"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 . "1980-06-01"@en . "https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/kinesis/items/1.0045477/source.json"@en . "application/pdf"@en . " VMJIDE 1 The night they crucified VSW at Vancouver City Hall: our advocacy grant was rejected 2 What the BCFT Status of Women program is up to\u00E2\u0080\u0094the one Gerard thinks is VSW 3 Mother's Day celebrated in a sun- filled park. We're never out of work, only pay- 5 How I came out as a jock in the women's movement. Dorothy Kidd tells all \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 Reclaiming ourselves: a feminist perspective on pornography. The WAVAW analysis 1 0 Sexism was everywhere at the CLC convention. But the feminist presence is growing 1 1 When Birth Control Fails, avoid this book. A review l 2 Vancouver Folk Festival will offer fine feminist music. We tell you who's coming \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 3 Wallflower shows us the possibilities of political art and introducing: THE RADICAL REVIEWER, VOL 1,#1 Cover: IWD Graphic from San Francisco SUBSCRIBE TO K/MES/J Published 10 times a year by Vancouver Status of Women 1090 West 7th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6H 1B3 Subscriber Member/Subscriber Name Institution Sustainer $20 $50 Address Payment Enclosed _ V* Please remember that VSW operates on inadequate funding \u00E2\u0080\u0094we need member support! JUNE 1980 CI KfMESIS news about women that's not in the dailies \u00C2\u00A9 N. Horn 1980 KINESIS JUNE 80 VSW ATTEND THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING VSW The night they crucified VSW at Vancouver City Hall. By Gayla Reid April 29 was not a gracious evening at Vancouver City Hall. Community groups, including Vancouver Status of Women, the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association and the Red Door Rental Agency, were there to appeal the rejection of their civic grants. As the evening sank to grosser and grosser depths, it became clear that only DERA and VSW would be accommodated on the agenda. All the other community groups were sent away, frustrated. DERA was the first group to get turned down. DERA, said Alderman Kennedy, was guilty of \"using disadvantaged people as vote fodder.\" Kennedy is notorious in this city for his singular ability to find \"marx- ists\" lurking even under Point Grey beds. This evening he once again distinguished himself, with an attack on the media in general and Vancouver Sun columnist Linda Hossie in particular for having written what he called \"an apologia for communism in civic life.\" \"Advocacy,\" Kennedy informed us, \"is the new buzz word. Lenin was an advocate for his cause.\" From the gallery came the comment, \"So was Jesus.\" \"Nonsense,\" snapped Kennedy. It was hardly an auspicious opener. Then it was our turn to appeal. But before we get into that, here's the story so far: Vancouver Status of Women had applied to city council for funding for one advocacy worker plus expenses. The city's social planning department recommended that council grant us half our request: $9,920. On Thursday, February 21, our request went before the Community Services Committee of Council. Aid. Bernice Gerard protested the proposal, saying that VSW had put a motion before the Elementary School Teachers' Association to force school boards to hire \"gay activist teachers.\" She also claimed that VSW uses public funds for \"pro-abortion campaigns.\" On March 4-, when our grant was before city council, Gerard repeated her accusations. Lay or Volrich, and Alderpersons Gerard, Puil, Kennedy and Little voted against us. VSW mounted a vigorous protest against Aid. Gerard's inaccuracies. Gerard was informed, time and time again, that the motion on sexual orientation had come from within the BCTF, where it was raised at an annual general meeting by three separate local teachers' association. There are none so deaf, one must conclude, as those who do not wish to hear. Now read on...back to April 29. Speaking in favour of VSW, Joanne Einblau, a worker at Vancouver South Family Place, told council that she was a 42 year old single mother who had found at VSW the skills and emotional support she needed to bring up a child on her own. VSW's Debra Lewis asked city council to put the welfare of women above their own personal biases. Council, she pointed out, was holding this group up to ransom. She also outlined the numerous opportunties which city council members have had to approach VSW and to clarify questions they might have in their minds about the work we do. YWCA: \"VSW is a must for Vancouver.\" Frankie Tillman, of the Vancouver YWCA, told council that it needed to \"recognize the value of VSW to all women in Vancouver, especially the disadvantaged.\" \"The YWCA\", she added, \"knows that the VSW is a must for Vancouver.\" Ruth Busch, a lawyer who handles cases referred to her by VSW's legal referral service, told council that \"a lay legal advocate is essential, for VSW. VSW receives more than 200 calls.a month from women seeking advice on legal matters.\" ' These include, Busch pointed out, \"divorce, custody, UIC, welfare, landlord-tenant appeals ...and the women who call are often in a crisis situation.\" \"Do not deprive the women of Vancouver of a lay legal advocate due to the myopia of a single issue anti-abortion group,\" 3usch urged council. Peggi Hall spoke on behalf of the BCTF, which represents 30,000 B.C. teachers. She explained that \"VSW is an excellent resource for students and teachers...with valuable information on women's issues, events and organizations.\" One more time, she put Gerard straight about just who had been moving that motion at the elementary school teachers' association. A member of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Dorothy Holme, outlined the importance of the advocacy service and commented: \"VSW supports free choice regarding birth planning and sexual orientation. ..what on earth has this got to.do with an ombudservice?\" Holme asked the council members to \"pass the motion\" in favour of VSW \"as rational decision-makers would.\" Betty Green:'' VSW a problem in society.'' Anti-choicer Betty Green then spoke against the grant request. \"VSW\", she claimed \"is a problem in society.\" Green was anxious to link VSW with Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion (CCCA). \"CCCA is an offshoot of VSW, andNuses their offices and phones for rallies. Through the BCTF (! ) network, they are attempting to change attitudes about the sanctity of life.\" \"Look at the BCTF material in the schools,\" Green continued, \"they talk about male sex stereotyping in Canadian literature. This is why we are having1 problems in families today.\" Kinesis: the paper anti-choicers love to hate Another anti-choicer,' Dennis Gardiner, had a go at Kinesis. ''It's ho secret that Kinesis is a forum for the. Sight to abort movement,\" he said. He also continued the myth about CCCA: \"CCCA is a foster child of VSW.\" Two more anti-choice people spoke. One of them had attended the recent CCCA conference. There she had found a book table which had a large number of books \"on the joys of lesbianism...things pertaining to homosexuality. ..not one book on wholesome family life. She fears, she said, for the future of her grandchildren. On to Aid. Gerard. \"You may make distinctions between the BCTF status of women and the Status of Women. Status of women is known across Canada and their federal representative was here tonight...you can't hide behind the boundary line of this group and that.\" Kinesis, she accused, has \"consistently had considerable pro-abortion and pro-lesbian content.\" And reiterated: \"VSW has been going pretty heavy on this pro-choice thing.' Again, she attributed to VSW a plot to get \"gay activists\" into elementary schools. \"What can you expect but a bunch of trouble when you take gay activists into the schools?\" None so deaf.... Doug Little was distressed to hear that the YWCA supported VSW. He claimed that Tillman had \"cast aspersions on the Christian faith.' He added that he has no time \"for the negatives in life such as homosexualism (sic) and abortion.\" Aid. Mike Harcourt spoke in support of the funding request. \"There are vast numbers of women and children in our city who require assistance. And in my opinion, VSW offers valuable legal assistance, they offer important, necessary services.\" Harcourt added that Aid. Little and Gerard exhibited little grasp of the principle of the separation of church and state. They are guilty, he said, \"of constantly wandering across the line of imposing your own personal religious and moral convictions on the body politic of this city.\" Marzari: \"VSW used as a scapegoat.\" Aid. Marzari explained that she was weary indeed of having to sit in council meetings listening to Little and Gerard define for her what Christianity was. VSW, she pointed out, was \"used as a scapegoat to get this ridiculous debate on the floor.\" \"I really resent being lectured to as though I were inferior,\" said Aid. Rankin. \"You don't have a monopoly on morality.\" \"There's a lot of things I don't know, being male,\" Rankin admitted. \"Many of the choices women make, they don't make out of pleasure. It's not a pleasure to have an abortion, as far as I know.\" Referring to the hubbub over homosexuals in the schools, Rankin remarked that he was not \"impressed by heterosexuals who like nine year old girls.\" \"You have to look at an organization and what it stands for,\" he concluded. \"VSW is a valid organization. It represents, not all women, but a fair number of women.\" The vote, finally, was put. Aid Bellamy, Boyce, Ford, Harcourt, Marzari and Rankin were in favour of the $9,920. But (you guessed) Mayor Volrich, Aid. Kennedy, Puil, Gerard and Little were not. WARDS .'community issue crucial to women With City Council's atrocious behaviour on April 29, it is no surprise that VSW is looking for changes in the structure of civic government. A Ward System for Vancouver was the title of a meeting held May 14- by Vancouver Status of Women. In the last civic elections, 51.7$ voted in favour of a ward system. But when is a majority not a majority? When you have the likes of Volrich, Puil and Kennedy reigning at city hall, that's when. In the upcoming civic elections this November, a ward system will again by a major issue. Speaking to this concern, were Jean Swanson, of the Committee of Progressive Electors, Alderpersons Darlene Marzari and Harry Rankin, and Susan Hoeppner, an executive member of VSW and a former member of Kitsilano Resources Board. Swanson pointed out that the proposals for a \"partial ward system\" which have been floating around are no more than a farce. The boundaries have been cooked up with the same gerrymander ingredients which wiped out Brown and Levi's provincial riding. Marzari was glad to see that someone was still interested in the wards issue, after eight long years of struggle. Rankin noted that wards were hardly a revolutionary proposal. He also linked the battle for wards to the recent rejection at city hall of various community grants, including VSW's. The executive city is what the ruling Non-Partisan Association wants, and domination of city council by Point Grey, Dunbar and Kerrisdale is perfectly in line with that goal. Susan Hoeppner explained why VSW sees the wards issue as a feminist concern. \"Childcare and homemaking,\" said Hoeppner, \"unlike other jobs, are 2<4 hour responsibilities which severely limit the ability of women to participate in the political organizations.\" Paradoxically, those very responsibilities are what give us \"a real, practical knowledge of the needs of our communities.'\" Wards would make the civic system more accessible to women, as well as forcing elected representatives to be more accountable to their own communities, o KINESIS JUNE 80 ACROSS B.C. BCTF Status of Women program is having steady impact By Linda Shuto The 1980 Annual General Meeting of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation was an excellent demonstration of the Status of Women program's impact on the 29,000 member organization. Although registration was not kept, numerous observers commented on the large number of women delegates. Women were not only more evident in numbers but were also highly visible. Articulate women flooded the microphones on a variety of progressive issues over the three-day meeting. Three of the five chairpersons were female and several key women provided effective floor leadership during debates. On the final day, the meeting elected three women to the eleven-member executive committee. With another feminist completing a two-year term, a record number of active feminists will be holding office. The two major issues of the conventions were concerns that particularly affect women. The first was the amount of stress experienced by teachers. The Status of Women program initiated the focus on this issue two years ago by developing a workshop entitled \"Stress and the Primary Teacher.\" The federation has had to expand this workshop to encompass all teachers and it is now more in demand than all the other BCTF workshops combined. The second issue was the need to expand the scope of bargaining. Teachers, like farmworkers and domestics, are unable to bargain for working conditions. While this creates numerous difficulties for all teachers, women have particular injustices to address. At the secondary level (where men are concentrated) preparation time Primary power at the 1980 BCTF AGM. L to R: Gayle Tyler, Joan Robb, Marion Runcie and Sophie Jeffrii is automatically scheduled into the timetable . At the elementary level (where women are concentrated) \"spare\" periods have not been achieved in any school district in the province. The Status of Women program is also having an impact at the local level because developing organizational skills and building women's confidence has been a primary focus. Many women who initially got involved in federation work through Status of Women committees are now becoming local presidents and geographical representatives. This is not to suggest that local Status of Women work is of lesser importance. In fact, Planned Parenthood warns of health risks of teen pregnancy Teenagers who become mothers are subjecting themselves and their babies to higher health risks than those taken by women over 20. This was the focus of the third national Planned Parenthood week, May 25-31. Although the number of teenage pregnancies has begun to decline, there were still more than 1000 each week or a total of 53,007 in 1978, according to the most recent reports from Statistics Canada. Toxemia is a special hazard of pregnancy among the very young because of lack of development of the endocrine system, the emotional stress of such early pregnancy, poor diet and frequently inadequate prenatal care. Moreover, a mother under 15 years of age is at twice the average risk of having a premature infant as the woman in her twenties. Statistics from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, show that the average VSW raises issue of health and safety standards for women Proposed changes to the Workers Compensation act, restricting the kinds of diseases that are compensated for by the Workers Compensation Board, will have an extremely serious impact on women. The Vancouver-based Committee for Workers* Health has been calling for a public forum on the proposed changes prior to any major policy alterations-. In support of that committee's demands, Vancouver Status of Women took part May 15 in a press conference at which community groups added their voices to demands for a public hearing. VSW's spokesperson Gillian Marie said that health problems faced by clerical workers must be included in the schedule for compensatable diseases.\u00C2\u00A9 age of teen pregnancies is now 15.5 years. Doctors at the hospital's clinic estimate that 85$ of sexually active teenagers use no form of birth control. In order to help parents share facts openly and clearly with their children and teenagers, Planned Parenthood held film nights, books displays and information sessions, highlighting the theme that the odds are against teenagers who take on parenting responsibilities too young.o Pappajohn goes to jail George Pappajohn has lost his final appeal and will have to serve his three-year prison sentence. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled May 20 that there was no evidence of an \"honest mistake\" in the Pappajohn case. Pappajohn, a Vancouver businessman, was con- vited of raping a real estate agent who had come to sell his house. He claimed he believed the woman, whom he bound and gagged, had consented to intercourse.\u00C2\u00A9 Gentleman rapist smiles a lot Leslie George Merson may soon find out that it pays to be polite. He is the man that the police fondly refer to as \"the gentleman rapist\", the man who is \u00E2\u0080\u0094 they say \u00E2\u0080\u0094 more lover than rapist. This man attacked sleeping women in their homes, gaining entrance through an unlocked door or window. When leaving, he asks the women to keep their doors and windows locked thereafter. Police and psychiatrists consider him not violent. Merson \u00E2\u0080\u0094 who was acquitted on a rape charge in 1976 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 has pleaded guilty to the current charges of rape because he feels remorseful.\u00C2\u00A9 these women are not abandoning Status of Women work, but are bringing a feminist perspective to other areas of the federation. Although the Status of Women program is established as a standing committee with a regular budget, women have had to fight numerous attempts over the last seven years to dump the program. Perhaps the 1980 convention was an indication that feminist teachers can now stop looking over their shoulders \u00E2\u0080\u0094 so often.o (Linda Shuto is a Burnaby teacher who was a delegate to the recent annual general meeting of the B.C. Teachers' Federation.) AUCE 1 at UBC striking for equal pay for work of equal value By Ann C. Schaeffer As we went to press, AUCE Local l's membership (UBC) had just authorized their contract committee to sign a memorandum of agreement with the University which would give them a wage increase of 10$ in the first year and 9.5$ in the second year. The union's original demand was for 15$ over one year. But when 200 picketers took down their lines and tried to return to work on Friday May 30, 10 or 12 of them were told their services weren't required that day. \"The university's action might split the whole thing wide open again,\" said Nancy Wiggs of the contract committee. \"If the university agrees to pay all of the workers their lost wages for the day, we'll be willing to sign the proposed agreement. If not, we'll have to call a general membership meeting to decide what to do next. In my view, having a few of our members discriminated against in this way is a totally unacceptable possibility.\" The union's selective strike was based on negotiating wage parity with campus workers in male-dominated jobs, represented at UBC by CUPE. While AUCE was trying its hardest to close down the Computing Centre, Administration Building and Walter Gage residence (scene of hundreds of conventions every year) CUPE was negotiating a 10? settlement which will further widen the wage gap. Before the new contracts, CUPE workers earned at least $200 per month more than their AUCE 1 counterparts. \"AUCE's original feminist principle of fighting for equal pay for work of equal value has been warped over the years into an inflation argument,\" said Wiggs, expressing some disappointment over the wage offer. \"But it's hard to fight for a principle, especially when many of our members are single mothers or single women with almost no savings.\"\u00C2\u00A9 KINESIS JUNE 80 MOTHER'S DAY Mother's Day in the park: never out of work, only pay-days By the East End Mothers' Group \"My name is Darlyne. I invite you to sit down on the grass so that we can speak to you about our lives as women. Hear us knowing that Mother's Day began with the American suffragette Julia Ward-Howe in 1872 as a day dedicated to women's rights and peace.\" That was the beginning of the speakers' part of East Vancouver's Mother's Day. It was a wonderful day of sun, displays by many women's groups, theatre, and song. The highlight was the speeches, some of which we have excerpted here. Due to space limitations we've had to omit comments from the Vancouver Welfare Coalition, from domestic workers, and from the Japanese Women's Organization, Matsuri. I'm just a man away from welfare Here's what Darlyne Jewett said: \"Economic hardship is a fact of every woman's life no matter which social class she finds herself living in. Like most women I have never had much money of my own, even when I lived in families where finances were not a problem. I have been married and divorced. I have supported my children and others on my own. Now I live with a man and I find I am again \"just a man away from welfare\". This was true for my mothers, for my grandmothers, for my self. It is still true for my daughters. \"It is no accident that women living such different life styles have come to speak, together. By talking together we learned we have more in common than we have differences. The work we do is the same. We are expected to clean, cook, tend children, shop, mind the elderly and ill \u00E2\u0080\u0094 for free. We are raising our most valuable resource \u00E2\u0080\u0094children. We certainly don't get paid a living wage to do it. We and our children cannot live on air. We need money to purchase our survival. \"All of us fight all our lives for insufficient amounts of money and in our old age we look forward to even worse poverty. We want to be able to choose who we are, who we live with, whether or not to have children. We are supposed to work for love not money. No way. Thank us with money so we can afford to love. Recognize our worth. Give us our wages. We want it now for ourselves, not three generations down the road.\" Living on welfare is a real bummer \"My name is Shannon. I am a single mother living on welfare and I'd like to talk with you about my experience. LIVING ON WELFARE MEANS LIVING IN POVERTY It means: - running out of money the first week after you get your GAIN cheque - always looking for bargains like buying day old bread or reduced meat or shopping at the Salvation Army thrift shops and other discount places \u00E2\u0080\u0094 if you happen to be a large woman, it is rare that you can walk into a thrift shop and find a size that fits - it means not knowing what luxuries are. LIVING ON WELFARE MEANS FEELING TRAPPED It means: - seeing no hope for the future - feeling that you can never get off welfare - not even being able to move because welfare no longer pays for moving costs At the Mother's Day celebrations in the park, May 10 Ina Dennekamp LIVING ON WELFARE MEANS BEING SPIED ON It means: - having no privacy - having social workers check on you - needing welfare's permission for every thing you do - being judged on what kind of parent you are \u00E2\u0080\u0094 fear of the crisis line \u00E2\u0080\u0094 fear of having your children taken away LIVING ON WELFARE IS A REAL BUMMER - like other welfare mothers, I don't like being on welfare - in the past, I have felt hopeless and resentful - I am tired of being poor and I am angry. YOU MAY ASK, \"IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN CHANGE OUR SITUATION?\" Recently I have joined a welfare rights group at Skeena Terrace \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the housing project where I live. I have come to realize that I can have power only when I stop fighting by myself and join with others in the same situation. At the Skeena group I can talk about my feelings and get some support. I no longer have to face the welfare alone because other group members will go with me when I ask. Together we have won some small victories. You can organize a support group in your neighbourhood as well. You can contact the Vancouver Welfare Rights Coalition and discover how those of us on welfare can get together. Please join the fight.\" I'm a lesbian and I'm a mother \"My name is Dorrie \u00E2\u0080\u0094 I'm a lesbian and I'm a mother \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and I am here today to share with you my hopes, fears and experience of being a lesbian mother. \"There are a lot of lies, stupid myths, and bad images of what lesbians are like. We are said to be evil, depraved and sick \u00E2\u0080\u0094 we are portr?yed as women who hate men and at the same time, women wanting to be men. We are also portrayed as women who are dangerous to children. \"Well let me tell you I am a woman and I'm very proud of being a woman. I am the mother of two very healthy and beautiful children and I am proud of the good job I did raising them. I am a lesbian and I am very very proud of it. \"I am proud of being a lesbian today. But nine years ago I was terrified. I was running all over the place trying to find out what my rights were, only to find out I had none. \"The lawyer's advice was to go home, keep the house, the yard and the children clean and say nothing about lesbianism. If I must have a lesbian relationship, to keep quiet about it and have it on the side. She told me I had a choice between my lesbianism and my kids! \"I thought a lot of what I wanted for my children, and what I wanted was for them to grow up to be warm, strong human beings with the ability to love themselves and others. I wanted them to grow up to be men and women who would be strong enough to fight against injustice. I wanted them to be proud of who they were. I did not see how I could accomplish raising two strong, beautiful children if I was ashamed of who I was. \"The situation I was in nine years ago is the same situation that most lesbian mothers are in today. They are still being advised by lawyers to pretend that they are straight, and if they have a lesbian relationship, to keep it secret. Can you imagine the effect this would have on a woman and her children? The lies upon lies that these women have to tell their children is enough to make me vomit just thinking about it. \"The law does not even pretend to protect lesbians. \"The Human Rights Codes, both federally and provincially, give no support to lesbian mothers. \"We can be fired from our jobs, refused housing, and have our children taken away from us with no support whatever from any official source. \"Due to lack of official support, we are not always able to fight for our rights \u00E2\u0080\u0094 consequently most lesbian mothers are silent about their oppression and pain. \"We need your support to get sexual orientation included in the Human Rights Code. The way you could help is to write to the Human Rights Commission, and your Members of Parliament, letting them know you support the sexual orientation clause. \"It would also be helpful if, when family or friends are making derogatory remarks KINESIS JUNE 80 MOTHER'S DAY about lesbians, you tell them how harmful their remarks are. \"I would like to thank the women who organized this day. For there is a great need for women's voices to be heard. \"We need to know that we are not alone in our fears. We need to know that other women experience the shame and pain of poverty and prejudice. We need to know that it is no accident that most of the people living in poverty are women, young and old. We need to know that women are angry, that we are organizing, and that we are fighting back. When you 're an immigrant woman, you 're doubly handicapped Raminda , of the East Indian Mahila Association, also addressed the crowd: \"This is a special day for women and it's even more special for me because I come from a country where, even though the Prime Minister is a woman, women are as, or even more, oppressed and exploited than anywhere else, at least than here in Can- Canada . \"When you are an immigrant woman you are doubly handicapped. First of all you are a woman and you suffer all the handicaps that ordinary white women suffer in this country. Added to that is a special kind of suffering, because they have a different accent, or their skin pigmentation is different, or their dress is different, and that are not aware of the cultural mores and values if you have any in this country. \"So if we want to talk about equality and justice for immigrant women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 we have to begin to talk about some type of affirmative action to bring them to the level of other women, who are also suffering; so that all of the women can unite to fight the oppression. \"I come from a community where everything \u00E2\u0080\u0094 custom, tradition, and everything else \u00E2\u0080\u0094 is male dominated and oriented. And by the ordinary people of this country. \"Whether or not those rights are sufficient is another question which the immigrant women cannot face at this point, because they can't make a double jump. They can only go one step at a time. \"Moreover, the immigration set-up of this country does not make the life of an immigrant woman any easier. In fact, it makes her life even more difficult. Because right until she becomes a citizen she has this threat of deportation hanging over her head. And I am aware of many situations where women have been simply \"kept in their place\" by threats of deportation. They have been prevented from developing their own individuality and personality and from breaking out of the vicious circle. \"Even after becoming citizens, some women are not aware that they cannot be deported for minor or serious crimes, unless the crime borders on spying for a country or something like that. \"Even though this system has deported people simply for struggling for basic rights, and even though it may continue to do so, if there is a strong women's movement standing behind you, it will not be possible for this, or any other system, to deport you. \"What the immigrant women lack are the tools of ordinary information and knowledge. These are not available to them due to language barriers, or because they cannot get out of their homes. \"This meeting today is one step towards our struggle.\" May 11 is Mother's Day When is pay day? Ellen Woodsworth spoke on behalf of Wages for Housework: \"V.:omen all over the world are working today and will be working tomorrow. We've if* > Y \u00C2\u00AB * 5$s\u00C2\u00A3V , *v O?- g **^^Hgj \* <\u00E2\u0080\u0094*\u00E2\u0080\u00A2 m ' W* mP*^ J 9 ,p\"' ** Pk'^'^f* / f ;7a. y 1 H m Children celebrating Mother's Day, tc lna Dennekamp there the immigrant women have another problem: they have to fight back against the domination and exploitation within their own community. \"They have to begin to gather enough courage to speak out on issues of importance to them regardless of what cultural, social and economic constraints there might be against them. They have to begin to demand basic human dignity; they have to begin to demand the right to be heard and not just told. They have to begin to demand the rights and the freedoms enjoyed come together today to speak out about our work, to talk about the cleaning, the washing, the raising of the children and the looking after men, the old, the sick and each other. \"We come from a lot of different situations whether single, married, or lesbian, asian or Caucasian, young or old. V/e are all poor and we are all working damned hard. We are all doing very similar kinds of work whether in an apartment, a house or a hut. While governments spend billions of dollars for nuclear weapons and new fighter planes we still have to do housework for free. \"Many of us are being forced to take a second job because we have no money, or because the man we live with doesn't make enough money, or because we live with a woman or because welfare is never enough. Some people have the nerve to say that a second job is liberating! It is liberating to have a bit of our own money in our pockets, but the work we do at that job is amazingly similar to housework. We are stuck in the female job ghetto doing nursing jobs, domestic work, teaching, wait- ressing, working in textile factories sewing dresses....All these jobs are extensions of housework. That's why we get the jobs and that's why those jobs are so underpaid. \"Internationally, women have been demanding wages for housework. I am part of this campaign. We have fought around the issues of the right to have or not to have children, around immigration, rape, lesbianism, custody, domestics, mother's allowance... and we have fought for wages for housework for all women from the government. People say that poor people can't organize. They say that housewives can't organize. But I am here to say that we have organized, we are organizing and we can organize. \"In Iceland in 1974 housewives led the first general strike the world has ever known. They organized with other women who do two jobs, the nurses, the secretaries and the day care workers. Then they got the men out, and the unions out, and on October 24, 1974 they led a general strike which stopped Iceland for an entire day. \"Today we have shown that same anger and that same demand for money. \"V/e are here to say publicly: tomorrow is Mother's Day. When is pay day?\" Isolation faces older women Winnie Henderson spoke as a mother and a grandmother. She talked about the problems of growing old, when isolation sometimes leads to mental breakdown; when you're afraid to talk about who you voted for if you live in subsidized housing; when you always have to count your pennies. It sometimes means living in fear of illness, less money and less pride, and if the check doesn't arrive, worrying whether you'll be able to work your way through all the red tape. Winnie also thought it was exciting that women were speaking out and organizing. A contract should be drawn up M.P. for East Vancouver Margaret Mitchell, also spoke: \"I want to propose that there be a contract drawn up every Mother's Day...that would bring in the principles we think are important in any kind of job. First of all the freedom for women or men to choose a job that is satisfying. And then of course we want equal pay for work of equal value and we need decent working conditions. We need time off and holidays and pensions and benefits \u00E2\u0080\u0094 all the things women working in the home don't have. And of course freedom from abuse and exploitation. '.7e \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 should have in our contract freedom to quit, freedom to go onto another job, and not just feel there's only one choice in life. Mothers need to have choices and women on their own need to have built-in childcare and the kind of income to have some kind of opportunity. \"So I'm prepared to suggest to Monique Begin, the Minister of Health and Welfare to ask what she would be willing to do about a contract for homemakers and childcare workers. She could start by increasing child tax credits, and working deduction for income tax and, most important of all, a guaranteed income that covers everyone and is above the poverty line. 0. KINESIS JUNE 80 5 WOMEN AND SPORT Critique of The Female A thlete conference at SFU Coming out as a jock in the women's movement Tom Tuthill/LNS L- lb \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 rp r-\"---'-TMm\"\"\" By Dorothy Kidd Sunday March 23 witnessed an event that is exciting as it is becoming commonplace. Three hundred and fifty women of all ages and backgrounds took over the Simon Fraser University gym to warm up for an 8 km. (approximately 5 mile) hilly run. Stretching to upbeat dance music, the finale saw everyone running hand in hand into the centre of a huge circle. Not the sort of scene you might see before a competitive male race, but one that's happening more often with women. \"Women Running High\" was conceived, organized and run by Vancouver Women Running, with help from students at SFU. It was part of the Female Athlete Conference, held March 21-23. Sponsored by Continuing Studies and the Kinesiology Department, the conference brought together over 400 women and men from across North America. It was the third conference of its kind, and a good opportunity to find out just how far women have been able to move in sport. The number of women participating in sport has grown tremendously in the past ten years, keeping pace with the growth of women's movement autonomy in every other sphere. No longer content to be the nur- turers of male athletes \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the cheerleaders, timekeepers, mothers and girlfriends \u00E2\u0080\u0094 women are taking time to reclaim our physical selves in every sport from running to racquet ball to mountain climbing to hockey. Top athletes are breaking international records every day, and improving their performances at a far greater rate than men. Women working in sports jobs are striving for better pay and recognition. And off the field both groups are organizing for more money and facilities for all women. This is not the first time women have played sport in such large numbers. In the 1920's and 1930's in Canada and many other countries there was probably proportionately more women athletes than today. Team games like softball and basketball were attended by thousands of fans, and women also took part in many track and swimming competitions. The fight then was much the same as it is today, against the barriers to participation from the male sports establishment and women's lack of time and money. Sports columns in the daily papers covered these activities, and were often written by athletes themselves . Unfortunately today we can read little of what is going on with women in sport, either Women are running high. This is from a recent New York fun run in the daily press, magazines or even the feminist press in this country. The Female Athlete Conference was one opportunity to find out. For me, a fitness athlete, who's been involved in women's running groups in Toronto and now Vancouver, it was also an opportunity to discuss some of those issues first raised fifty years ago \u00E2\u0080\u0094 how to make physical fitness part of our daily lives, not just recreation for the wealthy or a select group of university students. At the Female Athlete conference Dorothy Kidd, with Ellen Agger, co- - chaired 'From the Kitchen to the Running Track.\" The two women have also co-authored \"Breaking the Barriers\u00E2\u0080\u0094A Woman's Approach to Running.\" It was also an opportunity to connect my experience organizing in the women's movement and my 'other closet' life in sport \u00E2\u0080\u0094 to come out as a jock in the women's movement. In Canada, sports women and feminists are usually very separate. New to this whole discussion I can only guess at some of the reasons. Athletes like most other women have very little time for anything other than their long hours of training on top of full schedules of school and jobs. Full-time athletes also dedicate themselves to personal improvement in highly competitive situations and this pursuit of excellence has often been confused with the male elite model of \"winning at all costs\", and has sometimes led to a lack of support for any sports. Plus all women in sport, whether playing for fitness or competition have often been looked at by some radical and feminist commentators as retreating from radical activism. Perhaps as well we have not had any national opportunities to organize as in the U.S. In Canada there has been no Title IX, a law of Congress that provides for equality of opportunity in all federally funded schools, and which women have used to get access to more collegiate funding for women's athletics. Nor have we had a grass roots athletes' conference like the First National Conference of Women Runners in Cleveland Ohio in May 1979. Organized by Cleveland Women Running with assistance from the Wages for Housework Campaign, the two-day session dealt not only with the latest training and health information for women runners. It was also a feminist conference with workshops for the specific concerns women bring to sport \u00E2\u0080\u0094 those of Black women, mothers, lesbians and students \u00E2\u0080\u0094 as well as workshops about extending women's distance races and how to deal with companies who are exploiting the huge market of new runners. The Female Athlete was neither a conference or a grass roots one, but an academic one. Its structure allowed little opportunity to put forward resolutions or act upon suggestions. Instead it was a very practical conference for \"professionals\" in the field, with several well-run and well- attended workshops on topics ranging from: weight training, nutrition, growth patterns of young women and the psychology of women in sport. While there were workshops for specific groups such as the veteran athlete, and pregnant women, there were none for Black immigrant or Native women or lesbians. Feminism was not the perspective of the conference, it was instead relegated to one workshop. The cost and academic locale meant few \"fitness athletes\", and our workshop was the only one oriented to the grass roots. Despite this professional orientation, it was interesting to see how women's position in sport acted against an entirely elitist orientation. As in any other field, most women have the lowest paid and recognized jobs in the sports hierarchy, as fitness leaders, teachers, coaches and trainers, with only a handful in administration and academic. J.fost of the conference participants had come for very practical information for their jobs, but were also interested in discussing women and sport and how to deal with the male sports establishment. The opening night illustrated how much the influence of the women's movement has been felt in the world of sports. The two key speakers were Iona Campagnola and Abby Hoffman, with talks from four international calibre athletes: Bev Boys, a diver; Karen Magnussen, a skater, Carol Bishop, a volleyball player, and Susan Nattrass, a world class skeet shooter. Hoffman is famous both for her four-time Olympic performances as a middle distance runner and as a spokeswoman for athletes. She has spoken and written widely about the male-dominated sports establishment and how it limits the participation of women and men. Recognizing the growth of women's sport as a spontaneous result of the women's movement, Hoffman said it was now necessary for us to organize in a more KINESIS JUNE 80 WOMEN AND SPORT concerted way. Women have made some very positive steps. The number of women participating has increased, as has the quality of performance. In fact women are rapidly narrowing the gap between our international records and those of the men. Women are breaking through some of the heaviest guarded male pursuits \u00E2\u0080\u0094 weightlifting, mountain climbing and self defence, although in small numbers. Hoffman thought the debate itself about women's physical superiority to men in distance events was a 'milestone, since only ten years ago the whole idea would have been thought crazy. Hoffman: we still have a ways to go Hoffman's own personal experience shows that we still have a long way to go. She first gained publicity at 7 years old when she tried out and played on a boy's hockey team, until the League voted to prohibit female participation. Today girls are still fighting for that right. A little later, in 1961 after a 2 km (1.2 mile) race, a middle-aged woman warned her of possible childbirth complications. Only recently a male doctor got a lot of publicity with the same -\"old husbands story\". Hoffman also cited some statistics that show the economic discrimination against women in sports. Women still have the lower-paid, lower-status jobs. There is still little enough financial and training support for elite women athletes. Girls and women are not even permitted to play in some sports, and public sports and recreation programs continue to be oriented to the highly competitive contact sports that mirror professional leagues, like hockey and football. In a workshop later in the conference Hoffman spoke of the discrimination in funding for girls in schools, and how a group is fighting to change spending and programming priorities. Of the 114 primary schools in Toronto Public School Board, $63,000 is spent on 461 boys' teams with only a third of that, or $23,000 going to the 157 girls' teams. In the past four years, Hoffman et al. have been lobbying the women teachers, the trustees and most recently members of the Public Health Committee. They have used two arguments, that physical fitness is a right of girls and that girls should be treated equally to boys. So far there have been two concrete results; more money has been allocated for fitness and recreation, a step away from elite team sports, and some girls are now playing in sports once barred to them, wrestling and ice hockey. Later on in the same workshop, Hoffman spoke more about the kind of \"concerted action\" or strategy she is talking about. She spoke against following the male sports model, for it hasn't worked for most men and it certainly won't for women. Instead professional or commercial sport has hindered participation. The corporate owners of teams, stadiums and the media are not interested in mass participation or even the pursuit of excellence, but in maximum profit from the mass of spectators live at the event and watching it on the box at home. The same has been true of women's professional sports. Tennis and golf, the only big money makers for women, have not encouraged very many women to play. The commercial interest is in using women athletes to market their clothes and cosmetics. Advertising marketing has exploited women regaining control of our bodies by encouraging the traditional double role for women. \"Run, but be Beautiful\" or \"Exercise Your Body and Bonne Bell Your Face\". The same questions about 'equal rights' or 'parity' were raised by two other speakers at the conference. Peggy Burke, former President of the American Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, talked about the fight around Title IX. While it is still being fought in the courts, already changes have encouraged a larger number of female students to take up sports, through the greater number of scholarships and resources. But it has also meant that the autonomy of women's sports departments is being challenged, and with them their less competitive, less commercial philosophy. Many institutions have used Title IX as an excuse to combine women's and men's athletic departments to submerge the leadership of women. Not surprisingly this move has been orchestrated by the same male sports establishment that is fighting Title IX in the courts. Women have gone The effects of legislation like Title IX has been dramatic.. .(but) it also produces problems.. .women's sports programs become carbon copies of the male model, Ann Hall backwards, the number of women directing women's programs and coaching women's teams has declined 2% per year. Ann Hall of the University of Alberta raised some of the same doubts about fighting for parity in Canada. Unfortunately our workshops were at the same time, but in an earlier paper, \"Sport and Feminism: Imperative or Irrelevant?\" she wrote, \"the,next step is to challenge the male-dominated power base at all levels of sport, beginning possibly at the municipal parks and recreation program...right up to the International Olympic Committee.... The effects of legislation like Title IX has been dramatic (but) it also produces problems since the price of parity is often costly and women's sports programs become carbon copies copies of the male model, which is neither humane nor rational.\" Another feminist strategy speech came from Iona Campagnola, presently a Vancouver broadcaster. Campagnola was the Liberal Federal Minister of Amateur Sports and Recreation in an earlier Trudeau government, and responsible for the Green Paper on Amateur Sport, hardly a feminist document. Yet her Friday night speech was an eclectic collection of feminist and radical ideas. She recognized sport as the preserve of the elite, inaccessible to women'and the rest of the working class. The Establishment has a doubly negative reaction to women in sport because of the threat posed by strong aggressive \"Amazonlike\" women. Campagnola also recognized that they can accomodate some token change and spoke of the danger of \"super\" women athletes who like other \"super\" professional women have to be twice as good at their sport and \"femininely\" maintain their family life. Campagnola's solution: approach wealthy women for money But Campagnola's solution was not so much eclectic radical as liberal. Campagnola had a good deal of respect for the ideas of Eastern bloc countries which encourage physical fitness for everyone, not just the elite athlete, as in the West. Yet she didn't think the time of the \"mass athlete\" was upon us, because of the very different nature (read capitalist) of our system and the male commercial sports establishment. Women should not pressure the government for more resources but instead encourage donations from wealthy women. While wealthy women should be approached for money, we are talking about a far bigger figure and more radical change to provide for our health. There is another source of money, including the government, that Campagnola failed to mention \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the clothing, cosmetic and other industries who now exploit women's fitness boom. We got a look at the personal wear and tear on athletes of being excellent in their sport and feminine. After the two \"political\" speeches, Bev Boys, Karen Magnussen, Carol Bishop and Susan Nattrass spoke. All talked very personally about their daily life experiences as athletes, and the problems of being a female athlete. For Bev Boys it was her weight. She started diving as a skinny teenager, but after a traumatic move to Winnipeg to train, away from her family and friends, she began to eat more. Her coaches, other sports people and the media never let her live it down, and she thinks she probably lost some meets not because of her diving style, but because of her size, the moral being that to be a female athlete you must remain svelte-and beautiful, competence isn't enough. The pressure on all women athletes to be \"feminine\" was talked about all weekend but without any reference to lesbianism. It was up to two women in the audience to raise this in a question period. Ellen Agger of Toronto Women Running spoke about the need to publicly discuss the contribution of lesbians in sport and the way the threat of being \"butch\" or lesbian is used against all women straight or gay, to stop us playing sports and to divide us. Her intervention was greeted with a great deal of applause from most of the 200-300 Time, money and social barriers Agger spoke later in another first, a workshop we called \"From The Kitchen To The Running Track \u00E2\u0080\u0094 encouraging the non-participant\". It was the only one organized by fitness athletes about making sports accessible to all women. V/e spoke of the barriers to women in sport \u00E2\u0080\u0094 time, money and social attitudes, like the taboo of lesbianism. We also spoke of the growth of women's running clubs across North America, and of using the potential of The North American Network of Women Runners. The Female Athlete was well-organized and packed with informative, practical workshops. And the fun run was exciting. But it was an academic conference, more interested in discussing the problems and situations of women athletes than in providing a forum for praxis. The questions of strategy for women in sport remain \u00E2\u0080\u0094 how to maintain what autonomy women have already developed in sport, how to fight for more access to money and resources, how fitness athletes and others can affect future organ izing to include the interests of all women lesbian and straight, Native, immigrant and white, poor and rich. 0_ KINESIS JUNE 80 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WA VA W analysis Reclaiming ourselves: a feminist perspective on pornography By Marion Barling, Mickey McCaffrey and Suzanne Perreault PORNOGRAPHY: The ideological basis for the systematic persecution of women by men. It is a means of social control. Pornography is an integral part of the indoctrination process that routinely portrays women and children in violent and degrading situations for the purpose of another's pleasure and satisfaction. Women are oppressed throughout the world. The list of crimes against women is as long as it is horrifying \u00E2\u0080\u0094 from economic dependence to deforming fashions \u00E2\u0080\u0094 from objectification to murder. In Canada alone, we are faced with the reality that one women is raped every 17 minutes, one woman in four is sexually assaulted before the age of 18, and over 50$ of wives are battered. Taking a closer look at the statistics on rape, we see that for every 140 rapes only one results in the conviction of the rapist. Violence against women is propagated by the use of language and imagery as exemplified by the hate literature of pornography. \"Pornography is the theory \u00E2\u0080\u0094 rape and femicide is the practice.\" (Robin Morgan) Many of us have long responded to pornography with loathing, yet could not clearly state our objections. One of the reasons for our confusion is that male producers and protagonists of pornography often use the words, pornographic and erotic, interchangeably. Yet when we look closely at pornographic and erotic materials, the line between the two blurs. What, in fact, are the differences? They are not clear. Both pornography and erotica come from the Greek language, the interpretations varying slightly from source to source. When we examine the word 'pornography' we see that it originates from 'poms, meaning prostitute, female captives, and \"graphein', to write, therefore the writing of harlots. Prostitutes, female captives and harlots exist In a relationship that is dependent upon male needs, demands and control. Therefore, implicit in the word pornography is dominance and violence against women. As Robin Morgan says: \"...pornography's basic message is domination not reciprocity. It defines sex as male aggression and the female body as the target of conquest.\" According to Diane Russell, \"...pornographic movies, pictures and stories are a celebration of male power over women and the sexist wish that women's sexuality and values be totally subservient to men 's. \" When we examine the root of the word erotica we face the problem of dealing with a male-defined language which excludes our experience. We find that erotica derives from the word Eros: \"...a son of Aphrodite who excites erotic love in gods and men with his arrows and torches. \" (\"Websters ) In this definition the emotion of love is intertwined with messages of pain; a message that has been reiterated in Christian thought. Think of the religious ecstasy of Bernini's St. Theresa as she is pierced by an angel's arrow. This double message of love and pain has been continued into contemporary times as exemplified by the familiar motif of a heart shot through by the arrows of Eros' messenger, Cupid. Eroticism vs. pornography The confusion between erotica and pornography has lead to an obscuring of the reality of violence against women in favour of civil libertarian arguments, such as the right to freedom of speech, expression and sexuality. Images that are often defined by society as erotica, art, collector's items, masterpieces and the like take on a different meaning when viewed from a feminist perspective. Glance at a book such as the Erotic Art of the Masters, by Bradley Smith. What is the difference between Gustave Courbet's 'masterpiece' painting of a woman's torso and genitalia (entitled L'Origine du Monde in Erotic Art of the Masters, page 56) and a Hustler crotch shot? As feminists, we can only understand this use of the word erotica to be a male euphemism for pornography. We see these images as pornographic, violent and degrading towards us. So, whose freedoms are we really talking about? Pornography, implicitly and explicitly, links violence, pain and pleasure in its definition of sexuality. For example, men have assumed the role of their gods by the use of the penis as weapon and have used it to terrorize and colonize women through rape and sexual coercion. Even if we are not yet the actual victims of rape, we live in constant fear of being the next one attacked. We are brainwashed through every aspect of our patriarchal culture into believing in the power and the glory of the penis, which results in a life of crippling paranoia and degradation of our self-worth and self-respect. In a further perversion of sexuality men have taught women to accept pain as part of love. This is a basic theme in pornography. For example, an issue of Penthouse featured a picture of a woman floating, corpse-like, in a swimming pool, clad in a bra, garter belt, stocking, high heels and quoted as saying, \"I don't mind a little bit of pain in sex, as long as it doesn't leave any marks.\" (Penthouse, April 1978) Men's intertwining of violence and sex is exemplified by a well-known military ditty that goes: \"This is my weapon, this is my gun, This is for business, this is for fun.\" The man's 'weapon* is for killing, his 'gun' is for screwing. In this ditty, his manufactured 'gun', i.e. his weapon, and his anatomical 'gun', i.e. his penis, are both equated as tools of power and pleasure. Not only have men frequently defined and used their genitals as weapons but they have glorified its shape in symbolism that is accepted in many, many forms. Phallic objects abound in magazine advertisements, record covers, billboards, movies, etc., often aimed directly at one or more parts of a woman's body. If we are to survive as women or aspire to the dubious title of \"sexually liberated\", we must not only be eager receptacles for the omnipotent penis, but we must also glorify it. In pornography and 'erotic' art, women are often shown in attitudes of worship and ecstasy over a disproportionally large penis. In doing so, women are exalted as those who have attained the feminine ideal, who are truly a 'man's woman.' The language and imagery, as we understand it today, has been defined by men in power and as such women's herstory and experience of life is frequently hidden. It either fails to reflect our existence or it reflects our existence through a male interpretation. Let's consider the messages that are inherent in the male depiction of sensuality as illustrated in pornography. The images show passive, submissive women, violated and degraded, available to service men's every desire. The images reflect patriarchal values which are anti-sentient and anti-life. Men are systematically destroying women, themselves and all other life on earth. Women have always been oppressed by pornography. When we compare the recent growth of pornography with that of the current women's movement, we can see a correlation. The widespread acceptance of pornography has become possible through the sophistication of technology, which has enabled publication and distribution to take place on a massive scale. If we examine the past four decades, we see the male fetish for large breasts was personified in the 1940s by Jane Russell. She was molded into the ideal popular sex object. Esquire, a pornographic men's magazine, was published for the first time. Ironically during the same period, the economic necessity of women's daily lives saw them fighting to retain the men's jobs that it had been necessary for them to take over during the war years, as well as continuing to fight for the acceptance of birth control. In the fifties, the first issue of Playboy was published, featuring a centrefold of Marilyn Monroe, the current reigning sex goddess. We also saw the beginning of the macho motorcycle gangs. Women as a whole were pushed a step backwards, despite Simone de Beauvoir's insightful book on feminism, The Second Sex. Marriage and motherhood were glorified as the most noble careers a woman could aspire to. By the sixties, explicit sex and violence were being shown in movies, magazines, books and on television (for example, \u00E2\u0096\u00BA (turn to p.8 \u00E2\u0080\u0094 other side of supplement) Women fight back against pornography The RADICAL REVIEWER * Radical: getting to the root/origin of. Volume One Number One The Lesbian Literary Collective (LLC) is a group of women who came together to read and study literature. We share a radical feminist perspective and apply it to our analysis of the lives and works of the various women writers we have examined. We also use our political analysis to integrate our intellectual and emotional selves. We have spent as many hours on mutual support as on cerebral exploration. We are trying to undo the need for academia by creating an alternative for ourselves. The Radical Reviewer is an expression of our work on, and our love for, women's literature and feminist theory. June 1980 Frances Farmer: The Untold Story by Connie Smith Frances Farmer died quietly in Indiana in 1970 of cancer. She agonized until weeks before her death trying to recreate and make sense of her life. Having no knowledge of the transorbital lobotomy performed on her 22 years prior, this process was difficult. Frances was an artist,, a radical and an uncompromising intellectual. At 16, she scandalized her home-town Seattle by writing an award-winning essay, \"God Dies\" Four years later at the University of Washington, she won a V.I.P. trip to the Soviet Union sponsored by Seattle's Communist newsT o^per. She re jeived national criticism for this journey, no one believing her intentions were artistic. Her supreme talents culminated in Hollywood stardom and the New York stage. In 1937 at age 23, she was labelled \"the new Garbo\". She died without fanfare at 56, along with the facts. Quite plainly, she was erased. Shadowland is William Arnold's chronicle of the right wing-status quo conspiracy committed to destroying this very wild woman. Rumoured to be a communist, a lesbian, and a schizophrenic, various \"interested\" psychiatrists brought commitment proceedings against her. She was first sent to the Screen Actor's Sanitarium at La Crescenta, California when she received massive insulin shock; later, she was institutionalized at Seattle's Harborview Hospital and punished with hydrotherapy; ultimately she was imprisoned for five years in the violent ward at the Western State Insane Asylum in Steilacoome, Washington. It was here she was administered shock treatment, every experimental drug of the era, and raped repeatedly by soldiers from a nearby base. However, she survived; miraculously retaining her sense of self. Consequently, Dr. Freeman, aka The Father of American Lobotomy, requested a crack at \"the most celebrated person ever to be confined to a U.S. public mental institution,\" She had become an embarrassment to psychiatry. Toward the end of 1948, Freeman had Frances knocked unconscious by electric shock in order to perform his latest necrophilic act, the transorbital lobotomy, a technique which enables the perpetrator to enter the victim's brain from under the eyelid with an icepick-like instrument, severing the nerves which deliver emotional power to ideas,destroying the victim's imagination. Freeman believed his operation's potential for controlling society's misfits \u00E2\u0080\u0094 schizophrenics, women with high intelligence, homosexuals, and radicals \u00E2\u0080\u0094 was truly revolutionary. Often \"taken to dramatics, he once executed 35 transorbital lobotomies on exclusively women patients before an audience of male doctors and journalists. It was a brief affair which he titled \"mass surgery\". He was acclaimed. Frances was officially declared insane because it was discovered she gave away all her money to political causes; she considered Hollywood film making dishonest art. And she was said to be vulgar and profane. During her insanity hearing she quoted poetry and told the examiners they should be examined, not her. The commission was headed by Judge John A. Frater, leader of the American Vigilantes of Washington, whose power in government was as great as his outspoken hatred for Frances Farmer. Shadowland is the story of dissident control through psychiatry; the story of misogyny. William Arnold struggles with the truths he uncovers during his three year obsession with Frances. Although his analysis is, in many instances, shockingly acceptable, there are places where, by nature of his sex, he will not go. Although an entire movement set out to destroy Frances Farmer, their mission rested ultimately upon how well her mother, Lillian had been despotized. Arnold permits this connection naming Lillian the tyrant mother. In January, 1943, Frances Fanner was Arrested in her hotel room and dragged to Santa Monica police court and charged with failing to report to her parole officer. from Shadowland by William Arnold Lillian Farmer was a highly intelligent woman. Divorced twice, she spent most of her life in legal battles with her second husband; raising her four children alone. She was strong willed and spirited \u00E2\u0080\u0094 so spirited that \"concerned\" relatives attempted to commit her. Lillian hired a lawyer, fought, and maintained her freedom \u00E2\u0080\u0094 a feminist lawyer, who later said that Lillian was one of the finest women she ever met; a great champion of the women's movement and of the cause of nutrition. Despite her strenghts, Lillian was driven to \"eccentricity\" through unrecognized intellect. Eventually the qualities she once admired in herself, she found insane in Frances. Lillian was born with original guilt. She was, after all, a mother and poor motherhood was allowing her daughter uncontrolled self-expression. (A contradiction familiar to most mothers who want the most for their daughters but know intuitively that freedom of expression equals ostracism.) Frances' unacceptabi- lity to society \u00E2\u0080\u0094 to men \u00E2\u0080\u0094 became paramount with Lillian. She became convinced that her daughter should be incarcerated and spent years trying to maintain Frances' captivity. Frances, in turn, although describing herself as an actress, who \"made enemies in high places\", held her mother accountable \"as the main root\" of her despair. Feminists understand these implications and are challenging the traditional tactic of blood oppression \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the patriarchal ploy which assigns mothers the role of oppressor to their daughters. Unfortunately Frances and Lillian did noi \"nave the luxury of this insight. Arnolc prces inadequate on ye another issue. In spite of the comfort he seems tc feel with words like \"lesbian\" and \"latent homosexuality '\u00E2\u0096\u00A0', his true feelings emerge five pages from completion. Suffering from over-identification with his subject; perhaps even a feeling of possess!veness towards Frances, Arnold cannot handle the fact that Frances chose to live the last years of her life with Jean Ratcliffe -- a woman. He insists that Frances died alone.. Jean supported Frances through ten years of financial and emotional crisis, her continual war with alcoholism and several attempted artistic comebacks. She encourages Frances in the writing of her autobiography and was responsible for pro- curring a publisher after Frances' death. Arnold, however, accuses Jean of inventing sensational scenes, glorifying her own character, and as \"a curious closing touch\" dedicating the book to herself. He refuses to acknowledge the depth of commitment these two women felt for each other; yet he confirms certainly more horrendous aspeots of Frances' experience, as detailed in her own words. Frances' autobiography Will.There Really Be a Morning? is an extremely disturbing book She specifies the atrocities committed Continued on page 10. RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER Mary Daly:' 'Cerebrating'' the Death of God... by Cy-Thea Sand Mary Daly's second work, Beyond God the Father (1974), is an inspiring attempt by a feminist theologian/philosopher to recreate theology: \"For my purpose is to show that the women's revolution, insofar as it is true to its own essential dynamics, is an ontological, spiritual revolution, pointing beyond the idolatries of sexist society and sparking creative action in and toward transcendence. The becoming of women implies universal human becoming. It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality, which some would call God.\" (p. 132) The essential premise, Daly asserts, is our need to name women's experience, past, present and future. This process is crucial in smashing the 'Great Silence'. Daly refers not only to patriarchy's failure to record/acknowledge/esteem women's accomplishments, but also to the academic denial of the evidence of a \"universally matriarchal world which prevailed before the descent into hierarchical dominion by males.\" The process involves language liberation \u00E2\u0080\u0094 inseperable from and integral to a feminist, spiritual consciousness. Words/ concepts like God-Father are analysed to expose the phallocratic nature of established religions in particular as well as the androcentric basis of societies in general. The book's seven chapters explore the following concepts: (l) god as verb rather than as patriarchal authority; (2) Eve's 'fall' as a journey towards freedom rather than as an oppressive fairy tale (myth) of the congenital evil of women; (3) the idolatry/mythology of jesus christ with its misogynistic assumptions and traditions^ (4) the nature of phallic morality versus the transvaluation of values (that is, a revolutionary morality) inherent in a radical feminist world view; (5) the need for women's awareness of the universal sex caste system in order to take a psychic leap of faith into sisterhood as anti- church; (6) Daly's vision of a cosmic covenant-sisterhood as being beyond the unimaginative definition of church under patriarchy. It is a prophetic vision: \"...prophets have been persons who do not receive their mission from any human agency, but seize it. The revolution of women has this kind of dynamic, since women have been excluded from the power of politics. However, what we are 'seizing' and 'usurping' is that which is rightfully and ontologically ours \u00E2\u0080\u0094 our own identity that was robbed from us and the power to externalize this in a new naming of reality. This is not a purely individual charismatic gift, but a communal awakening.\" (p. 98) In her last chapter, Daly turns the traditional philosophical framework, used to analyse conflicts in transformation and becoming, on its androcentric head. This framework is founded on Aristotle's theory of the four Causes \u00E2\u0080\u0094 material (that out of which something is made), formal (the determinant of its nature), efficient (the effect produced by an active agent) and purposeful (the outcome or goal of the original action). She denigrates this outline as static, hierarchal and gynoci- dal. \"It requires a kick in the imagination, a wrenching of tired words, to realize that feminism is the final and therefore the first cause, and that this movement is movement. Realization of this is already the beginning of a qualitative leap in be-ing. For the philosophers of senescence 'the final cause' is in technical reason; it is the Father's plan, an endless flow of Xerox copies of the past. But the final cause that is movement is in our imaginative-cerebral- emotional-active-creative being, (p. 179) I admire Daly's ability to incite intellectual and emotional rebellion. Her feminist criticism of twentieth century philosophical 'giants' (Paul Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Teilhard de Chardin et al. ) and her expose of the plight of Bangladesh women, are indicative of the gynocentric brilliance and rage which inspires her work. This work has the power to move all women, whether or not we have left a/ the 'church'. Radical feminists need not fear or ignore the words spiritual or spirituality. In their deepest sense they name our Selves. 0 Celebrating the Lives of Women GYN/ECOLOGY:THE METAETHICS OF RADICAL FEMINISM. (1978) by Cy-Thea Sand \"The Amazon Voyager can be anti- academic. Only at her greatest peril can she be anti-intellectual.\" With this concept in mind, Mary Daly spins us through an elaborate, intense, cerebral journey, way way beyond god the father. Gyn/Ecology (literally, the ecology of womenkind) is an intellectual challenge to read, to experience. Our total Selves are involved in the validation of this work. Our deepest Selves know whereof Mary Daly speaks. Daly insists on asking questions about the connecting layers of woman's oppression, warning us to stop putting answers before the questions. The journey is divided into three passages: (1) Processions: an analysis of traditional woman-hating myths and symbols; (2) the Sado-Ritual Syndrome \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the Re-enactment of Goddess Murder: an overwhelming connective analysis of Indian Suttee, Chinese Foot-Binding, Africal Genital Mutilation, European Witch-Burnings, Nazi Medicine and American Gynecology; and (3) Gyn/ Ecology: Spinning New Time/Space: an expose of the various forms of patriarchal spooking and how to undo their ill effects with the healing, sparking power of female friendship. The reading of the first passage is enriched and made easier by a background in traditional theology and/or mythology. In it, Daly indicts patriarchy for being the \"prevailing religion of the entire planet\". Daly expounds upon Virginia Woolf's concept of patriarchy as being a series of male processions \u00E2\u0080\u0094 an army of soldiers, judges, lawyers, doctors \u00E2\u0080\u0094 as expressed in Woolf's brilliant essay, Three Guineas (1938). The processions are cyclic, misogynistic and conducive to nuclear disaster. This male-mastered system is guilty of the primordial mutilation \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"the ontological separation of mother from daughter, daughter from mother, sister from sister.\" Radical feminism is seeing through and beyond this psychic mutilation to our- TABLE OF CONTENTS Page One Frances Farmer: The Untold Story Page Two Mary Daly: \"Cerebrating\" the Death of God. Celebrating the Lives of Women Page Four The Roaring Inside Us Page Five Adrienne Rich: Spiralling through the Silences Page Six Radclyffe Hall: Spooked by the Patriarchal Depths Page Ten How to Brighten a Patriarchal Day (A review of feminist literary journals) Page Eleven A Little Night Reading Page Twelve As the Pages Turn Connie Smith Cy-Thea Sand Barbara Herringer Barbara Herringer Cy-Thea Sand Cy-Thea Sand Connie Smith Connie Smith Barbara Herringer RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER Lies against women are what Mary Daly explores. . using traditional christian theology as her spring board. Her love for women is passionately expressed in her raging, roaring language. original Selves. The journey begins with Daly's analysis of myth distortions and reversals which serve to imprison women's bodies and minds in a State of Possession. Necrophilia is re/defined by Daly as men's need for and draining of women's energy. At the heart of this phenomenon is misogyny. Learning to Double Double Unthink When one embraces a radical feminist perspective (radical means getting to the root/origin of), one begins to see through the male myths. We learn to double double unthink \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"to go past the obvious level of male-made reversals and find the underlying Lie.\" Lies against women are what Mary Daly explores in this passage, using traditional christian theology as her spring board. Her love for women is passionately expressed In her raging, roaring language. Daly's language of passionate anger helps us to continue the journey. The second passage needs no prerequisite. Its horrific facts will anger, upset and remind the unresisting reader of the danger we are in. I frequently had to postpone its completion until I could conjure up more gynergy. Daly exposes the essential nature of patriarchy as being sado-ritual. Her study of six grotesque expressions of this sado-ritual syndrome \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Indian Suttee, Chinese Foot-Binding, African Genital Mutilation, European Witch-Burnings, Nazi Medicine and American Gynecology \u00E2\u0080\u0094 reveals certain factors which are common to all. All these atrocities against women are obsessed with the notion of purity (the sexual purity of the Indian Suttee victim is guaranteed by virtue of her ritualized murder); all involve a total erasure of responsibility (the tortuous mutilation of women's feet j.s referred to as a custom by Chinese and Western scholars); all six atrocities involve women as token torturers and scapegoats (it is the African daughter's mother who mutilates her genitalia to make her more marriageable). Daly exposes the danger women have been and are now in under patriarchal rule. She believes that by facing this truth each Journeyer can exorcise patriarchy's effects on her: \"As a consequence of her courage to see, she finds the focus of her anger, so that it fuels and no longer blocks her passion and her creativity.\" While writing this review I read the following 'brief in the Vancouver Sun: \"Tuesday March 18, 1980 100 Girls Strangled Police have recovered the bodies of 21 girls from secret graves in Ecuador after a Colombian fugitive confessed to raping and strangling about 100 girls in the last seven years, police said today.\" The third passage invites us to celebrate what Daly calls positive paranoia \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the awareness of patriarchal patterns of misogyny. In order to do so, Daly believes we must despook ourselves, purify our minds of the male-made myths. These myths are deeply ingrained in us as their poison pervades all cultural expressions from humour to educational systems. To spook back means to detect the gynocidal patterns, to disclose, expose them. This third passage is a celebration of our power as women. It offers challenges and hope. Hope lies within the transformational process \u00E2\u0080\u0094 a process indivisible from fiery female friendship. (Daly prefers the concept of transformation to revolution as the latter is equivalent to the endless necrophilic cycles of patriarchal wars. To transform is to leave that Time/Space.) Sparking Fiery Female Friendships Fiery female friendships are based on strength. They are formed by women who are creative and strong alone but who choose other Revolting Hags with whom to cerebrate. To cerebrate is to re/search, dis/cover new ideas, new ways of being with each other which foster growth, independence and freedom. Sparking Female Friendship involves the courage, insight and trust to take risks for and with each other. The risks involve, I think, the transferring of our cerebral feminism to our emotions, to our ways of being in the world. \"The radical friendships of Hags means loving our own freedom, loving/ encouraging the freedom of others, the friend, and therefore loving freely.\" Seasoned Spinsters encourage each other to convert anger into creativity, not depression. We encourage each other to spark: Sparking means building the fires of gynergetic communication and confidence. As a result, each Sparking hag not only begins to live in a lighted and warm room of her own; she prepares a place for a loom of her own. In this space she can begin to weave the tapestries of her own creation. With her increasing fire and force, she can begin to Spin. As she and her sisters Spin together, we create the Network of our time/space. Feminists are aware of the gross limitations of men's language. Words, phrases, even sentence structures fail to speak for our experience as women. Lesbian-feminists are redefining music, literature, love, friendship and work. And Mary Daly is one of our sisters who is smashing men's language as well as re/discovering lost words which can speak for us. In Gyn/Ecology, Daly explores the original meanings of some words and illustrates how they have been distorted. She refers to men's language as semantic semen. One of my favourites of Daly's insights is how we are spooked by men's language \u00E2\u0080\u0094 spooked into self-doubt, competition with our sisters and into silence. Using language as her instrument, Daly unravels this spooking process. Webster's dictionary defines HAG as a female demon, fury or harpie. Hag also means an evil or frightening spirit. Daly asks, evil and frightening to whom?, believing that Hags were women who refused to be defined by patriarchal standards. Hag is also defined as an ugly or evil-looking old woman. Daly considers this to be approbatory as strong, creative women are considered to be ugly only by a phallocratic definition of beauty. The Great Hags of our Hidden History Witches are the Great Hags of our hidden history. The original meaning of haggard was wild and untamed in reference to the hawk. Its obsolete meaning is a woman reluctant to yield to wooing! Crones are long-lasting Hags. They are women who survived the witch-burnings in particular and those of us surviving patriarchal rule in general. Harpies are mythic monsters represented as having the head of a woman and the body and claws of a vulture. They are considered to be instruments of divine vengeance and the asserters of women's primal energy. Cy-Thea Sand with Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. photo by B Herringer Fembots: Daddy's Girls Gyn/Ecology also offers us new words with which to define our experience under patriarchy. One of my favourites of Daly's constructs is the word/concept FEMB0T. A fembot is daddy's little girl, a woman who lives by and for male approval. Our sisters (heterosexual or lesbian) struggling in high-heeled sandals; lesbians thinking like men; opportunists who manipulate feminist theory -- all are fembots. Daly's, inventions are sometimes humourous as in her solution to unwanted pregnancy -- mister-ectomy! Or they can be so incisive as to change one's reading/thinking patterns forever: lucid cerebration is the name Mary Daly gives to a way of thinking and re/searching which blasts traditional, academic methodology/misogyny and promotes wild, creative, ecstatic thought. My love for this work emanates from the nature of its intellectual challenge. It satisfies both my emotional and cerebral longings for feminist truths. While I must think hard to read and grasp its ideas my Self is roaring along with Daly in anger and hope. Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born had a similar effect on me. Daly and Rich are courageous enough to transcend the traditional academic forms to speak as and for women. However, truth and vigour- ous intellectual inquiry are never sacrificed. The women's movement thrives on such challenges. Mary Daly suspects that the change in nomenclature, in the seventies, from the women's movement to the women's community, is symptomatic of women settling down, settling for too little. We must invite such challenges rather than, as some women have, accuse the works and ideas of being too academic. Our lives depend on the formulation of radical questions \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the answers to which transform our lives and the world. 0. RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER The Roaring Inside Us by Barbara Herringer The week I re-read Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her, Vancouver newspapers reported that polar bears will die during an oil spill. Scientists had experimented and it was true. Time magazine highlighted Three Mile Island - One Year Later. Another gynecological \"check-up\" called fet- oscopy or direct examination of the fetus was unveiled. And, God is being rediscovered by modern philosophers. All above events were reported objectively. The joy of Susan Griffin's book is that she is totally subjective; refuses to make that separation of thought from emotion. The result is a powerful and raging Men define matter, placing the abstract above that which is actually seen or heard or felt. Men deciding what the truth is and \"discovering\" defects in matter. Men not able to define woman because she is equated with.matter. Earth (woman) equated with sin in the early philosophies. That nature can only be approached through reason. It is observed that the face of the earth is a record of man's sin. That the height of the mountains, the depth of the valleys...bodies of land, lakes and rivers, the shapes of rocks, all were formed by the deluge, which was God's punishment for sin.\" I found myself having to read it out loud and wanting to hear it read out loud with women's voices, a kind of Greek chorus, angry, or at times quiet, and moving. Photo by B. Herringer journey, a battle of language or voices \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the \"thought of Western man\" versus the collective/passionate voices of women. Her style for the patriarchal voice never employs the personal pronoun but uses instead, phrases such as, \"It is said\", or \"It is discovered\". It always implies the truth about its proclamations. All nature it is said, has been designed to benefit man. That coal has been placed closer to the surface for his use ... And it is observed that woman is less evolved than man. Men and women differ as much, it is observed, as plants and animals do. And men and animals correspond just as women and plants correspond, for women develop more placidly, like plants and have an 'indeterminant unity of feeling'. And it is stated that if women were not meant to be dominated by men, they would not have been created weaker. And it is said that all sin originated in the flesh of the body of a woman and lives in her body. A Frightening Collage Woman and Nature begins with a section entitled \"Matter\" and juxtaposes man's definition of both nature and women throughout the history of religion, science and politics. It is a frightening collage: not because man made discoveries in those areas, but that the ideas about the earth or stars or women are separated from the essence. 1638 Galileo publishes Two New Sciences 1640 Carbon Dioxide obtained by Helmont 164-4 Descartes publishes Principia Philosophiae 1670 Rouen witch trials In this first section, the voice of women is a small one, a whisper against strength of the so-called truth about them. Women say: \"And we are reminded that we have brought death into the world.\" \"We are nature, we are told, without intelligence. In Book Two, \"Separation\", man separates himself from woman and from nature, separates mind from emotion and body from soul. Men defining women's lives, women's thoughts, women's bodies. Men capturing woman, taming her wildness; men guarding time; defining space; calling her reason, unreasonable. Men fearing the dark, wanting to bury themselves in women to become invulnerable. Men determining the future, calculating existence... Man, making the universe shudder under his hand. Man warning woman with his vision of the universe. .And then another thought came upon him, so terrible he could scarcely hold on to it. Suppose there is no difference between them except the power he wields over her. The Shape of Our Silence Bends His Book of Knowledge Griffin leaves man alone with his terror at the end of this section and moves into Book Three: \"Passages\" where women see: \"The rectangular shape of his book of knowledge, bending. The shape of our own silence...\" And with that, bursts into the fourth book, \"Her Vision: Now She Sees Through Her Own Eyes\". It is tempting to just type a series of quotes from this incredible section of the book. For here, the voices of women have merged into a haunting wrenching chorus. That .which was separated is in the process of being rejoined. Each day she is closer to herself. She remembers what she might have been. And she puts these pieces together. What is left after the years and what will come together still, like the edges of tissue grafting one to the other: blood cleanses the wound, and this place is slowly restored. (And the forest reclaims what was devastated, and her body heals itself of the years. ) So we say finally, we know what happens in this darkness, what happens to us while we sleep, if we allow the night, if we allow what she is in the dark ness to be, this knowledge, this is what we have not yet named: what we are. Oh, this knowledge of what we are is becoming clear. And so, as Mary Daly has pointed out in her writing and exploration, woman enters her own space and her own time...a time \"on the boundary of patriarchal time\". And, in this space beyond their time, is room for the celebration of our own dreams, or our own speech...and \"we blurt out all that we can remember\". About one who has vision, Griffin, in the voice of women says: She sees lives half-lived becoming whole. She reads stories that have never been written...She sees all kinds of marvels far beyond what we ask her to see. Things, she says, we could not even dream. We would think her raving, but she speaks to us so sweetly of what she says can be, that we too begin to see these things. We know her clarity for our own, and as for the way things are now, we grow impatient. Woman and Nature has the force of ancient rhythms and chants and I was drawn deeper and deeper into the poetry of her prose, almost wanting at times to pull back from its force. And I found myself having to read it out loud and wanting to hear it read out loud with women's voices, a kind of Greek chorus, angry, or at times quiet, and moving. Speaking Our Own Language at Last There are no solutions in this book, no economic theories...but there is a call to change, to transformation, to movement on the edge, an invitation to trust our own ' theory, dis/cover our own lives, to speak our own language. What of the fear in this place of ours, this so-called new. space? Griffin invites us to visit our fears and relates a fable: But after a while she came to the mirror again and asked, 'Why am I afraid of my bigness?' And the mirror answered, 'Because you are big. There is no disputing who you are. And it is not easy for you to hide.' And so she began to stop hiding. She announced her presence. She even took joy in it. But still, when she looked in the mirror and saw herself she was frightened, and she asked the mirror why. 'Because,' the mirror said, 'no one else sees what you see, no one else can tell you if what you see is true.' So after that she decided to believe her own eyes... Photo by B. Herringer RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER But out of the fear comes the roaring, the roaring inside us... \"V/e are shouting now. Nothing can stop us... We are frightened. We do not know where this will stop.\" Woman and Nature is an invitation to create a new world or at least, to imagine how it could be. In my darkest times though, I wonder if these visions are enough for change, if there will be enough accumulated and redefined power among women to create the new space. Then I think, we're creating it as we live day to day. In our redefinition of work, art, language, politics, spirituality and last but not least, our relationships. Women like Griffin are not afraid to experiment with a possible future or with words or Woman and Nature is an invitation to create a new world or at least, to imagine how it could be. with possibility, and that is where the energy lies in this book. She opens her mouth, her pen, and speaks and writes what's on her mind. I couldn't resist her honesty. \"Suddenly we find we are no longer straining against all the old conclusions. We are no longer pleading for the right to speak: we have spoken; space has changed; we are living in a matrix of our own sounds; our words resonate, by our echoes we chart a new geography; we recognize this new landscape as our birthplace where we invented names for ourselves; here language does not contradict what we know; by what we hear we are moved again and again to speech... We allow ourselves ecstasy, screaming, hysteria, laughter, weeping rage, wonder, awe, softness, pain, we are crying out. (There is a roaring inside us, we whisper.) WE ROAR.\" 9 Adrienne Rich: Spiralling Through the Silences by Barbara Herringer ON LIES, SECRETS AND SILENCES, Selected Prose 1966-1978, by Adrienne Rich. Norton. I lost myself in this book of essays. Pure and simple. It speaks of a vision that feels closer just because works like this exist. Because women like.Adrienne Rich are writing about their lives (our lives), giving opinions, sharing ideas and thoughts The essays have appeared in scholarly journals, been delivered as speeches, been shouted at rallies, and span twelve years in Rich's life. It's a journey through a woman's developing feminist consciousness, a woman whose life is writing. Or, who is writing her life. She writes honestly and plainly, although not simply. Most of the early essays are prefaced with remarks from a 1978 perspective \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the year the last essay was written. Of the 1968 piece, she says, \"This essay in fact shows the limitations of a point of view which took masculine history and literature as its centre and which tried from that perspective to view a woman's life and work.\" From not knowing what questions to ask regarding women's lives, in 1968, Rich explodes in her 1978 essay, \"Disloyal to Civilization \", with: But in you I seek both difference and identity. We both know that women are not identical: the movement of your mind; the pulse of your orgasm; the figures in your dreams; the weapons you received from your mothers, or had to invent; the range of your hungers \u00E2\u0080\u0094 I cannot intuit merely because we are both women. And yet, there is so much I can know. What has stopped me short, what fuses my anger now, is that we are told we are utterly different, that the difference between us must be everything, must be determinative, that from that difference we must each turn away; that we must also flee from our alikeness. The book is a marvelous portrait of a woman who spirals from thoughts on being a writer and mother, a poet and an academic; all of the above; and, a lesbian. It's a powerful intellectual sharing of possibilities, a personal vision. And intimate, illuminating portraits of women writers such as Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Sexton.... Mostly, it is a journey through one woman's thoughts. What has shaped her, her rages with language and how it has been used against women, the power of language which women are re-dis/covering to tell our own thoughts and lives. And probably one of the most exciting things this book holds for me is that Rich is not afraid to make statements, to Re-vision\u00E2\u0080\u0094the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes. . . is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. speak from where she is now, or to look back to her not-quite formulated thoughts of 1968. Because she is a writer, primarily a poet, the book focusses on women as writers, women and language, the lack of our history because we have not used language or have used an academic language and methods of criticism which do not speak for us. She says, I believe any woman for whom the feminist breaking of silence has been a transforming force can also look back to a time when the faint, improbable outlines of unaskable questions, curling in her brain cells, triggered a shock of recognition at certain lines, phrases, images in the work of this or that woman, long dead, whose life and experience she could only dimly imagine. The fact that this woman wrote so many of these pieces so long ago and I have just discovered them makes me angry. That I'm discovering them at the same time as many of my friends makes it exciting. As Rich says in her 1971 essay, \"When the Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision\", a chronicle of her own writing career, \"The sleep-walkers are coming awake, and for the first time this awakening has a collective reality; it is no longer such a lonely thing to open one's eyes.\" So, what to do with the discoveries? Close the book and run, maybe. Open it to a new page? The new page says even more. From the same essay Rich talks about this \"Re-Vision\": Re-Vision \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes... is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we can Understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge, for women, is more than a search for identity: it is part of our refusal of the self-des- tructiveness of male-dominated society. A radical critique of literature, feminist in its impulse, would take the work first of all as a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how our language has trapped as well as liberated us, how the very act of naming has been till now a male prerogative, and how we can begin to see and name \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and therefore live \u00E2\u0080\u0094 afresh. A change in the concept of sexual identity is essential if we are not going to see the old political order reassert itself in every new revolution. We need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it: not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us. One woman who fought to break patriarchy's hold over her own work was poet Anne Sex- \u00E2\u0096\u00A0oon, who committed suicide in 1974 at age 46. In a short speech given in her honour and memory, Rich cries out that we have had \"... enough of self-destructive- ness as the sole form of violence permitted to women. We have had enough of suicidal women poets, enough suicidal women.\" And she zeros in on the ways that we destroy ourselves: self-trivialization \u00E2\u0080\u0094 believing we are not capable of major creations; that our own needs, our work, must always be secondary, that we are content to imitate men in our intellectual and artistic work. She focusses, too, on our contempt for women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 how our self- determination and survival are secondary to the \"real\" revolution created by men. displaced compassion is another destructive weapon; compassion for those who are oppressing us rather than compassion for ourselves. The fourth way in which we destroy ourselves she names as being addiction. And this passage reads like an indictment because it is so true of our lives: Continuedonpage9. RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER by Cy-Thea Sand My first reading of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness took place in 1971. I found a used paperback edition at a Women's Auxiliary booksale in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. At this time, I was twenty-four and teaching in a small mining community. I started reading the novel the same evening, remaining in bed all of the next day until its final word was consumed. That week I felt vaguely moved and mentally confused,I had no words for the effect the novel had on me. In retrospect, that week seems to have passed uneventfully save for an image I have of myself lost in nameless but intense thought. Having spent the last six years nurturing a lesbian feminist consciousness, I am somewhat abashed at my confused reaction to this \"classic\" lesbian novel. My self- consciousness is little assuaged by Virginia Woolfs reaction to The Well: \"The dullness of the book is such that any indecency may lurk there.-, .one simply can't keep one's eyes on the page.\" Undaunted by Virginia's acidic comment, I have recently re-read the work for the Vancouver Lesbian Literary Collective. Moreover, I have researched what little is available on Radclyffe's life and discovered her first novel, The Unlit Lamp. This fiercely feminist novel was totally unexpected from the pen of Stephen Gordon's creator. The incongruity of these two works \u00E2\u0080\u0094 only four years apart \u00E2\u0080\u0094 sent me searching for an explanation. Radclyffe Hall: Spooked by the Patriarchal Depths With this phenomenon in mind, I attempt to connect the seemingly inexplicable contradictions in Radclyffe Hall's creative imagination as dramatized in three of her works: The Unlit Lamp (1924), Hiss Ogilvy Finds Herself U92b)~and The Well of Loneliness(l928). Radclyffe Hall was inspired to write her first novel while travelling with her lover, Una Troubridge. 'Dining in a hotel one evening, Hall noticed a middle-aged daughter doting over her aging mother. Hall whispered to Una: \"Isn't it ghastly to see these unmarried daughters who are just unpaid servants and the old people sucking the very life of them...\" Another theme obsessing Hall at this time was the love between women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 a love she longed to dramatize as a pure and holy thing. These two themes combine to form the plot of The Unlit Lamp. Joan Ogden's governess, Elizabeth wants Joan to leave home to live and study with her in London. Joan longs to go but is ambivalent about leaving her mother. The novel's tension is created by Joan's vacillation, her mother's emotional manipulation and Elizabeth's growing impatience. The denouement occurs when Joan, packed and waiting for Elizabeth, suddenly turns to see her mother in her anniversary dress looking like a \"grey dove\". Elizabeth, concerned about missing the train, rushes into the hall. Joan faces Elizabeth and tells her that she cannot leave her mother. I attempt to connect the seemingly inexplicable contradictions in Radclyffe Hall's creative imagination as dramatized in three of her works: The Unlit Lamp (1924), Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1926) and The Well of Loneliness (1928). I found part of it in a short story Hall wrote between the two novels. Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself is a grotesque, frightening celebration of heterosexism. Unrelenting in its savagery and homophobic imagery, it provides a clue. It was written shortly before Hall commenced The Well, which she describes as her serious study of congenital sexual inversion. I'lary Daly helped me to unravel the incongruity a little further. In her analysis of women's psychic slavery under patriarchy, Daly explores the misogynist forces which spook women into a silent compliance with their own oppression. In Gyn/Ecology, Daly writes that spooking takes, ... the shape of nameless fears, unbearable implanted guilt feelings for affirming our own being, fear of our newly discovered powers and of successful use of them, fear of discovering/releasing our own deep wells of anger, particularly fear of our anger against women and against ourselves for failing ourselves. The novel's emotional intensity is coloured by sensual imagery. The love between Joan and her mother is described as being almost sexual in nature: She would listen for Joan's footsteps on the stairs, and then assume an attitude, head back against the couch, hand pressed to eyes. Sometimes there were silent tears hastily hidden after Joan had seen, or the short, dry cough so like her brother's Henry's. ' Henry had died of consumption. Then as Joan's eyes would grow troubled, and the quick: 'Oh Mother darling, aren't you well?' would burst from her lips, Mrs. Ogden's conscience would smite her. But in spite of herself she would invariably answer: 'It's nothing, dearest; only my cough', or 'It's only my head Joan...' Then Joan's strong, young arms would comfort and soothe, and her firm lips grope until they found her mother's; and Mrs. Ogden would feel mean and ashamed but guiltily happy, as if a lover held her. (p. 13) Mary Ogden is dissatisfied with her marriage and early in the novel she expresses disdain for her husband's masculinity: There on the chair lay his loose, shabby garments, some of them natural coloured Jaeger. And then his cholera belt! It hung limply suspended over the arm of the chair, like the wrath of a, concertina. On the table by his side lay a half-smoked pipe. His bath sponge was elbowing her as she washed; his masculine personality pervading everything; the room reeked of it. (p. 25) As Joan matures, her mother's obsessive need for her deepens. Mary Ogden is viol ently jealous of Elizabeth. The confrontation between Mary and Elizabeth is one of the most dramatic scenes in the novel. Elizabeth decides to speak to Mary as she is concerned about her effect on Joan's intellectual ambitions: \"I think Joan loves you too much. I think that underneath her quiet outside there is something very big and rather dangerous; an almost abnormally developed capacity for affection, and I think that it is this on which you play without cease, day in and day out. I feel as if you were always poking the fire, feeding it, blowing it until it's red hot, and I can't think it's right. Mrs. Ogden, that's all; I think it will be Joan's ruin. (p. 71) Mary Ogden is outraged by Elizabeth and has to restrain herself from striking the woman who threatens her the most. Mary understands the nature of Elizabeth's love for Joan. The battle for Joan's affection transcends \"normality\". In her first novel Hall does not use the word invert. However, the covert homoerotic element in Joan and Elizabeth's passionate friendship, gives this work its emotional power. With theme,- imagery and plot, Radclyffe Hall weaves a moving story of unrequited lesbian love. The Unlit Lamp Reveals a Feminist Consciousness The uniqueness of this work lies in its feminist consciousness. Elizabeth's love for Joan is characterized by its respect for and fostering of Joan's intellect. Elizabeth tells Joan that she wants her devotion as well as her work, independence and success (p. 126). Mary Ogden, meanwhile, is terrified of Joan's financial independence. Joan's Aunt Henrietta, in an intentional slight to her brother, Colonel Ogden, leaves Joan and her sister Millie, 300 pounds a year. Mary is frantic with concern over losing Joan and finds it difficult to concentrate on consoling her husband's devastated pride. Indeed, the economic base of women's oppression is well expressed by Hall. Joan's father rants about his intention to preserve his authority and discipline over his daughters, despite their inheritance. When Joan informs him of her decision to study medicine, he shouts himself into a heart attack: \"Not one penny will I spend on any education that is likely to unsex a daughter of mine. I'll have none of these new-fangled women's rights ideas in my house; you will stay home like any other girl until such time as you get married. You will marry; do you hear me? That's a women's profession! A sawbones indeed; do you think you're a boy? Have you gone stark, staring mad? \" (p. Ill) Colonel Ogden loses most of his inheritance by investing the money against his lawyer's advice. As he strongly opposed Millie's desire to study music, and Joan's to study medicine, this action can be interpreted as his last misogynistic gesture of power over his daughter. The profound, immobilizing sense of guilt Joan suffers, is created and nurtured by both her parents. Upon hearing of her father's misguided investment, she tells a friend about her inner rage against this injustice. However, Joan senses that her rage is suppressed for fear of hurting her parents, (p. 119) In her ambivalence about leaving home, Joan becomes obsessed with her appearance: The more unhappy she felt the more care did she lavish on her appearance; it was a kind of bravado, a subtle revenge for some nameless injustice that fate had inflicted on her. (p. 158) Patriarchal Spooking at Work This form of patriarchal spooking is suffered by most women \u00E2\u0080\u0094 even by those of us aware of its insidious roots. If we are encouraged to doubt our intellectual ability, or are prevented from pursuing an interest, we can always devote our energy to attaining physical approbation. Joan is emotionally unable to leave her mother. Elizabeth's profound sadness and frustration are keenly felt by the reader. Elizabeth finally marries in an attempt to remodel her life away from Joan. Marriage is an unhappy surrogate for this devoted middle-aged woman, who longed to share her life with Joan in the intellectual circles of London. Joan cares for her mother un- Unable to inspire the woman she loves, Elizabeth dramatizes the dislocation of women under patriarchy. Unable to leave her mother, Joan characterizes the emotional mutilation of women socialized to serve another's needs above their own. And Mary Ogden, with her anxious, destructive need for her daughter, symbolizes the frustrated, wasted lives of women, women who are allowed power only over those least able to resist\u00E2\u0080\u0094their children. til the latter's death. Joan then becomes a companion for a brain-damaged cousin. Unable to inspire the woman she loves, Elizabeth dramatizes the dislocation of woman under patriarchy. Unable to leave her mother, Joan characterizes the emotional mutilation of women socialized to serve others' needs above their own. And Mary Ogden, with her anxious, destructive need for her daughter, symbolizes the frustrated, wasted lives of women \u00E2\u0096\u00A0\u00E2\u0080\u0094 women who are allowed power only over those least able to resist \u00E2\u0080\u0094 their children. What Erodes this Vision? One of the most interesting aspects of The Unlit Lamp lies in Hall's vision of an alternative for women. In 1924, women sharing their lives together, unfettered by marriage, children or the demands of aging parents, was rare. Hall investigated this possibility while she, herself, lived with Una Troubridge. Her imagination was able to envision two strong, independent women living and loving together. What horrific influence, then, eroded this feminist vision? How did the creator of Elizabeth and Joan dismember her imagination to create Miss Ogilvy \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that disturbing sketch of the future Stephen Gordon? Radclyffe Hall called herself \"John\" and despised doing business with women. Radclyffe Hall in J935. A photograph by Una Troubridge Written in July 1926, Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself, is described by Hall as her \"brief excursion into the realms of the fantastic\" Miss Ogilvy is a middle-aged woman who perseveres against male prejudice until she is accepted into the army during World War I. She is described in ways which foreshadow the character of Stephen Gordon in The Well \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"her tall, awkward body with its queer look of strength,\" Miss Ogilvy's childhood parallels that of Stephen Gordon's. They both dislike dolls, preferring stable-boys to girls as their companions. As they reach adolescence, both Stephen and Miss Ogilvy, while liking and respecting men, are repulsed by marriage proposals. The oddity of their natures is suspected by their respective mothers, who futilely attempt to mold them into ladies. The butch motif is emerging, as you may have guessed. Miss Ogilvy serves her country well and feels alienated and empty when the war ends. She becomes increasingly cantankerous with her sisters with whom she lives. (These unmarried sisters are described as neurotic, frustrated hypochondriacs). Miss Ogilvy, shaken by a co-worker's plans to marry, decides to travel. She journeys to a small island off the south coast of Devon and is amazed at the knowledge of this hitherto unknown place. The hotel's proprietress proudly displays some of her island's artifacts to Miss Ogilvy \u00E2\u0080\u0094 bronze arrow-heads pieces of ancient stone celts. However, Miss Ogilvy is repulsed and angry when she is shown the skeletal remains of a primitive man believed to have been murdered. Miss Ogilvy knows \"as if ty instinct\" how the man had been murdered and buried. She is shaken by her fury towards and hatred for the proprietress. She leaves her hostess abruptly and goes to her room. Miss Ogilvy lies on her bed and Hall's grotesque fantasy begins: Miss Ogilvy becomes a six foot tall tribesman walking along the island's beach with a female companion by her/his side. Primitive language is used in the dialogue between the two as the woman looks adoring at our sex change to coo:\"For you, all of me is for you and none other. For you this body has ripened...my masterhood; blood of my body.\" She is more articulate than he; she is weak while he is strong; he is concerned about their enemies while she wants to speak only of love. See Dick run. See Jane watching Dick run. Eventually they fall into each other's arms. \u00E2\u0096\u00BA \u00E2\u0096\u00BA \u00E2\u0096\u00BA RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER HALL, continued. The woman protests and gasps in fear of her first sexual experience: \"... she must give that quick gasp of fear, while she clung close to him lest he should spare her.\" Unguarded after the exertion of love-making, the lovers are killed by their enemies. The story ends with: They found Miss Ogilvy the next morning; the fishermen saw her and climbed to the ledge. She was sitting at the mouth of the cave. She was dead, with her hands thrust deep into her pockets. If her novel The Well of Loneliness had not followed this story, one could almost suspect that Hall had written a bitter satire on heterosexism. Clearly,. Miss Ogilvy is Stephen Gordon's predecessor. She dies for the want of masculinity while Stephen is doomed to agony in an Intolerant world. This story seems to be a disturbing, crass expression of Hall's self- hatred. Her male-defined vision fosters and creates her most famous novel, The Well of Loneliness. Meanwhile, in her own life, she calls herself \"John\" and despises doing business with women. And in this short story, Hall makes it clear that a primitive, illiterate male is to be more admired than and preferred to a little, weak woman who can think of nothing more than being a slave to love. As Lillian Faderman notes in her article, Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian Image, The Well of Loneliness became a cause celebre mainly because of the obscenity trials which followed its publication. Early twentieth century thought was divided as to the causes of lesbianism. Havelock Ellis for one, argued that lesbianism was an innate, inherited abnormality while Freud theorized on the environmental factors in sexual development. Against this background, Radclyffe Hall decided to write a political defense of lesbianism. Some have called her decision noble and courageous. Others (feminist literary critics, for example), are angered by the way Hall chose to defend us. Her central character, Stephen Gordon, is portrayed as a self-loathing, suffering, congenital butch \u00E2\u0080\u0094 whose supreme act of honour is that of giving her lover to a man. We are justified in our anger at this characterization. Hall was familiar with the lives of many lesbians of her time \u00E2\u0080\u0094 most of whom were strong, independent women; few of whom were into role- playing. Women loving women Inspired Natalie Barney's Salon Hall began work on this novel while in Paris where Natalie Barney's salon was flourishing. This salon helped to create a supportive environment in which women encouraged each other to live creative, productive lives. Natalie Barney's circle included such women as Colette, Romaine Brooks, Djuana Barnes and Lucie Delarve- Mardrus \u00E2\u0080\u0094 independently wealthy and ambitious women. Barney's friendship with the poet Renee Vivien was distinguished by their shared feminist awareness and their lesbian pride. Whereas \"Radclyffe Hall believed that pride was possible in spite of lesbianism, Vivien and Barney were proud of_ it. \" Class privilege was a major factor in the lives of these creative women. Obviously, the class background and privilege of these artistic women protected them, to a certain extent, from a homophobic world. It is this world which Hall describes with acerbity in The Well as a place \"that will turn away its eyes from your noblest actions, finding only corruption and vileness in you. You will see men and women defiling each other, laying the burden of their sins upon their children. You will see unfaithfulness, lies and deceit among those whom the world views with approbation. You will find that many have grown hard of heart, have grown greedy, selfish, cruel and lustful, and then you will turn to me and say: 'You and I are more worthy of respect than these people. Why does the world persecute us Stephen?' And I shall answer: 'because in this world there is only toleration for the so-called normal.\" richs (1825-1895), who strove to demonstrate that abnormal instincts were inborn and therefore natural. As Stephen matures into a woman, her father is convinced of her inversion \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that her sexual instincts do not correspond with her sexual organs. Mr. Gordon is as sympathetic and supportive of Stephen as Hall longed for phallocratic society to be with all lesbians. However, Stephen's relationship with her mother is characterized by mutual discomfort and apprehension. Shortly after the child's birth, Anna Gordon begins to feel this unease. Her feelings grow as Stephen looks and acts more and more like a boy. Philip Gordon senses his wife's distress but he does not share his concern about Stephen's \"normality\" with her. Philip shuts himself up in his study to research and contemplate his daughter's eccentricity. Anna is left alone to worry and castigate herself. She is denied knowledge and therefore can rely only Natalie and Romaine i Geneva, probably n> met, circa 1915. long after they Hall's understanding of homophobic hypocrisy is clear in this passage. However, from a radical perspective, her greatest \u00E2\u0080\u00A2intellectual weakness lies in her inability to perceive the roots of such hypocrisy within the heterosexist culture from which she sought sympathy and acceptance. In The Unlit Lamp we are introduced to the two\" equally strong minds of Elizabeth and Joan. Both are intellectually curious and career-motivated. Their personal liberation is undermined by Joan's inability to transcend her deep sense of guilt. But Hall does leave us with hope for future generations of women. At the end of the novel, Joan overhears two young women describe her as a kind of pioneer: \"I believe she's what they used to call a 'New Woman', said the girl in breeches, with a low laugh. 'Honey, she's a forerunner, that's what she is, a kind of pioneer that's got left behind. I believe she's the beginning of things like me.\" (p. 284) These two women are Involved with active war service and are aggressive and confident in manner. Radclyffe Hall was acutely aware of the influence of the First World War in liberating many women from traditional roles. Unfortunately, her feminist analysis is truncated by her attitudes towards her own sexuality. Hall understood lesbianism to be a biological aberration rather than a lifestyle alternative for women. Hall withdrew from a deeper questioning of the societal status of women in preference to a biological explanation for her own desires. (The former would have led Hall directly to a profound criticism of a society which, except for its intolerance of lesbianism, she condoned.) Hence, Stephen Gordon's sexual proclivity is foreshadowed by our first glimpse of her as \"...a narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered little tadpole of a baby...\" (p. 5) As Stephen grows up, her father becomes more and more aware of her oddity, her difference. He consults the works of Karl Ul- on her emotional instincts. They lead her to doubt her ability as a mother -- this doubt is exacerbated by anger and guilt. One member of the lesbian literary collective, Connie, was angry with Anna Gordon during her first reading of The Well. However, on her second reading, she felt sympathy for Anna and anger with Radclyffe Hall for her unsympathetic portrayal of Anna. Anna is encouraged to do nothing but to appear \"lovely as only an Irish woman can be\". By shutting her out of the most serious problem of their marriage, Philip insults and isolates her. Anna has no power or influence over her daughter; a daughter she describes as \"a chara- citure of Sir Philip, a blemished unworthy maimed reproduction.\" (p. 15) The rage Anna describes is poignant: But Anna, looking gravely at her daughter, noting the plentiful auburn hair, the brave hazel eyes that were so like her father's as indeed were the child's whole expression and bearing, would be filled with a sudden antagonism that came very near to anger, (p. 15) Neither mother nor daughter have ever been able to express affection easily to each other. Hall infers that Anna's beauty excites Stephen sexually while Anna is repulsed by the maleness of her daughter \u00E2\u0080\u0094 a daughter who clearly prefers and identifies with her father. Anna is doubly betrayed. Given her congenital definition of lesbianism, Hall can only create a world of Stephen Gordons, real men, and women like Mary Llewellyn. In Hall's imagination, the latter can find normal happiness only with men. Mary, as Stephen's lover, strives to please only Stephen, denies her own needs for achievement and satisfaction, and Is subsequently rewarded with the love of a man. Living with and loving Stephen becomes Mary's prerequisite for 'normal' marital bliss. THE RADICAL REVIEWER RADICAL REVIEWER Hall, continued Hall's static definitions of womanhood can lead only to the novel's tragic- comic ending. Stephen misinterprets Mary's restlessness as her inability to cope with their lesbian lifestyle. This restlessness is, however, symtomatic discontent of the intelligent and creative mind longing for productive work. Stephen literally drives Mary into the arms of a man (who loves her) by deceiving Mary into believing that she no longer loves her and that she is involved with another woman. Even in the descriptions of Stephen and Mary's happier times, Hall reveals her heterosexist world view. A scene in which Mary and Stephen finally confess the depth of their love for each other is disturbingly reminiscent of the love scene in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself: They would sit together in a little arbour that looked out over miles upon miles of ocean... And Stephen, as she held the girl in her arms, would feel that indeed she was all things to Mary; father, mother, friend and lover, all things But Mary, because she was perfect woman, would rest without thought, without exultation, without question; finding no need to question since for her there was now only one thing \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Stephen. (p. 360) In her work, Lesbian Images, Jane Rule says of The Well: \"It supports the view that men are naturally superior, that, given a choice, any woman would prefer a real man unless she herself is a congenital freak.\" In her own life, Radclyffe Hall believed that men were superior to women and thus she strived to live as one. However, she won the love and friendship of women who did not perceive themselves to be pseudo-men. Hall's crippled imagination could not explain or sympathize with such women. They were an enigma to a writer who was conservative in everything except her sexual preference. In The Well of Loneliness, Valerie Seymour (Natalie Barney; can only be used by Stephen to deceive Mary. Stephen is unable to foster a friendship with Valerie as the latter's radical views threaten Stephen's (Radclyffe's) view of the nature of things. Many people still laud Radclyffe Hall for the courage she showed in writing The Well. However, patriarchal society has many in- sidious ways to discredit women. Lovat Dickson, Hall's biographer, has written a bitterly misogynistic life of Radclyffe Hall. In Radclyffe Hall at the Well of Loneliness: A Sapphic Chronicle, Dickson belittles, humiliates and discredits his subject. He writes: \"Egotism is a symptom of a disturbed psyche, and the invert ...finds an irrestible attraction in taking risks.\" So Radclyffe Hall, while she embraced patriarchal values, is ultimately insulted by them. Q Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge in Edy Craig's Garden a Smallhythe 1931. Radclyffe Hall's Fiction The Unlit Lamp (Hammond, Hammond & Co. Ltd., 1924) Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (Hammond, Hammond & Co. Ltd., 1934) The Well of Loneliness (Pocket Books, New York, 1974) RICH, continued from page 5. Addiction to \"Love\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 to the idea of selfless, sacrificial love as somehow redemptive, a female career; to sex as a junkie trip, a way of self- blurring or self-immolation. Addiction to depression \u00E2\u0080\u0094 the most acceptable way of living out a female existence, since the depressed cannot be held responsible. Rich sees Anne Sexton's poetry as a \"guide to the ruins, from which we learn what women have lived and what we must refuse to live any longer.\" A New Ethics Among Women The core of the book for me is the 1975 essay\"Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying\", The piece, a kind of prose poem, is not separated from her considerations of language and power, or language versus silence. It seems rather, to be the cornerstone. (Maybe cornerstone is the wrong word, since it connotes something solid and stodgy somehow. ) It seems the fluid and moving pivot around which the promise of her other essays grow and turn. For without a \"new ethics\" among women, how is it possible to progress \"Towards a Woman-Centered University\"? Or, to discover that \"It is the Lesbian in Us...\"? \u00E2\u0080\u00A2\u00E2\u0099\u00A6\u00E2\u0099\u00A6 question everything. To remember what has been forbidden even to mention. To come together telling our stories, to look afresh at, and then to describe for ourselves. Or to uncover new meanings in \"Power and Danger: Works of a Common Woman\"? In \"Women and Honor\", Rich sets out to uncover the meaning of honesty in her relationships with women. How to break the can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. Trying to Name Without Fear Truth in our lives, our relationships, our writing. Trying to say, to name without An honorable human relationship\u00E2\u0080\u0094that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word \"love\"\u00E2\u0080\u0094is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of redefining the truths they can tell each other. long-established silences, how to \"liberate ourselves from our secrets.\" She says she wrote it in an effort to make herself more honest. And so we must take seriously the question of truthfulness between women, truthfulness among women. As we cease to lie with our bodies, as we cease to take on faith what men have said about us, is a truly womanly idea of honor in the making? An honorable human relationship that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word \"love\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we fear, at least in the presence of one another. It demands our sanity, our attention. The liar, says Rich, \"...is afraid her own truths are not good enough.\" Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other. Rich's words are just that,her words. On Lies, Secrets and Silences is spoken from her age and perceptions and offered in the melting pot around which women gather to add the spice and spark of our own lives, our own words.... To question everything. To remember what has been forbidden even to mention. To come together telling our stories, to look afresh at, and then to describe for ourselves... RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER FARMER, continued from page 1. against her in the mental asylums, at the same time confirming the deep terrors of women. There were moments when I could not read further and I had friends who could not finish the book. There are several unsettling characteristics in her writing. Often she is quite histrionic, at other times her words hit paper with the dullness of a business report. She struggles with her memory, posing questions she cannot answer (but will eventually answer with God); and her vulnerability is so overwhelming that often I felt reading was an invasion of privacy. Her incredible insights surface but are lost again in contradictions, perhaps from an instinctive fear she would be silenced again. In personal defence and in an attempt to \"establish the unlikely turn of events\", Frances relates a portion of her medical record to which she was allowed access. Still requiring \"restraint and confinement'1, she was transferred on July 18, 1948 from Ward T to Ward L. The next entry is not until September 15, 1949; more than a year later. The woman who once required 3 belts to bind her now \"sits in a corner with a blanket covering her head, but has learned to answer pleasantly\". As Frances struggles to justify this ultraistic change in her behaviour, I realized that she was never told. Frances refutes excessively the allegations of lesbianism and communism with saddening defensiveness. Yet in spite of Freeman's murderous operation, she is still able to write. \"By the standards set by the majority, to be insane is to be different and those who are uncontrollably different are locked away ... to exist through years of ... perpetual nightmares.\" Ironically, Frances continued to believe that her hope lay in her ability to think. The intense friendship between Frances and Jean Ratcliffe was made difficult in its early years by a homophobic public; the plot resembling both The Children's Hour and The Well of Loneliness. Frances dedicated several chapters to this unacknowledged relationship. Denied use of the phone after sentence was passed, she got into a physical and verbal brawl with matrons, officers and reporters and was hauled off to jail to serve her sentence. from Shadowland by William Arnold Whether or not Frances was actually a lesbian is irrelevant. What is crucial, however, is male society's attitude towards women who choose to live whole lives independent of government, religion and men. Even after her lobotomy, Frances was persecuted for remaining such a woman. She concludes her autobiography during the summer of 1970, as she nears physical death. Describing sounds, smells, movement around her, she is without fear. 0 m Shadowland by William Arnold How to Brighten a Patriarchal Day (A review of feminist literary journals) Cy-Thea Sand I love subscribing to magazines and journals. Arriving home to find the latest issue of SINISTER WISDOM or CONDITIONS can brighten the worst patriarchal day. Hours to relax and read feminist journals should be legislated for all literary feminists; It's the least \"they\" can do for the years of man-made media we were all fed. For me, the birth and growth of feminist literary journals in the 1970s, was one of the most gratifying aspects of the women's movement. It has inspired a book by Polly Joan and Andrea Chesman entitled GUIDE TO WOMEN'S PUBLISHING (1978, published by Dustbooks, P.O. Box 100, Paradise, CA, 95969). The first segment of the book is devoted to feminist journals \u00E2\u0080\u0094 they are listed with a brief description of their contents as well as subscription information. ROOM OF ONE'S OWN is described as having a working class consciousness, a professional appearance and a serious approach to literature. The other segments of the GUIDE cover women' s newspapers, presses and distribution outlets. This GUIDE is an invaluable resource for women seeking publication for their work, teachers of women's studies, or for any \"ol bibliophile. Of special interest for lesbian/feminists are the following publications: CONDITIONS P.O. Box 56 Van Brunt Station Brooklyn, NY 11215 \"A magazine of writing by women with an emphasis on writing by lesbians.\" DYKE, a Quarterly Tomato Publications Ltd. 70 Barrow St. New York, NY 10014 \"For Womyn Only reads a notice on the cover of Dyke, i magazine produced by and for lesbian separatists.\" FOCUS Boston Daughters of Bilitis Room 323,419 Boylston Street Boston, Mass. 02116 \"Focus is a literary review for gay women.\" THE LESBIAN TIDE c/o Tide Publications 8855 Cattaragus Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90034 Tide is produced by a radical feminist collective whose members believe that \"basic change in this society is a prerequisite for real liberation for women and lesbians.\" LESBIAN VOICES 53 W. San Fernando San Jose, CA 95116 \"Editor Rosalie Nichols freely professes a personal bias in favor of \"individualism, anarchism, lesbian separatism, feminist capitalism, atheism, and romantic literature.\" SINISTER WISDOM 3116 Country Club Drive Charlotte, NC 28205 SINISTER WISDOM is not simply a magazine about lesbians. It is an attempt to create a culture\u00E2\u0080\u0094and this necessitates a self-conscious awareness in the effort to deal with language and art in new, experimental ways. - Quid* to Women's Publishing Canadian publications of note include: ATLANTIS Box 294 Acadia University Wolfville, Nova Scotia BRANCHING OUT Box 4098 Edmonton, Alberta T6E 4T1 CANADIAN WOMEN'S STUDIES JOURNAL (CWS/CF) Centennial College 651 Warden Ave. Scarborough, Ont. M1L 3W6 FIREWEED P.O. Box 279 Station B Toronto, Ont. M5T2W2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WOMEN'S STUDIES #12-245 Victoria Avenue Montreal, Quebec H32 2M6 ROOM OF ONE'S OWN 1918 Waterloo Street Vancouver, B.C. V6R 3G6 RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER A Little Night Reading by Connie Smith D'SONOQUA: AN ANTHOLOGY OF WOMEN POETS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, Volume 2. Ed. Ingrid Klassen. Vancouver: Intermedia, 1979. Ingrid Klassen reunited old friends (our friends) in a successful attempt at preserving the poetry of 17 contemporary women. Providing a balance between reality and vision, as well as a variety of lifestyles, the poems are difficult for me to criticize as this is such an historic book for British Columbia women. Exceptional: Carolyn Zonalio's \"Hooker on Hastings Street\", Lorraine Vernon's \"No.3 Frank Street\", Judi Morton's \"Legend\", and Rona Murray's \"Death of the Bear\". ZELDA (Frontier Life in America) A Fantasy in Three Parts by Kaye McDonough. City Lights Books; 1978. San Francisco. In this remarkably visual play, Zelda Fitzgerald struggles with Scott, selfhood and insanity to the sound of Hemingway's rifle, the constant appearance of Virginia Woolf's spectre \u00E2\u0080\u0094 often reciting her suicide note \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and Gertrude Stein's utterings as oracle, mother, dance instructor and monumental statue. McDonough incorporates complicated dialogue movement with three or more characters speaking at once or alternating words, thoughts and perceptions. The result is a moving portrayal of women's isolation from each other with sad resolve. APRIL TWILIGHTS (1903) by Willa Cather. Ed. Bernice Slote. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press (Bison Books), 1976. For lovers of Sapphic rhyme, traditional ballad stanzas and collections of early lesbian writing, Willa Cather's poetry is challenging. Her poems reflect an education in philosophy, literature, Latin and Greek, music, the arts; as well as images of Nebraska life and European tours. Worth pondering \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"The Night Express\", written in 1902 while in Europe with a woman friend, and \"Prairie Dawn\", a rare poem in blank verse. SIX OF ONE by Rita Mae Brown. New York, Bantam edition, 1979. Another chronicle from the American South, this time documenting the lives of three generations of southern women. Although written with acceptability in mind (the back cover of the paper edition is pure crap), the message is clear. Possible tear-jerker and a chance to contemplate immortality. WOMEN IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: THEIR LIVES AND VIEWS Edited by June E. Hahner. UCLA Latin American Center Publications; 1976. Los Angeles. This collection of seventeen essays is exceptional reading for any Caucasian who wishes to attempt an understanding of the struggle of Latin American women. The essays begin with a letter written to the Spanish crown in 1556 by Dona Isabel de Guevara asking for repatriation for the settlement of women who founded the city of Rio de la Plata; now known as Buenos Aires. The men had become \"enfeebled\" by the hardships of conquest, leaving the women to tend to their sicknesses, plant crops, forge trails, establish, defend and save the colony. They succeeded. The writings extend into the twentieth century. NIGHTS IN THE UNDERGROUND by Marie-Claire Blais. Musson Book Company; 1979. Ontario. Blais' moment by moment account of self indulgence in a Montreal lesbian bar \u00E2\u0080\u0094 however perceptive \u00E2\u0080\u0094 is perhaps intentionally monotonous as character development rarely exceeds the parameters of the women's night life. Memorable quote: \"Perhaps that's what the hunger was: that night itself should end and day come for Lali and her sisters,thought Genevieve. But the hunger for night was also the hunger for women...\" (Savez?) eloquently written, to have the status quo win in the end. THE MIDDLE MIST by Mary Renault. William Morrow and Company, Inc.; 1945. Popular Library, 1972, New York. As I am unaware of Renault's lifestyle it is difficult to ascertain her purpose in writing THE MIDDLE MIST. Her portrayal of Helen and Leo, a lesbian couple of five years, is fairly sensitive, despite Leo's obsession with role playing. However, the overall theme explores the relationship's destruction \u00E2\u0080\u0094 unfortunately by Leo's dangerously naive sister and the curiousity and sexual interest of two major male characters. It is difficult when something is so incisively and BURNING by Jane Chambers. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978. Burning is the Safeway surprise of the month. Hidden behind its sensational cover \u00E2\u0080\u0094 \"They dared rebel against the men who claimed them, and were possessed by a strange passion that reached beyond!\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 are some incredibly gripping lesbian image: Contemporary heterosexuals Cynthia and Angela become possessed (on holiday no less) by Martha and Abigal; lovers 200 years prior, one of whom was executed for witchcraft. A WOMAN APPEARED TO ME (1904-) by Renee Vivien. Missouri: The Niad Press Inc., 1979. In this autobiographical account of her relationship with Natalie Barney, Vivien explores the death wish most associated with romantic love. Translated from the French by Jeannette Foster, it is an insightful work with an excellent historical introduction by Gayle Rubin. Speaking for Ourselves by Barbara Herringer The Quotable Woman: An Encyclopedia of Useful Quotations Indexed by Subject & Author 1800 - On Compiled and Edited by Elaine Partnow Anchor Books. Anchor Press/Doubleday New York. 1978 I'd intended to follow up the themes that seemed to be developing in The Radical Reviewer by finding a few quotes from various women who had written on silence or nature or madness or \"life\". So I borrowed a copy of The Quotable Woman and set to work. Surprise. It is impossible to stick to one theme while dipping into more than 500 pages of out-spokenness by women as diverse as Simone de Beauvoir, Madame Chiang Kai-Chek, Katherine Mansfield, or Marilyn Munroe. There are more than 8,000 quotes plucked from journals, letters, books, notes and it became a game bouncing from year to year and subject to subject. Some names are familiar, others are vaguely remembered from some high\" school text. Most though, were unfamiliar but I'd like to read them now, find out about their lives... Enough. I want some of these women to speak for themselves: \"If we had a vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.\" \"That's what I want to be when I grow up, just a peaceful wreck holding hands with other peaceful wrecks.\" - Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle. 1960 \"True, the movement for women's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones.\" -Emma Goldman, Anarchism and other Essays 1911 \"Lovers. Not a soft word, as some people thought, but cruel and tearing.\" - Alice Munro, Some-a: -George Eliot, Middlemarch \"It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the wise men of all nations and races.\" I've Been Meaning to Tell You ' 1974 \"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill- seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.\" -Valarie Solanis, SCUM Manifesto, 1967-1968 \"Risk.' Risk anything. Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.\" - Katherine Mansfield, (1183-1923) \"Language makes culture, and we make a rotten culture when we abuse words.\" \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, History of Women's Sufferage\" 1881 \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 Cynthia Ozick, We are the Crazy Lady and other Feisty Feminist Fables. 1972 12 RADICAL REVIEWER THE RADICAL REVIEWER Feminist Bookstores: As the Pages Turn When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked,of a woman possessed of the devil, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet.. .indeed I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. A Room of One's Own, 1929\u00E2\u0080\u0094V.W. IN FROM THE COLD: THE VANCOUVER WOMEN'S BOOKSTORE by Connie Smith My first visit to the Van behind the desk, who I; arrival of Alex Dobkin's The bookstore hasn't ouver Women's Bookstore was in March, 1976. I was travelling: it was raining. The woman er became known to me as Gloria, received a call from customs regarding a package\u00E2\u0080\u0094the tew album \"Living with Lesbians\". It was a pretty exciting moment. langed much. Ambiance reminiscent of those early seventies, it's still as warm with its poster covered walls, over stuffed couches and \"women only space\" with coffee. With the exception of Gloria's very personal commitment, many women have moved naturally through the store's seven years. However the policy is unremitting. With 19th century lesbian classics aside, no contemporary books or publications which may perpetuate stereotypes or promote any form of self-hatred are carried. For this reason, the reader will not find Nancy Friday's My Mother/My Self, Sharon Isabell's Yesterday's Lessons, or Harris and Sisley's The Joy of Lesbian Sex. Instead she will offer Our Mother's Daughters by Judith Arcana as well as selections from other works in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, science fiction, bio and autobiography, theory. Most books are in paper back only as cloth-bound are often priced out of women's range. Richards Street also provides an outstanding collection of women's music as well as meeting space for various women-oriented groups. Jewelry, buttons, and t-shirts are available with t-shirts being sold only to women. As the only group in the telephone book listed under Women's Liberation, the bookstore women have processed n years. For many women, Richards Street became, and still is, the first For many women, Richards Street movement contact. and still is, the first Photo by Connie Smith Cedar has been with Ariel for a couple of years. Photo by B. Herringer ARIEL\u00E2\u0080\u0094A WOMEN'S BOOKSTORE by Barbara Herringer The afternoon is busy. Women dropping off coi woven bags and Elaine has come in with pendar set aside for \"no comment\" sexist advertising. One of Cedar s regular customers has read a ba ordered for the store. Someone comes in to che< a few copies for friends. The phone rings constantly. Is there a women s Can you recommend a doctor, a massage then calling to say hello or someone needing a good e shelf while her mother is engrossed in the first te' window display tc get tf Cedar is there most of the picking up the phone with tr door to greet customers wit Ariel. Just about four yean a comfortable place. Plants, i jr of a book on an afternoon. Or i 3 the n irrect. Ariel, i k out whether a favourite book is lostel or women's club in town? Any midwifery courses starting? pist, a dentist? Are there any places to rent9 Often, it's a friend ar A small girl quietly takes all the children's books off the bottom v pages of The Wanderground. ring flowers, hanging things, the scent of oils and incense and a 3 from passers-by. There are chairs to curl up in to n the noise and smell of Fourth Avenue. rainchild of three Vancouver worn Ariel Collective Alumni scattered 3 thing, it sounded good and, for e of the rebel angels. Appropriate. Whatever the root of the name, \u00E2\u0080\u0094maybe new magazines will h; I discovered Ariel about eighteen months ago while on the search for a book that v found it, but became a member of the collective and caught up on all the books I ne There is an extensive collection in the store. Fiction. Politics. Feminist Theoi Autobiography. Poetry. Women's Studies. Herstory Sexuality. Childcare. Midwifery. Books. Used Bocks. Sport; tickets, cards, jewellry, medici i eferrai service. Often a crisis I l, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers uality. Science Fiction. ing. Cookbooks. How to ecords, posters, crystal, concert e pouches, menstrual sponges, le. A drop in. A meeting place. Not just a bookstore. Ariel is an integral part of Vancouver women's community and at the moment is suffering from to our community\u00E2\u0080\u0094burn out. The store needs a strong shot of new energy from feminists wil for a while. To take on some responsibility. TO bring in some fresh ideas. And of course, womei books. \" Ariel is at 2766 West 4th Avenue at MacDonald. Open every day except Sunday from 10 a.rr from 11 a.m. til 6 p.m. If you have a question or are looking for a book drop in and ask one of tr desk, or call 733-3511. Don't give up. It's a busy line. The Lesbian Literary Collective would appreciate your comments/reactions to this first, we hope not last, Radical Reviewer. V/e may be contacted through Kinesis: 1090 West 7th Avenue Vancouver, B.C.'V6H 1B3 KINESIS JUNE 80 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN \"Bonnie and Clyde\", \"Easy Rider\", \"The Killing of Sister George\"). There was a general acceptance of this by society. At the same time, however, there was growing resistance to established authority. Women, who became politically active in the New Left liberation movements, grew disillusioned as they realized their own rights were being ignored or co-opted. They joined together in a resurgence of the women's movement to fight their oppression. Coincidentally, we saw the availablity of the pill and the easing of abortion laws. By the 1970s, pornography had become a multi-billion dollar business. Child pornography gained popular acceptance through such movies as \"Taxi Driver\" and \"Pretty Baby\". Oral V.D. in children increased at this time. Snuff movies, in which women are tortured and dismembered for the purposes of male titillation, appeared on the underground pornography market. Feminists were given 1975 as International Women's Year as we became angry, active and demanded, recognition as a social force. It is no accident that the increase of pornography has followed hard on the heels of the knowledge of feminism. As Andrea Eworkin has pointed out, \"Violent pornography is death threats to a female population in rebellion. \" She has also stated that, \"...genocide begins} however improbably3 in the conviction that biological differences sanction social and political discrimination. \" Once society accepts and endorses oppression based upon differences of sex and race, it becomes easy to commit atrocities against us, ranging from using our bodies to sell commodities to rape and genocide. One of the many mechanisms by which we are brutally oppressed is objectification. This process allows us to be seen as inhuman, and as such, it is easy to deny our feelings, needs, desires, and experiences. We have been bombarded by these images of women to such an extent that it has become the accepted way in which men and often we ourselves, view women. Overall we are not shown as integral beings seeking our own satisfaction and fulfillment but rather appear as passive objects displaying ourselves for male pleasure, or as objects for the use of men. Women are shown as fragments If we look at how women are portrayed in advertising and pornography, several patterns appear. Women are shown in bits and pieces, as fragments \u00E2\u0080\u0094 lips, legs, breasts, buttocks \u00E2\u0080\u0094 never as a whole. It is so often used in male images of women that we are no longer startled by ourselves portrayed in this manner. Take a close look at magazine and newspaper ads, billboards, record covers and pornography. Consider how portions of women's bodies are used to sell products, as the butt of humour and to train the viewer to see women's bodies as. dismembered sexual parts. Once the connection has been established between the use of women's bodies as sex objects to promote sales, it becomes easy to extend, by association, the desirability -saleability of any object or place by putting a woman's body beside it. The con- S nection that is made between the woman and 1 the object being sold is totally arbitrary, -3 ; such as putting Goya's painting of a re- 5: clining nude woman (entitled \"The Nude |l Maja\") beside a tire rim. An important part of understanding the despotic male power of pornography is the implicit social relationship that exists between the viewer and the image. There is always the assumption that men are the surveyors/users and that women are there to be surveyed/to be used. Women are shown in an idealized male fantasy-image that ignores their reality. The faces are young, passive, Caucasian, usually painted and always conforming to the male stereotype of female beauty. Facial hair, wrinkles and blemishes are never seen or accepted. All flaws are either removed or airbrushed away. The eyes are either closed or alluringly telling the viewer that she is available and waiting for his pleasure, whatever that may be. The position of the body is often grossly distorted in order to display her availability. The clothes are uncomfortable, revealing and impractical. No women choose to stand, sit, dress or act in these ways. Another variation of the male/female, surveyor/user relationship is seen in the increasing number of pornographic portrayals of lesbian sexuality. Lesbianism The attractiveness of pornography to men is apparent in its images of passive women eager and willing to do anything and, everything to satisfy the male need for power. In child pornography, societal values of passivity and youth in women are taken to their extreme. Young girls pose no threat to the collective male ego. The younger the mind and body, the easier it is to mold towards submission. When women reach maturity, but not too mature, they can be an extra turn on for their viewers, when they accept the quasi attributes of a child, as exemplified by the conscious use of knee socks, virginal white panties, toys and bubblegum. When women older than 25 are used though, they are shown as worthless Child as sex object. From a Graff ad for jewellry, London has been represented and accepted throughout history for the voyeuristic titillation of men. Even when women are shown loving women, male dominance is maintained. This is done in two ways. First, the women's bodies are always positioned for display. They are there for the use of the viewer. Or secondly, a man is in the picture, either as a voyeur or in a position of power over the women. Women loving women are accepted in so-called sexually liberated male circles only if a man is in control. Another pattern that emerges as we study pornography further is that of women being shown with groups of men. The power relationship between the women and the men is quite clear. Women are in various stages of undress or naked and vulnerable while the men are fully clothed. The women are there to serve the men with their bodies, either passively or by force if necessary. Even when the numbers are reversed, the women are still powerless and are there as servers or decorations for the men. Whatever the circumstances, they look happy and/or submissive. Young girls pose no threat to the collective male ego. The younger the mind and the body, the easier it is to mold towards submission. or ridiculous, often as the butt of humour. Humour plays an important part in the ideological process that oppresses women. The use of humour in the form of cartoons camouflages the message of hatred against women. Its form is fun-loving and therefore supposedly harmless. Humour can be seen as an important step in the process of making what is unacceptable in real life situations acceptable in theory. It is a first step in breaking down the inhibitions against the use of violence. It shows women to be appropriate targets for violence and degradation. In the pornography that we have studied, cartoons contained some of the most violent messa- ages we saw, all done in the name of \"erotic\" humour. Women were shown mutilated or with their heads blown off \u00E2\u0080\u0094 helpless victims of atrocities. Would you find that kind of humour funny? Violence against women, much of it with sado-masochistic overtones, has permeated the media at every level. It is found in fashion magazines, newspapers, films, record covers and all other magazines and As women take control over their lives, men are unable to relate to us. As many feminists have said, it is not mere chance that the increase in pornography has coincided with the growing strength and power of the women's movement. Men are attempting to regain control and status over women by increasing the violence agains-b us, as well as openly turning to the exploitation and sexual abuse of children. As the momentum of the women's movement has increased, sado-masochism has become more popular. Once considered the perverted pleasure of a select few, it has now become accepted as normal and healthy. Women,are shown as bound, gagged, beaten and forced into all kinds of sexual acts and accepting it as their 'natural' sexuality. Sado-masochistic images reinforce the stereotypical male-female relationship of a powerful, strong, macho-male and Over to p. 10 KINESIS JUNE SO FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON PORNOGRAPHY cont. from p. a weak, passive, submissive female. These images train us to accept the lie that our discomfort and pain is our pleasure. The S&M message of pleasure through pain and restriction is conveyed through popular everyday male-designed fashions such as straps, lace-up tops, garter belts, corsets, slit skirts and stiletto heels. These have all been a traditional staple in pornography. These are fashions that men have deemed appropriate for us to wear as sex objects. They are either restrictive, uncomfortable or detrimental to our health. Try running away from an attacker in a sheath-tight slit skirt and stiletto heels. It is clear that women do not design these fashions for their own comfort or needs. From advertising to pornography, our bodies and minds are defined by men. We are told what to look like, what to think, and how to act in order to please a man. We are encouraged to wear 'erotic' and 'sexy' fashions, such as those from Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan and Vogue. It is a short step from these to heavy leather, whips, dog collars, handcuffs and pierced nipples; in fact, overt degradation of women. These fashions and images are telling us again that the acceptance and self-infliction of ,pain is the way to sexual satisfaction for both ourselves and men. If we deny the notion that pain and degradation are pleasurable, we are accused of being prudish and uptight. A truly liberated woman is open, all orifices ready and waiting, accepting anything, whatever that might be. As if all of these things were not enough, with the increase of technology, capitalism has found yet another means of exploiting us. The market is now being saturated with cheap pornographic video and film, featuring such items as: Young Pussy Galore, Coming on Strong, Teenage Spanking, Rape and Rapture and Licking Lovelies. Once more, our sexuality is being defined in male terms and exploited for male gain. The dominant message in all pornography is clearly directed towards women who are challenging male definitions and authority: stay in your place or pay the price. As real women become less submissive, a new commodity has been placed on the market, the ever-ready, guaranteed passive, neverranswers-back, life-sized synthetic doll. It comes complete with three use-it and abuse-it orifices. Surely this reflects men's total inability to relate to women as human beings. As a result of these male values, women Sexist naming of children goes on in B.C. Margaret McHugh At present, the Vital Statistics Act of B.C. states that a child must have the last name of the husband of a married woman. Or, if the husband if not the child's father, the child may (if the natural father admits to paternity) take the last name of the biological father. There is no circumstance under which a married or separated woman may give her child her surname, or a hyphenated name. You can't fight this under the B.C. Human Rights Code because the Act takes precedence over it. The vital statistics law with regard to the naming of children has been changed or amended in other provinces. But in B.C. there has been no \"public complaint. \" There is some work being done now to change the act. I would like to contact women who have run into difficulties registering their child, or who are interested in giving their children a woman's surname. Contact: Margaret McHugh, 70 West 10th Ave, Vancouver V5Y 1R6. Phone: 873-6195. have been taught to accept, sexually respond to, and seek satisfaction through submission and pain. Violence against women in the name of love and liberated sex is frequent and accepted. Outside of male definitions, our sexuality has been From advertising to pornography, our bodies and our minds are defined by men. We are told what to look like, what to think and how to act in order to please a man. . Woman's body used to sell commodities little explored. As women, we are beginning to reclaim and redefine it for ourselves. Some women have attempted to place the female experience into the definition of erotic to include a potential for mutal caring, unlike pornography and male-defined erotica. Myrna Kostash defines it as, ...that gentle, laughing, administering embrace of sensual camaraderie. Audre Lorde, talking about the female viewpoint, views the erotic as that which is, ...the personification of love in all its aspects...personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women, of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work and our bodies. Need not be confined to genital sexuality Through these feminist definitions we begin to understand that the erotic need not necessarily be confined to genital sexuality. Pornography cripples and kills us. Women all over the world have started to fight back. We must reclaim our sexuality, our bodies, our minds and our spirits. As women, we must join forces to destroy pornography and male-defined erotica. We are beginning to educate ourselves and others about the women-hatred expressed in it. We are using our anger and creative energy to find ways to fight back. We must take direct action: speak out against pornography, refuse to have it in our homes; use self-defence; demonstrate, leaflet and boycott premises that carry pornographic and 'erotic' materials. In order to survive, we must fight to have our experience recognized and validated in the ideological process. We must, in part, do this by developing our mental and technical skills so that we will be able to understand, make and control the images that represent women. We choose not to put the majority of our energies into law reform. Not because it's difficult to distinguish between what is degrading and violent to women and what is sexually enlightening and fulfilling to human potential, but because, as feminists, we have no reason to believe that those in power, the authorities, have anything to gain by legalizing and enforcing the changes we advocate. We would be putting out far too much energy for too few returns We must reject the male definitions and images that misrepresent our lives and find other ways to combat our oppression. We've got to fight back! Q The above article is adapted from the script of a slide-sound 'show entitled: \"Reclaiming Ourselves: A Feminist Perspective Of Tomography, 1979\" This production is'available for rental or sale from Women in Focus #6-45 Kingsway, Vancouver, B.C: V5T 3H7. Phone: 872-2250. What is the connection between feminism and spirituality? by Pat Scott Spirituality seems to be a very difficult concept to grasp. It seems that many women do not find a great deal of comfort within it. But I would like to define the concept breifly, to reclaim the word in its original definition and real feeling, and relate it to the Tarot. Women's spirituality is a reclaiming of women's personal power, and I believe that feminism could be defined as political spirituality. The political and the spiritual do work together. So what I am trying to show is that power comes deep from within, and from this power we are capable of real change. I believe the true self of a woman is very powerful and very spiritual. The tarot is a-guide which can help us towards discovering our true self. And here I would like to discuss Sally Gear- hart's book, \"The Feminist Tarot\". Sally Gearhart defines the tarot as \"an ancient method of divination, drenched in history and rich in the meanings that may be extracted from it. It is an attempt to perceive and understand the conscious and unconscious reality of a particular feeling, question or circumstance.\" , In her book, Sally describes each tarot card with a reference to feminism, patriarchy, chauvinism and hetero and non-het- ero sexuality. Almost all cards are written in the female gender, and it is a refreshing change to find a non-bias towards women's sexuality. Through expanding the original and traditional meanings, Sally shows women their sense of power within a feminist/spiritual consciousness. This book is a very good account of the symbolism of the Waite/ Rider tarot deck. Though some definitions do not feel accurate or true, this is a very useful analysis, especially because it gives a feminist context. As women searching for and discovering our personal power, the tarot allows us to look at some of our deepest and most real feelings. \"The Feminist Tarot\" offers a rich analysis for this exploration. I believe, as defined, that spirituality equals the spirit of the soul; spirit equals freedom; freedom equals personal power...the tarot is a real vehicle for finding this true power. For Healing with the Tarot, call Pat Scott at 873-6886. \u00C2\u00BB KINESIS JUNE 80 LABOUR The CLC convention appraised Sexism was everywhere, but feminist presence growing By Marion Pollock On May 5, the Thirteenth Biannual Constitution Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) opened in Winnipeg. The newspapers were full of articles about layoffs, unemployment, high inflation, and workers struggling to attain decent contracts. The 2,700 delegates to this convention were charged with steering a course for the labour movement through the next two years. The convention was marred by bad and totally arbitrary chairing by CLC President \u00E2\u0080\u00A2 Dennis McDermott and his pals. Time and time again speakers on the \"con\" mikes were ignored. The question was called before the delegates had a full opportunity to debate their positions. Convention committees, composed mainly of McDermott appointees, refused to deal with resolutions duly submitted by CLC affiliates. Two examples of this concerned the issues of self-determination for Quebec and tripartism. In the latter case, there were thirteen resolutions opposing tripartism and only two in favour. The committee presented a composite resolution endorsing this concept. Moreover, slick manipulation of the convention agenda prevented these and many more issues from being discussed by the delegates. Committees took guts out of resolutions Generally, the committees took the guts out of most resolutions. One that outlined a plan of action either carried a recommendation of nonconcurrence, or were watered down to become nothing more than empty rhetoric. Policy papers outlined the issues facing workers in Canada, but did not provide solutions. The convention failed to produce a comprehensive fight-back program. Canadian workers are facing massive attacks on their standard of living as well as on their right to negotiate and strike. The policies adopted by the convention do not come to grips with these issues. In fact, the CLC executive attempted to push policies (for example, a labour marketing board) which would allow trade unionists to collaborate with the government in deepening the crisis. Sitting in this convention, one got the distinct feeling that all women and men are in unions, for there was little discussion about the need to organize the unorganized. There was no mention of unions not affiliated to the CLC. The need to build labour solidarity regardless of affiliation was disregarded. In his opening address McDermott spoke of labour solidarity. He pointed out how the trade union movement had played a crucial role in the victory of the Bell Canada and Radio Shack workers. But he failed to generalize from this. Motions which explicitly called for the formation of strike support networks never saw the light of day. But there were exceptions The convention unanimously passed a motion giving the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) active support in their fight with the government. In fact, McDermott was so carried away by the debate (and so desirous of avoiding criticism) that he was forced to say that this support was with no strings attached. However, in a later interview he qualified that remark. A motion regarding the right to strike was passed; as a result the CLC is committed, on paper at least, to oppose any attempt to weaken the labour movement. This is a change from the past two years, when the CLC leadership at best did nothing and at worst refused to support unions who were fighting anti-labour attacks. The convention passed resolutions on other subjects including technological change, a shorter workweek, opposition to strikebreaking, RCMP harassment, and red-baiting. Also passed was a motion committing the Congress to a fightback campaign against unemployment, including organizing the unemployed (when possible). Most women workers are concentrated in the public sector. This was reflected by the fact that the majority of women delegates (less than one sixth of the convention) were from CUPE, provincial government employees' unions, and CUPW. The convention left me with a sense of optimism. The work we have done for the past two years, and the work of our foresisters and brothers is beginning to show results. An example of this is the resolution proposed by the CLC executive on bloc voting. If passed, this would have transformed the CLC into an entirely undemocratic, bureaucratic body. In 1978 a similar resolution was defeated by slightly over a third of the delegates. In 1980 it was opposed by more than 50$ of the delegates. The resolution in favour of CUPW showed that we as workers can force the CLC into adopting decent positions. The leadership may be rotten, but the rank and file is not. The convention endorsed a policy of public support for the inclusion of a sexual orientation clause in the Canadian Human Rights Act, and encouraged affiliates to bargain for the inclusion of sexual orientation clauses in the anti-discrimination clauses of collective agreements. Of specific interest was the section entitled \"Equal Opportunity and Treatment of Women Workers.\" The resolutions contained therein reflected the growing strength of the women's movement. a bulletin on these issues as well as embarking on a massive PR and education campaign The CLC also urged locals to set up affirmative action/equal opportunity committees. The one drawback of the report was that it proposed mixed, instead of women-only, committees. The resolution on sexual harassment urged affiliates to adopt policies opposing this insidious form of harassment. It encouraged affiliates to train officers and stewards in dealing with instances of harassment, and to negotiate protection against sexual harassment in contracts. The woman who spoke on this issue received a standing ovation. The convention was far from free of sexism. It was present everywhere. But also present was a growing group of feminist trade unionists. There were a number of high points for me as a delegate. Support for CUPW was one; the almost unanimous standing ovation paid to a woman striker from Radio Shack was another. A broad spectrum of feminists, leftists and plain old militant unionists came together at the convention. A left caucus was formed which served to breakdown our isolation. It became a focal point for opposition to McDermott's class collaborationist policies. The caucus has networks for ongoing information sharing and activities. Dave Patterson, President of IOUSWA Local 6500, which had just concluded a successful strike at INC0 ran for a position as one of the ten vice-presidents at large. He ran on the basis of opposing McDermott's sellout policies. Despite a poorly-organized campaign, he received only 200 votes There were resolutions on Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value, paid maternity leave,- abortion, rape, sexual harassment and child care. The number and scope of these motions were in and of themselves a victory for the women's movement. We are seeing trade union women beginning to develop a tenatative synthesis between themselves and the women's movement. At the 1974 convention there were virtually no resolutions dealing with women. In 1980 there were 35. The policy statement from the committee dealing with equal opportunity for women workers was surprisingly good. It encourages the formation of equal opportunity and treatment committees at the local, federation and labour council level. It pushes these groups to act as a coordinating pressure group for changes in legislation on such diverse topics as equal pay for work of equal value, equal opportunity and childcare. It committed the CLC to prepare guidelines and to coordinate activity on these topics as well as on contract clauses, pension plans, and job training/evaluation programs. It resolves that the CLC produce less than tenth-place finisher John Fryer. It was clear that much of the opposition to Fryer was a result of his comments on the nurses' settlement (see last month's Kinesis). Gone from this convention was the vicious red-baiting and anti-postal worker campaigns which so much marred pervious conventions. Present was a renewed sense that we, as rank-and-filers, have the power which can force the union movement into reversing terrible positions and into taking up new fights. The value of the CLC convention is that it gives workers in Canada certain tools. The motions passed are useless unless we go into our unions and other organizations to discuss, educate ourselves and fight around these positions. By doing this we can embark on a program to force the CLC to take actions which will deal with our real needs. The CLC has given us the tools. (Marion Pollock is a postal worker in Vancouver. ) KINESIS JUNE 8C OUR BODIES. OURSELVES When birth control fails, don't turn to this book By Fran Moira/Off Our Backs WHEN BIRTH CONTROL FAILS, Suzanne Gage. Hollywood, California: Speculum Press/ Self-Health Circle, Inc. $6.95 WHEN BIRTH CONTROL FAILS is a do-it-yourself abortion manual. Its subtitle, which does not appear on the cover, is \"How to Abort Ourselves Safely.\" It was produced by women affiliated with Feminist Women's Health Centers, acknow- ' ledging Carol Downer for her help in creating the book, and to the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers for their support. Its stated purpose is to provide women with as much information as possible on the different self-abortion techniques, especially poor women who have limited access to legal abortion. But poor women with limited access to legal abortion probably also have limited access to Speculum Press/Self-Health Circle Inc. \u00E2\u0080\u0094 and that's a good thing. The abortion techniques that cost next to nothing and require no special equipment, which are the ones a poor woman would be most likely to choose, are enormously risky and are described in vague, misleading terms. Self-digital abortion, which requires only a woman's fingers, is presented as an effective technique after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The risk of severe complications and death from abortion increases with,each advancing week of pregnancy. The woman who waits around 12 weeks to stick her fingers in her uterus is at a markedly increased risk even when given an abortion under sterile conditions by trained people. Full-page illustrations make it look as easy as pie to stick your fingers beyond your cervix, and into the os just a nail's width away from the amniotic sac and the fetus. The text states that the technique will induce abortion, although it may have to be done several times a day over a period of several weeks (upping the risk even more) before the cervix and the os have been stretched enough to induce labour-like contractions. The fetus and the placenta will come out within minutes to several hours, the manual assures. Massaging the uterus will help remove any leftover material and help the uterus to contract down to its normal size, its says, not mention- after 12 weeks of pregnancy, by filling a syringe with home-brewed saline solution, inserting the nozzle through the os and into the uterus, squeezing the syringe and refilling it until a total of 4-and- a-half cups of lukewarm and cold solution have been emptied into the uterus. The manual advises that only a little saline be let out with each squeeze to avoid getting air into the uterus, which can cause embolism and death. How little is \"a little saline\"? It is not that the manual does not mention such hazards as embolism, infection, hemorrhage, uterine perforation, and death \u00E2\u0080\u0094 it does \u00E2\u0080\u0094 but the overall impact of the confident text, simple instructions and reassuring pictures is that these methods are safe, effective and easy. The advice in the beginning of the manual that it is always wise to have access to backup medical personnel should anything go wrong is of little use to the woman who had no access to medical personnel in the first place, which is persumably why she is resorting to self-abortion. The section on herbal abortion describes a host of herbs that have reportedly been used to tea form to induce abortion. Although it is generally recommended that any brew be taken in large quantities for several days, how much and for how long is rarely detailed. Statements such as, \"the side effects of too much of this tea are not know\", \"too many can cause convulsions\" and \"if too much is taken there can be severe side effects\" are sprinkled throughout this section. How much is \"too much\"? A particularly upsetting thing about this section is the advice that unusual quantities of these brews be taken as early in pregnancy as possible, with the best time to start being five days before the expected period \u00E2\u0080\u0094 which means that a woman may subject herself to possible harm when she may not even be pregnant, as an autopsy showed in the case of a woman who overdosed on pennyroyal oil because she thought she might be pregnant. The cautionary note that little is known about the safety or effectiveness of the herbal methods described, and that too much of some may be poisonous, does not override the fact that they are all described as abortifacients and directions for brewing them are offered. The section on laminaria (seaweed) abortion a jar containing a flaming alcohol-soaked rag. About the only thing that doesn't get a mention in this manual is a coat hanger. If the medical, corporate, or government establishment put out a book like this, encouraging women to take something that could do them harm, feminists would be screaming pretty loudly. The women in feminist women's health centers are certainly no less accountable, and they are apparently as irresponsible. We need to be able to provide ourselves with the means to control our reproductive lives, but right now this manual is more dangerous than helpful. It would better have been distributed as an internal working document among women with the training and resources to continue studying exactly how self-abortion can be made safe and effective and, when all the necessary details lacking in this manual became known, it could have been released to the public. Another alternative would be for these women to continue studying safe and effective abortion techniques and then devising ways to make their services accessible, underground, to women with no access to establishment medical care. The abortion techniques that cost next to nothing and require no special equipment... are enormously risky and are described in vague, misleading terms ing that this uterine massage is done from the outside, on the stomach. There is no reason a woman who doesn't know better would not assume she was supposed to massage the uterus somehow from the inside. How she is to know whether or not any tissue remains is unclear. Another quick and easy method recommended in the manual is sticking a Q-tip into the uterus and wiggling it persistently but gently. That some women have certain health conditions that would make herbal remedies (or any other aborton technique) more than usually hazardous is given too little attention, in this section and in others. The note in the description of one herbal brew \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that women with high blood pressure should not take it \u00E2\u0080\u0094 does not help the woman who does not know how high her blood pressure is. If you become pregnant with an IUD in place, you might try pulling out the IUD yourself, which could bring along the pregnancy contents. How does that grab you? You could try a saline abortion, again states that it can be done at almost any time during pregnancy, simply by inserting laminaria into the cervix and pulling it out after about 12 hours, by which time it should have swelled enough to stretch the uterine opening sufficiently to induce abortion either immediately or within a few days. It is mentioned that a suction technique may be required to complete the abortion if the woman does- not abort spontaneously and is in early pregnancy. It is not mentioned that when laminaria is used in later pregnancy to stretch the cervical opening, the contents do not come slipping out. They must be broken up and extracted manually (which has made many doctors reluctant to do this kind of later abortion even though it is considerably safer for the woman than a saline abortion). The manual recommends, instead, that a certain prescription drug be used at any time during pregnancy if the uterus seems to need help contracting. Among those items recommended for serving the function of suction equipment are converted bicycle pumps, vacuum cleaners, and (Reprinted from Off Our Back, April 3) Vancouver Women's Health Collective comments on When Birth Control Fails The Vancouver Women's Health Collective has this to say about the book, When Birth Control Fails: At the Health Collective, we support the research and development of effective, safe techniques \u00E2\u0080\u0094 such as menstrual extraction and herbal abortifacients \u00E2\u0080\u0094 that women can use for themselves and each other. For many years, we have been following the work on menstrual extraction, pioneered by women at the Feminist Women's Health Centre in California, of which Suzanne Gage, the author of When Birth Control Fails, is a member. However, while we do identify with the intent and spirit of the book, When Birth Control Fails, we agree with the criticism of the Off Our Backs article, that much of the information could be dangerous, and that some of it is incorrect. We are disappointed with and concerned about the book for that reason. We are preparing a letter to Suzanne Gage, outlining specific criticisms. Upstream publishing final issue As Kinesis goes to press, we are troubled to learn that Upstream will be publishing its final issue in June. Upstream, a feminist newspaper out of Ottawa, has been an important presence in the Canadian feminist movement. We, at Kinesis, identify intensely with the problems of publishing movement papers, and we hope to bring you a full account of the Upstream decision in the next issue. We'll miss Upstream.' KINESISJUNE80 MUSIC Third Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, July 18-20 Women's music will give us something to sing about By Susan Knutson 1 Through music women have been reclaiming lost parts-of ourselves...few things travel as widely and rapidly as a song. \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Betsy Rose and Cathy Winter, \"Some Thoughts About Our Music.\" Looking over the list of performers booked for the Third Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, followers of women's music will be gratified. Anyone who attended the \"women + music = \u00E2\u0096\u00A0 power\" workshop last summer, with Frankie Armstrong, Heather Bishop, Ferron and Faith Petric, knows that the previous two festivals by no means ignored this area of music. The third annual, however, promises to be something of a super-special in terms of feminist presence. Holly Near, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Ferron, Betsy Rose and Cathy Winter, and many more will be at Jericho Beach Park July 18-20 for three days of music, music, music. I feel I can safely predict seventh heaven for many music-loving feminists. Even more than that, this summer's festival will introduce thousands of people to feminist music \u00E2\u0080\u0094 people who haven't thought about it or just haven't had the chance to experience it. With two women's music workshops and feminist musicians on the main stage and in a variety of workshops over the three days, women will be right in the centre of the action. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is where we should be. Here's a preview in terms of who's coming and what to expect: HOLLY ARNTZEN'S repertoire includes traditional and contemporary folksongs, many of them about the people and places of the B.C. coast, where she was born and where she makes her home today. She performs blues (Ma Rainey, Billie Holliday, Bessie Smith), jazz and traditional Irish tunes on the french horn, improvisational singing, children's songs and original compositions. She says that the songs she writes are \"about and for women, their emotions and experiences.\" When Holly sings, she usually accompanies herself with original work on the mountain dulcimer. Ferron will be there, too In Vancouver it is hardly necessary to introduce FERRON. She is widely known, loved and respected as an incredible songwriter and performer. With the success of her latest album, \"Testimony\", recently released on Lucy records, it may soon not be necessary to do so anywhere in North America. Ferron is one of the best. She added a lot to last year's festival and we are glad she is coming back. Not so well known in this area, perhaps, are ROBIN FLOWER, NANCY VOGL AND LAURIE LEWIS. These are three hot musicians who are coming to play with Holly Near. Each is a serious musician and performer. Robin Flower lives, performs and teaches in the San Francisco Bay area. She has performed old time and bluegrass music with Hazel and Alice, The Clinch Mountain Back- steppers, and Oregon state fiddle champion Carol Ann Wheeler, and played electric lead with BeBe K'Roche, and Baba Yaga. She has done instrumental work on many women's albums and recently released a debut solo album, \"More than Friends.\" Robin's album features her hot and fancy guitar picking and spirited double fiddle tunes. It's very good. Nancy Vogl is one of the women who formed the Berkeley Women's Music Collective in 1973. They made five U.S. national tours and produced two albums, \"Berkeley Women's Music Collective\" and \"Tryin' to Survive\". This band was one of the first woman-identified bands, whose priority was the writ ing and performing of music which focused on the integrity of women. Nancy Vogl has also recorded with Trish Nugent, Woody Simmons, and Robin Flower. She sings and writes songs. As for Laurie Lewis, she is the best known woman blues musician west of the Rockies. First prize winner in '74 and '77 in the women's division of the California champion fiddler contest, she took third prize in the open division in '76. Laurie has recorded with several groups, including Good 01' Persons, Arkansas Sheiks, Robin Flower, Woody Simmons and the Done Gone Band. She was featured in John Cohen's film, \"Musical Holdouts\" and is currently performing with the Grant St. Stringband. TERRY GARTHWAITE, BOBBIE LOUISE HAWKINS and ROSALIE SORELLS are another tremendous trio. Many of us remember Terry Garth- waite from the Joy of Cooking \u00E2\u0080\u0094 certainly one of my favourite bands in the late sixties. \"Too Late But Not Forgotten\" was one of her songs, and she was just getting going thenI Bobby Louise Hawkins is a poet and she performs her poetry. And Rosalie Sorells. Mmmmm. Many will remember Rosalie from the '78 festival in Stanley Park, if they weren't lucky enough to see all three of these women together in Vancouver, April '79. Rosalie is a songwriter, beautiful singer and fine guitar player. Malvina Reynolds many of her songs have a country and western style, and she performed, at SFU, in a white cowboy hat. Well, proceeding through the alphabet, we have arried at HOLLY NEAR. I hardly know what to say. This will be the first time she performs in Vancouver, and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival is very proud (and a little lucky) to be responsible. Holly Near is a great songwriter, a compelling performer with an amazing voice. She grew up in the country and her first performances were for hereford cows, and they liked her quite a bit, which has been the pattern ever since. She began performing at seven, was a film and television actress in the 60's; was a lead in \"Hair\"; and was a featured performer in Jane Fonda' .c notorious \"Free the Army\" show. Because of her dynamic combination of art and politics, Holly has been invited to perform at a wide variety of gatherings, including the International Festival for Chile, in Mexico City; the International Conference Against the A and H Bombs, in Japan; the First International Women's Festival in Denmark, and at Gay Pride Events and Women's Masic Festivals across the USA. She recently completed an anti-nuke tour which helped develop coalitions between women's and anti-nuke groups in over 30 American cities. She has four albums; the most recent, \"Imagine My Surprise\", was aiaiiaiiiiiiia Sweet Honey in the Rock: they're coming to Vancouver had this to say about her: \"I've known Rosalie Sorells for years and I could never cope with her; she is such a rollicking anti-hero, such a gutsy woman, adventurous, curious, and ironically optimistic.\" On her first album, \"Travelling Lady\", Rosalie had this to say about herself: Oh I've gotten to be quite a rambler Going by' land and by sea Once it was aprons and dustpans and such But now I'm a travellin' lady. To date, I think Rosalie has made three albums on Sire and Philo records, and has published a songbook, \"What, Woman and Who, Myself, I Am\", also available through Philo. CONNIE KALDOR is another incredible woman. Her experience in theatre taught her performance skills, and she plays guitar and piano. She is author of a multitude of songs, including \"Grandmother's Song\" which was recorded in 1979 on a beautiful album of the same name by Heather Bishop. I had the good fortune to hear her perform at SFU in the fall of '79, and she won me over completely with a song with the following refrain: \"They're all jerks, with a capital J.\" It's about men who harass women in the streets (or wherever), delivered with humour, style, compassion and skill. Born and raised on the Canadian prairies, voted \"Best Album of the Year\" by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors in 1979. Kay Gardner says that women's music, reelecting womanliness, is subtle, deep and strong. The music of ODETTA certainly fills that definition, and more. To say that Odetta's music reflects Black Womanhood would be more complete. Odetta has been a dynamic force in North American folk music for over 25 years now, and she is still growing. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama; moved to L.A. when she was six, and started private voice lessons when she was 13. Today she is widely recognized as one of the finest interpreters of traditional folk music. She performs ballads, blues, work- songs, spirituals; sometimes singing a capella, sometimes accompanying herself with strong guitar work. But her primary instrument is her rich and magnificent contralto voice, deep, strong, powerful and gentle as a feather. Her music is generous and warm. Odetta says that music is a healing force. She has performed around the world, and she helped to make the first Vancouver Folk Music Festival, in Stanley Park in '78, a magic event.- and we welcome her back. Continued on p. 14 KINESIS JUNE 80 CULTURAL WORK The Wallflower Order Dance Collective: a review of their performance in Vancouver and an interview with them. Wallflower shows us the possibilities of political art By Helen Mintz The Wallflower Order Collective shows us the possibilities of political art. They create a theatre which challenges our ideas about our lives and about the world we live in. Wallflower makes us laugh, they bring us to tears; they prepare us to fight. In their recent Vancouver performance, Wallflower did a series of sketches which started from their personal experiences as women in American society. From there they moved to an examination of contradictions in the world and an attempt to lay out alternatives for resistance to repression. Wallflower challenges traditional sexist, capitalist and imperialist values. And they mount this challenge with artistic skill and insight. I was able to speak with Laurel Near, Krissy Keefer, and Pamela Gray, three members of the collective. The interview took place over a very rushed (but quite delicious) Chinese lunch before they beat their hasty retreat to Eugene, Oregon, their home base. They discussed their methods of work, their relationship to their audience; their work as political artists. I was struck by the seriousness with which they responded to my comments; by their commitment to seek feedback as a means of evaluating their work. Not having any formal political leadership, the collective \"relies on a few friends who we trust. They see our performances regularly and we continue to get good feedback from them. But it is not systematic. \" And, I must add that I was also relieved to see how human they are; how like myself and my friends. Not only did some of them mooch cigarettes with the same feeble exuses that I profer up (\"it's the tension, you know.\"); but after we left the restaurant, I even spotted Krissy guzzling a pepsi and Lynn eating a giant junky cookie. They are not superwomen; they share the failings of all of us. The collective originally formed around- a small group of women who wanted to dance together. That was five years ago and with the comings and goings of various people, they have developed a theatre that makes use of many different artistic forms to convey an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist basis of unity. As a group they share considerable political unity. And they struggle over the political differences. While they do not study formally together, a number of the members of the collective are involved in political study groups. \"And we discuss political ideas constantly. Constantly. The discussions are ongoing; they happen on an ad hoc basis.\" Ongoing political struggle is evident This ongoing political struggle is evident in their work, which covers a broad range of political questions with a real depth of understanding based on investigation of real experience. For example, when they celebrate the love that women offer each other, they are able to present concrete images that flow from peoples' lives. Two of the dancers hold each other, rocking to the tune of a popular Dolly Parton song. The number ends with a kiss. This image constrasts positively with the mystical quality of some lesbian art which highlights a mythological past of ancient heroines who are untouchably perfect in all ways. Wallflower performs principally for the feminist and left community. \"Although we put posters all over, it's mainly that group of people who have come to our shows.' The collective sees their art reflecting and validating progressive ideas. Laurel Wallflower Order. L to R: Krissy Keifer, Lyn Neely, Pamela Gray, Laurel Near and Nina Fitcher \"A lot of people think we're really special. But mostly it takes a lot of hard work.\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 Laurel Near drew a parallel with the work of artists in Viet Nam who reflected back to the people the main political currents. \"These artists helped to build a spirit of resistance amongst the people.\" Krissy added that one of the important functions of their work is not only to reflect back but also to challenge ideas within the left community. She sees the response of many progressive Americans to the situation in Iran as indicative of the failure to analyze correctly the contradictions of imperialism. \"Many feminist women in the U.S. have not supported what is happening in Iran. They don't see that for third world women it's often more important to protect their loved ones from being killed rather than worrying about whether or not they have to wear the chodor.\" One of the pieces in the program depicts an Iranian woman who courageously undergoes torture, refusing to give away the political secrets the Shah's government is after. Struggle within the Wallflower Collective is not restricted to the ideological content of their performance. As a cultural group, they convey their message through forms that are both clear and extremely moving. Their use of diverse materials and artistic forms is truly astounding. Their music covers the complete spectrum of forms from popular music by artists as diverse as Rickie Lee Jones, Fats Domino, and Dolly Parton to classical music by Pachebel and Rampal and Boilings. They also include the music of very talented and little known progressive groups such as \"Grain of Sand\". Their dance forms range from classical ballet to disco, including jazz and modern dance. They use kung fu, signing (the language of the deaf) and a highly versatile dramatic style that ranges from the deadly serious and highly dramatic to caricature and satire. They seem to be able to extract the best that American culture has to offer; to use it and modify it to express a real political and artistic alternative. This dramatic style stands in sharp contrast with so much progressive political art which attempts to convey a message of resistance while retaining all the traditional artistic forms. They present a unified aesthetic while expressing individual styles Wallflower is able to present a unified aesthetic while maintaining the distinctive style of each performer. Each woman demonstrates professional ability as both dancer and theatrical performer. They live powerfully in their own bodies rather than conforming to the dictates of some director who demands that they fit themselves into her or his particular mold. When they dance, the audience sees their muscles flex; we see the hair on their legs and in their armpits. The first piece that Wallflower performed in Vancouver is called \"Pieces of Lies\". It is an exorcism of the roles that women take on in this society. We have the tomboy who refuses to recognize her female- ness; the romantic ballerina, pining away in the name of true love; the \"real cool chick\" who bolsters herself with cigarettes and too much liquor in a world where she must go it alone. Each member of the collective acts out one of these roles, carrying it to its ridiculous extreme and showing the roles for the lies that they are. The romantic ballerina kicks herself in the head in one of her far-flung expressions of desperate longing. As each character moves from childhood to KINESIS JUNE 80 CULTURAL WORK adolescence, their movements become increasingly confined. The power of the tomboy's kicks are quelled; she merely flicks her legs in futile gestures. In one scene all the characters appear as adolescents at that most painful of adolescent rituals, the high school dance. Each character is trapped within the boundaries of imposed behaviour. Each tries desperately to fit in, to deny the reality of her feelings. The Vancouver audience roared with laughter at their brilliant caricatures. But the laughter was an expression of the real pain that we all remember so well. The piece ends with all five performers simultaneously signing and reciting the poem \"Defiance\" by the deaf poet Dorothy Miles. The poem is a strong statement of insistence on the right of women to express true potential rather than bowing down to constraints and false roles. As an audience we experience the power of Wallflower as an artistic collective affirming the strength and power of women. We experience the power of who we are and can become. Wallflower examines the problems of working collectively in one of their pieces. Lack of money, feeling fed up with seeming endless criticism and self-criticism, feeling closed in by the group, wanting to reach out to other people and not being certain how. These are real problems faced by all of us who have attempted to work collectively. And it is wonderful to see these problems portrayed on stage in a way that allows us to both examine our difficulties and to laugh at ourselves. The individual and the collective This piece clearly flows out of the experience of the women in the Wallflower Order Dance Collective. They discussed with me the conflicts that arise between the individual and the collective. \"Some days, someone may be really flipped out. They may be so flipped out that it effects everything. Sometimes we put aside what we are doing and deal with that person and their problems. But at other times people have to hold back their personal stuff for the sake of the collective.\" \"It is often difficult to maintain a collective when all else is profit and loss. When you turn on the radio or the television, all you hear about is competition. There's never anything about the problems or victories of being in a collective. So there's no reinforcement for what we're trying to do. And it's often hard.\" \"And there's sometimes competition among us. Especially when we're trying to learn each others movements. Even though we all move really excellently in our own ways, we feel insecure sometimes. The competition is based on our insecurities about ourselves.\" To Pam's comment that there are sometimes power struggles, Krissy laughingly added that there are often power struggles. When these problems arise, they attempt to talk about them. Asked about how the collective works together, Pam explained that their pieces evolve in many different ways. \"Generally one person in the group has an idea which they bring to the group to get help with. For example, someone may want to do something on lies. They do some work and then present it. Or somebody may just want to play an instrument and want to build a piece around it. Sometimes someone will have a specific political idea which they will research in depth and then present to the group. Krissy wanted to do something on the women in Iran and she did a lot of work on that piece.\" \"And even if you don't want any specific help, you usually get it anyways,\" Laurel added laughing. Wallflower does one piece which is a celebration of the wars of resistance being waged by small nations against imperialist aggression. The piece consists of a solo dance performance which is an excellent example'of the use of dance choreography to portray a political message. The move ments of the dancer are small and undrama- tic. They portray, through dance, the type of slow, determined daily struggle that must be waged against imperialist aggression. One of the most powerful pieces for me was \"Women Talking to Death\", which is excerpted from the poem by Judy Grahn. This piece is a mock interrogation which turns the anti-gay sense of disgust with women who express love toward each other to a sense of horror when we deny this love: \"So much of their art touches me in my own life. I can see my own experiences in their work. When they portray the relationship of sisters, I identify. I am touched by it and get a new perspective on my own life.\" \"It just amazes me to see class consciousness portrayed in ballet. And often in a funny way. They really make me laugh.\" \"They left me with a really positive vision about myself and the world. And lots of energy to fight for change.\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094 comments from the audience at the recent performance of Wallflower in Vancouver. \"Have you ever committed any indecent acts with women? Yes, many. I am guilty of allowing suicidal women to die before my eyes or in my ears or under my hands because I thought I could do nothing, I am guilty of leaving a prostitute who held a knife to my friend's throat to keep us from leaving, because we would not sleep with her, we thought she was old and fat and ugly; I am guilty of not loving her who needed me; I regret all the women I have not slept with or comforted, who pulled themselves away from me for lack of something I had not the courage to fight for, for us, our life, our planet, our city, our meat and potatoes, our love...\" \"A Woman is Talking to Death\" by Judy Grahn The script is tremendously powerful and the performers interchange the roles of dancer, interrogator, and responder. Krissy thinks that the overall presentation of Wallflower suffers from the lack of a clear political line. She thinks that the second half of the program which deals with many different forms of resistance is weakened by the lack of a clear focus around a principal contradiction. \"In a society where the contradictions are more developed, people are more developed, people are forced to take a clear stand. They are forced to take sides. But as white women who come primarily from petit bourgeois backgrounds, we enjoy a lot of the privileges of imperialism. V/e're living off the backs of people around the world. We're in a position where in some ways it's easier not to take a clear position.\" Working as progressive, political artists has not been easy for the Wallflower Order Collective. They face constant financial hassles. They are forced to work part time in order to continue with the work of the collective which remains an overall financial drain. \"The state funds bourgeois art. So they have government grants and empty theatres for their performances. Where as we have sell-out performances and we can't make a dime.\" Although Wallflower feels that some government agencies like their work, they receive no funding from them. \"They would rather fund a string quartet which is safe rather than risk their jobs on us.\" Wallflower Order has tried to broaden their outreach beyond the feminist and left communities. They have sought feedback and have attempted to \"clean up their act\". \"V/e used to be real sloppy but we've tried to professionalize the show so that people can focus on what we're doing rather than being distracted. But, \"...unless we want to go the bourgeois route of becoming famous, if we are going to get to factories and working class women we'd have to hook up with a political organization which would give us a real political direction and leadership.\" Wallflower are not a group to be missed. They will be returning to Vancouver in the fall and they may do a workshop this summer. Enquiries and feed back should be directed to 1736 W. Broadway, Eugene, Ore. 97402. J This article was written by Helen Mintz with considerable assistance from Karen Malcolm. The interview with the members of Wallflower was conducted in great haste and without a tape recorder. I have attempted to quote them as accurately as possible. FEMINIST TREATS AT VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL cont. from p. 12= BETSY ROSE and CATHY WINTER have crisscrossed the US and Canada for three years now, bringing women's music to places that were not expecting it, taking all kinds of risks and just getting better. They've even done a tour of northern B.C. They say, \"Our commitment is primarily that of spreading women's culture to the widest possible audience. Our belief is that a significant women's cultural and political revolution in this country depends on conscious and conscientious outreach, grassroots organizing in rural, as well as urban, areas.\" Betsy and Cathy play guitar and bass, write a lot of great songs, and do fine harmonies. It's a challenge to try to describe SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK \u00E2\u0080\u0094 although in some ways it's quite straightforward. As they say on the cover of their first album, \"Sweet Honey in the Rock, formed in 1974-, sing original and traditional songs of the Black experience. The name of the group comes from the choral refrain of a traditional Black song. Here it symbolizes the range of colours worn by Black women: strength, consistency, warmth and gentleness. \" Their latest album, \"B'lieve I'll Run On\" was recorded on the Redwood label. The record opens with \"Seven Principles\", a song which sets the Nugzo Saba, the seven principles of Blackness, to music. The closing cut is \"Every Woman\" which celebrates Black Women feeling good about each other. Every song is affirmative of Black life, love and liberation struggle. The music is masterful. \"They sing strongly and do not tiptoe around notes or mess around with vocal gimmicks. This is a music straight from the Source of Black People, i.e., Black Women,\" writes a reviewer in the May/ June '79 issue of The Black Collegian. Sweet Honey is: Patricia Johnson, Yasmeen Williams, Evelyn Harris and Bernice Regan. These are the foremost women's music performers who will be here this summer for the Third Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival. But there is a problem, because there is a continuum and you can't just cut it off and say, \"These are women's performers; these are not.\" There is also ANY OLD TIME STRINGBAND, an all-women stringband. And there is PETER ALSOP, a man who writes songs against sexism and homophobia. For a woman performer to make it in the music business she has to sell her sexuality, and be a victim; or she has to be strong, and the women's movement has given a lot of women that strength. For tickets or more information about the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, contact us at 3271 Main Street, Vancouver B.C. 879 - 2931. Remember: If you. buy your festival ticket before JUNE 15,.you can save up to 4-0$. Early Bird Special Weekend Tickets cost $18.00. KINESIS JUNE 80 BULLETIN BOARD EVENTS WOMEN IN A MAN'S WORLD. The YWCA is sponsoring this series of discussions at the Vancouver YWCA, 580 Burrard Street. JUNE 24 : Women in Politics JULY 29 : Managerial Women AUGUST 26 : Real Estate Panel starts at 7:00; coffee and dessert at 8:30. Cost is $5.00 per session. QUEBECOISES SPEAK OUT on June 6, 7:30 p.m. at 138 East Cordova, Vancouver. QUEBECOISES SPEAK OUT WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN June 7, 10:00 a.m., 138 East Cordova RAPE RELIEF DANCE for Rape Relief house. Ferron and Ad Hoc. Mixed. Tickets on sale at Ariel, Octopus Books, the Women's Bookstore and Rape Relief. Time and place: Saturday, June 14 at the Polish Community Centre, 4015 Fraser. Donation equal to one hour's pay is requested. Childcare available. ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT: Rape Relief is organizing a series of meetings. The first meeting will be held at Britannia Community Centre, Room L3, Saturday June 14, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Bring a lunch. For information on childcare call Ellen 872-8212 or Johanna at 733-7505 or 872-8212. SUMMER SHOWINGS, at the Women In Focus Art Gallery are as follows: JUNE 2-27 Catherine Shapiro: Silk- screen Prints. JULY 2-31 Claire Kujundzie: Collage, Drawings and Watercolours. The gallery is located at #6-45 Kingsway Vancouver V5T 3H7. Hours are Monday to Friday: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Thursday to 9:00 p.m. For more information call Michelle at 872-2250. THIRD ANNUAL VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL will be held at Jericho Beach Park, July 18, 19 and 20. Weekend ticket prices are as follows: $18.00 (before June 15), $22.00 (advance ticket after June 15) and $25.00 (ticket at gate). Individual night tickets are $8.00 (Friday night) and $11.00 (Saturday or Sunday night). For more information write to Vancouver Folk Music Festival, 3271 Main Street, Vancouver. THE LESBIAN SHOW for June: June 5 : Lesbians and trade unionism; Quebecoise lesbians. June 12 : Vancouver update: women's coffeehouse; lesbian conference; women's building, and sports. June 19 : Lesbians and spirituality. June 26 : Lesbians and music \u00E2\u0080\u0094 spotlight on Willie Tyson Lesbian Show on Co-op Radio, 102.7 FM, Thursdays from 7:30 - 8:00 p.m. W0MANVISI0N SHOWS for June: Interview with women from Que- June ' bee. June 16 : Newshow - news around town, around the country, around the world. June 23 : Art show. Sylvia Spring interviews Margie Adams. Also features the new Adams album, \"Naked Keys\". June 30 : Moving Forward, by Peg Campbell and Pat Feindel. An overview of the social action undertaken by the YWCA from the 1900's to the present, including the battle for reproductive rights and housing for battered women. Look for Womanvision on Monday nights, 7-8 p.m. on Co-op Radio, 102.7 FM. GROUPS SINGLE PARENTS GROUP FOR VANCOUVER EAST is being organized by Single Parents Group, c/o Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier St, Vancouver V51 4X4. Phone 253-4391, local. 57. If you're a SINGLE PARENT having hassles with welfare, a self-help group is forming. Call 931-8154 (7pm-6am) for information. WOMEN'S GROUP forming to discuss mutual concerns about infertility. Call Beth at 738-6397 or Harriet at 438-3397. YWCA OUTDOOR CLUB FOR WOMEN has the following meetings and events planned: JUNE 7 : Day of canoeing and kayaking on Pitt Lake. JUNE 21 - 22: Hiking and camping trip to Three Brothers, Manning Park (overnight). Membership is $45 a year, which covers instruction, equipment use, special trip rates and discounts. Call Clasina at 683-2531 for more information. HELP KINESIS KINESIS is in debt and beset by skyrocketing costs. Without sturdy sustainer support, we'll starve. Please think about becoming a sustainer! 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. WORKERS ON THIS ISSUE: Janet Beebe, Janet Berry, Cole Dudley, Judy Finnigan, Penny Goldsmith, Morgan McGuigan, Helen Mintz, Gayla Reid, Janice Pentland- Smith, Diana Smith, Joey Thompson, Lezlie Wagman, Cat Wickstrom, Joan Woodward. WORKSHOPS JUNE WEEKEND WORKSHOPS drawing on peer counselling, constructive criticism, ges- talt process, bioenergetics and psycho- drama . JUNE 20, 21, 22 : Women Only. Led by Lorraine Krakow and Isobel Kiborn. JUNE 24, 25, 26. Mixed. Led by Sally Batt and Tom Sandborn. A $50 contribution to Rape Relief House is requested. To register phone Carol at 879-9946 or Michael at 876-0600. Childcare is provided free. =VANCOUVER STATUS OF WOMEN. ATTEND THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of VANCOUVER STATUS OF WOMEN Thursday June 26 7:30 p.m. 517 East Broadway FOUR CAM0SUN COLLEGE STUDENTS have been granted funding to research and produce a paperback book of \"Selected Essays on Women in B.C. History\". We are very interested in having essays from other students who have completed writing on this subject. Phone Susan, Tami, Val, Jackie, Cathy or Barb at Camosun College 592-1281, local 362 or write c/o Barb Latham, Camosun College, 1950 Lansdowne, Victoria B.C. V8P 5J2. Deadline is August 1, 1980. THE WOMEN'S SELF-HELP COUNSELLING Collective in Vancouver is looking for a low- cost or free comfortable space which is within street level or has few or no stairs at' its entrance. We anticipate primarily evening use. Please phone the Health Collective \u00E2\u0080\u0094 736-6696 with any suggestions. More word on who we are and what we do coming up soon. SELF-HELP DISCUSSION GROUP for people with physical problems is now forming. If you are interested, please call Jill at 689-4787. The idea is by sharing our experiences and helping each other, we may grow in strength and understanding far more than through discussion with \"healthy\" concerned people. Sample discussion topics might be: dependency \u00E2\u0080\u0094 real and/or imagined; changes in self- image after a radical change in\"physical health; sexuality; guilt; communicating with, and changed relationships with, other people; dealing with doctors; getting heard; dealing with poverty.... LESBIAN DROP-IN meets every Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. at the Vancouver Women's Bookstore, 804 Richards Street, Van. Topics for June include, \"What is the Women's Community?\" (June 4) and \"Women and Sport\" (June 11). LESBIAN INFORMATION LINE (LIL) is open to calls two nights a week, Thursday and Sunday, from 7-10pm. Call 734-1016. LESBIAN MOTHERS DROP-IN meets Sunday at 2pm at the Women's Bookstore, 804 Richards St, Vancouver. For info call Laurel, 525-1336 or Lynn, 734-9784. DROP-IN FOR YOUNGER LESBIANS meets every Thursday night, 7:30-10pm. Lesbians under 21 are welcome. 1501 West Broadway. Contact the drop-in by calling LIL, 734-1016. LESBIANS OVER 40 meet Monday night at 7:30 at the Women's Bookstore, 804 Richards St, Vancouver. 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 (876-6390). 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 SORWUC needs new volunteers. Call them at 684-2834 or 681-2811."@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_06"@en . "10.14288/1.0045477"@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 .