the possibilities not only for women, but for men as well. By the way, the scenery is fantastic, the photography really great. Q THE KINESIS BENEFIT WAS BRILLIANT Thank you all for coming and helping us through the next six months AD HOC WAS BRILLIANT We'll do it again next year, in a bigger hall"@en . "Preceding title: Vancouver Status of Women. Newsletter.

Date of publication: 1974-2001.

Frequency: Monthly."@en . "Periodicals"@en . "Newspapers"@en . "HQ1101.V24 N49"@en . "HQ1101_V24_N49_1980_09"@en . "10.14288/1.0045467"@en . "English"@en . "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en . "Vancouver : Vancouver Status of Women"@en . "Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the Digitization Centre: digitization.centre@ubc.ca"@en . "Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. HQ1101.V24 N49"@en . "Women--Social and moral questions"@en . "Feminism--Periodicals"@en . "Kinesis"@en . "Text"@en . ""@en .