Pedestal: A Women's Liberation Newspaper
data provider: CONTENTdm
is part of: Pedestal
issued: 2016-11-10
issued: 1971-01
aggregated CHO: https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/pedestal/items/1.0340819/source.json
extent: 12 pages
format: application/pdf
note: a women's liberation newspaper m Pedestal .15 Vol. Ill, No. 1 January, 1971 typeset by voluntary labor; printed by union labor Illllllllllillllllllllllllllllll Royal Commission on Women paga 2/pedestal/january, 1971 "Does it occur to you that the white lace which we wear is darkened by the failing eyes of the lace maker?" -Helen Keller, 1911 One of the few heroic women that we learned about in school was Helen Keller. Our books showed little Helen sitting by the water pump learning what W-A-T-E-R meant and later graduating from university with honors. The story was always how she learned to communicate, never what she said. Perhaps if the stories had told of her opposition to war and militarism, her advocacy of women's rights and socialism — perhaps we would have found something to identify with. Perhaps we would have accepted the example of strength and courage if she had been portrayed as a real woman, concerned with people, rather than a saint, a superhuman miracle, or the fulfillment of the American Dream (if Helen Keller — deaf, blind, mute and a woman — can make it, so can you!). As a member of the Socialist Party and later the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World), Helen Keller often spoke out in defense of socialism and the struggles of the working class. Opponents of social change charged that she was "duped" and "exploited," to which she responded: "So long as I confine my activities to social service and trie blind, they [the newspapers] compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'arch- priest of the sightless,' 'wonder woman' and 'a modern miracle'. But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics — that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world — that is a different matter. It is laudable to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should hav…
note: Vol. 3, no. 1; January 1971
has type: Newspapers
spatial: British Columbia
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0340819
language: English
provider: Vancouver: University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Vancouver : Vancouver Women's Caucus
rights: Images provided for research and reference use only. For permission to publish, copy or otherwise distribute these images please contact the Digitization Centre: http://digitize.library.ubc.ca/
source: Original Format: Simon Fraser University. Archives and Records Management
subject: Women's rights--Periodicals
subject: Feminism--Periodicals
type: Text