CONTENTdm
Pedestal
16 pages
application/pdf
m WOfAEIM'S LIBERATION NEINSIWEF VANCOUVER, b.C VOLUMEIVnoA APRIL 1972 &&P PUNIC SU/MV1E ^ IS PUBLIC SW/MME ■>Kl%/#flTECUllT I ' page^tWo-^-pedestal—april "72 -f Women in Teaching is an organization dedicated to ending the secondary and supportive roles of women in society, and to changing our school system, which WIT says channels students into roles and relegates female teachers to secondary positions, this article, submitted by WIT, analyzes how some of our elementary school textbooks condition girls for second class citizenship. There was a little girl Who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.' And when she was good I She was very very good . And when she was bad . She was horrid. And so is the educational system that propagates the sex-role imagery hinted at in this nursery rhyme. For it is formal education that reinforces the sex- role differentiation established in early childhood. If we assume that, by about the age of two, children are able to distinguish between male and female roles, then by the time a girl begins school she has a relatively clear idea of what is considered feminine. She also knows what kind of behaviour is expected of her as a 'girl'. She is generally encouraged to be quiet, genteel, coy, motherly and to have a score of other equally nebulous and passive traits considered 'feminine'. Instead of reinforcing such indifferent traits, parents and educators sh6uld be urged or even pressed to realize the importance or expanding the horizons of their daughters and students, and to respect their aspirations and encourage their initiative. Society must begin to develop a sensitivity to the individuality of girls as well as boys. Betty Friedan says, 'It (sex-directed education) must have been going on for ten or fifteen years before anyone suspected it.' Gradually it became and still is apparent that, although more girls were going to university, fewer were going on to become physicists, phiososphers, poets, doctors, lawyers, states-women, social pioneers or even university professors. Fewer female university students were preparing for any career or profession requiring more than the most casual commitment. It was as if female college students felt that the wrongs of society would right themselves with little or no intervention on their part. It seemed that 'college professors, under the influence of the feminine mystique, had become more concerned with their students' future capacity for sexual orgasm than with their future use of trained intelligence. Instead of opening new horizons to able women, the sex-directed educator moved in to teach them adjustment within the world of home and children. And this prejudicial teaching is what many Canadian women are battling now. They want truths to counter popular prejudices of the past, or Patricia Preston reprinted from the B.C.Teacher critical ways of thinking against which prejudice cannot survive. Sex-directed education must be ended. The place to begin is in the home, but frequently parents subscribe, often subconsciously, to the feminine mystique-that fulfillment for women centers on the home, with a glorification of the role of housewife. Realistically, then, it must be accepted that, even today, by the time a child reaches school many of her prejudices and most of her feminine preconceptions are already taking shape, if not already formed. The task falls more heavily then on teachers and other educators to battle these prejudices and to combat the feminine mystique with truths and simultaneously present new goals that encourage able women to attain them. So the beginning of this process of developing feminine individuality and aptitudes is in the home. But if the home environment has negliected this aspect of growth the school becomes the working ground for the abolition of sex-role differentiation. Unfortunately, formal education seems to reinforce further the sex-role differentiation established in early childhood, for it is in the safe confines of the classroom that sex-role imagery flourishes. Little girls adapt easily to the finely co-ordinated skills of printing and drawing; the have little difficulty in remaining still in their seats, and, in general respond in quiet, passive ways that please the teacher and make the task of teaching relatively simple. april '72—pedestal—page three Although the elementary school curriculum is similar for boys and girls, the sex-role differentiation occurs in various ways. One of the most potently subtle methods of achieving this differentiation is through the textbooks. Because the textbook field is so vast and varied, I am restricting my comments to those prescribed language arts texts currently used in B.C. schools from kindergarten to Grade 7. I chose the Canadian Reading Development Series and Language Patterns for research on the. primary grades. This does not discount the fact that there is considerable evidence of sex-typing in other books used in the teaching of mathematics, science, social studies and health. I simply chose to focus on language arts as a pertinent area of sex-directing. From that first day in kindergarten when they start out to school in their freshly ironed dresses, girls are categorized by their sex alone. Who pushes the doll pram around the kindergarten room and who automatically assumes the role of breadwinner in the playhouse in the corner? But this is just the start and perhaps only a carryover from five years at home observing mother, and being generally unable to see father's occupational activities. Although there are no prescribed readers for the kindergarten level, a survey of library books in various classrooms showed the male to be the main character most frequently. He is the one who does the interesting things, the female generally being relegated to a domestic role. However, by first grade a more obvious and definite pattern begins to take shape as six-year-olds confront theirfirst formal reader.Of 31 stories of the family-experience type in Off to School, none show mother in anything but" a dress. She is always the homemaker and her role is limited to sewing, cooking and cleaning. Father is the provider and his role is largely that of an entertainer. He takes the children sleigh-riding, skating, horseback- riding and on only one occasion is mother invited along on a shopping trip. Janet and Anne are always in dresses (except for an outer snowsuit in winter) and the children's play is basically role- oriented. The girls and mother bake; the children play house; John and Father build a dog house and fish, while the girls stay home. ...___ because she's nearsighted and deaf and cannot see or hear the lion she befriends. Lazy Jack, the only male depicted in a negative way, is a 'winner' in the end. He is rewarded for his behaviour by being given the rich man's daughter as his wife. DIFFERENCES ARE STRESSED By Year Three sex-channeling is well under way and language arts stories bolster the differences between male and female roles. Mother is seen as a homemaker who cooks, cleans and reprimands. There is very little evidence of equal participation in the disciplining of children. In Stories of Fun and Adventure, Book One, two of the 23 stories have female main characters. Three of the women in the stories have jobs out of the home. One is a teacher, another a circus performer and the third a dancer. But the 14 males we meet all have non-domestic roles. In one story the women are referred to as 'silly things. They are only women...and not expected to know the secrets of the tribe.' Powerful sexist propaganda woven cleverly into prescribed reading for eight-year-olds! Another outstanding example of this type of purposeful propaganda is cited in an article on- children's literature in a media presentation on 'Sexism in Children's Bddks.' A sympathetic male character in the 1967 Newberry book winner, Up A Road Slowly by Irene White, says, 'Accept the fact that this is a man's world and learn how to play the game gracefully.! Another example used is from the 1957 winner, Miracles On Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson: 'For the millioneth time she was glad she wasn't a boy. It was all right for girls to be scared or silly or even ask dumb questions. Everybody just laughted and thought it was funny. But if anybody ever caught Joe asking a dumb question or even thought he was the littlest bit scared, he went red and purple and white. Daddy was even somethinglfike that, old as he was.' Certainly these passages describe real life, but a good book for children should comment and leave the child feeling 'something is wrong here.' Perfect examples »such as these are not the rule, but there is "•■■SEX-DigECTgD ESUCr^TQ^ MUST BE ENDED*: Of 26 stories inCome Along with Me, males are ■ the main characters in 10 and females in 5, both being equally involved in 11 more. Again mother assumes the nurturant role, and father that of the provider. In one story, called 'Skipping', John says, 'Pepper is too fast for me' and in another the boys run too fast for the girls. Anne is seen once in overalls and Janet, inlooking for a friend, finds Mary (also wearing a dress and sporting a demure, little-girl smile). They play dolls, mother grinning her approval in the background. Even the animals in the story-book type of tales in Unit Three aredepicted with social characteristics. The central figure is the male and the scatterrain or mother-figure is female. In Stories Old and New, 18 of the 29 stories have male main characters. The male is his son's pal, the provider, the hero and, in general, experiences very warm relationships with his sons. The book stresses traditional male roles to the degree that, in the only' one story in the book in which the mother works, the seven-year-old boy assumes the man-of-the-house role. 'Their mother had to work' because Margaret and Bob and their mother 'lived all by themselves. Bob was just seven...he was the man of the house.' One female who is shown to be independent is made to look foolish: instead of respecting her independence, young readers laugh at her stupidity. Book Two of Stories Old and New has fewer female main characters than its counterpart. Only three of 22 stories have females as main characters. Of the 17 adult females in the book just two work at non-domestic jobs - both are elementary school teachers' positions long designated as 'female' jobs. Women's subservience is exemplified when a farmer says 'Quiet, wife! If you were as wise as the King, you would not talk so much!' Another female character, Mrs. Welladay, is shown as courageous mainly a superfluity of books andstories whose thesis might seem less obvious but whose refrain is predictably the same. ANOTHER SERIES IS SIMILAR The Language Patterns series, also used in the primary grades, contains similar examples of sex-channeling and typing. The father is often shown as an understanding and kind person who takes his children on interesting expeditions. The mother remains at home to prepare meals and tell the children what's best for them. Many of the main characters are animals,usually male, who are heroic types. Of the 43 stories in the Grade 4 text Happy Highways, 27 are male-dominated. The males are depicted as resourceful in 'A Welcome Discovery,' determined in'Little Chief of Gaspe,' independent in 'A Night in a Tamarack Tree,' wise in 'Little Red,' and courageous in 'A Brave Gentleman of Holland.' Females, on the other hand, are shown in such ways as passively helpful in 'The Colours of the Rainbow,' irresponsible, when a girl rides a turtle into the sea from which she is rescued by her brother, and' stupid in 'Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars.' The Grade 5 reader, Under Canadian Skies, continues along these same lines in its story presentation Five females, in contrast with 27 males, are main characters in 36 stories. Grade 5 boys are presented with models from every walk of life. Males are seen as policemen, trappers, cowboys,explorers, scientists, treasure hunters doctors and detectives. Of the 16 stories in which females appear, 14 show the women as homemaker and mother. Character traits are discriminatory. Females appear as dependent, passive.-timid, unimaginative and unthinking human beings, whereas males are shown as independent, aggressive, brave, exciting and intelligent. f.'..FORfcV\L EDUCTION SEEMS TO REMFOf^E Broad Horizons, a Grade 6 language arts text, contains a large proportion of historical stories and is therfore more difficult to analyze in terms of today's sex-typing. But the inclusion of this.type of story, with themale as main character and hero, bears out the fact that educationists choose to further sex- typing. In one unit, 'Storm Flight' which centers on flying and space travel, all six stories are entirely male-oriented, there being no mention of a female pilot, even the best known, Amelia Earhart. Accent on Reading and Sense and Feeling, both used at the Grade 7 level, contain some pertinent examples of sex-typing and channeling. In 'Ransom of the Red Chief,'.a boy, who is a rascal, emerges as a winner. Others are adventurous, capable, resourceful, perceptive and self-confident. Yet the boys nearly always have a negative view of females. In 'My Father's Collie,' the boy says,T got along all right except that the only children near us were Mrs. McKeogh's two little girls on the one side and Mrs. Harris' three little girls on the other, and who wants to play with little girls?' In another story, 'That's What Happened to Me,' a boy states, 'Old Man Patch was a pretty good guy but his wife, she was nothing but a crab... old lady Patch, she would look at the bottles and wrinkle her nose and make me wash them over again...she was fat and her hair was all straggly atid I wondered why the deuce Old Man Patch ever married her, although I guess maybe she didn't look so awful when she was a girk She couldn't have been very pretty, though.' The evidence is there from the beginning to end of elementary school. This limited analysis of sex-role imagery in a representative selection of elementary school language arts textbooks clearly indicated that woman's creative and intellectural potential is either underplayed or ignored in the education of children from their earliest years. She is categorized into her community role solely on the basis of sex. Although such influence may seem insignificant to an adult reader, as the Report of the Royal Com- mision on the Status of Women in Canada points out, it is important to remember that the readers are children and that they learn through models whom to imitate. The sex rolesdescribed in thesetextbooks provide few challenging models for young girls and they fail to create a sense of community between men and women as fellow human beings. It is also through learning that men and women draw apart and experience 'different' feelings. As psychiatrist Theodore Isaac Rubin put it: 'So — what feelings are male and what are female? For me this is very simple — all feelings, interests, activities (other than child bearing, breast feeding, etc.) are BOTH male and female. This is not because we are all 'bisexual.' It is because all these feelings are human feelings and are not naturally isolated into sexual compartments except by our own lear- ing and doing. Men and women are not born but they can learn to be different from each other.' TEXTBOOKS MUST BE REALISTIC . The time to stop this 'learning to be different' is now. Textbooks fail to present a set of values to counteract the cultural conditioning children experience from birth. Textbooks must begin to present a realistic view of both men and women's roles in life. The Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada is justified in its demand that the 'provinces and territories adopt text-books that portray women, as well as men in diversified roles and occupations.' The parochial conception of the woman's role is changing and our children's education and the textbooks used therein must reflect this change. Women want to be seen as the truly whole people that they are. They want their image to reflect their potential. Classroom textbooks must represent this change. No longer must women remain in frustration. page four—pedestal—april '72 Working Women's Association is urging everyone to boycott the Medieval Inn in Gastown. The Inn fired most of its waitresses and cut wages for serving banquets from $4 to $2 an hour. Oppose the arbitrary power of employers to hire, fire, set wages and job conditions. Support other working women. BOYCOTT the Medieval Inn. For details of the Inn story, see March Pedestal. photo by rob ubo "our own union Like most women workers, office and service workers at UBC are not organized into a union. They face the university administration as individuals, with no power over their working conditions, no guarantee of job security, no control of job classifications and hiring and firing. Since last fall, UBC employees have been confronting the idea of organizing. Both CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) and OTEU (Office and Technical Employees Union) have been signing up members at UBC. The fact that there were two unions, competing with each other, made it hard for pro-union staff to explain to their workmates the need for UBC workers to unite around their common interests. The fact that the union officials represented large bureaucratic organizations and that they controlled all information about the organizing drives, made it difficult to explain a basic principle of unionism: that workers collectively should have power, over their working lives. Frustration was building up (see articles in February and March Pedestals). Then, early in March, Madeleine Parent of the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union spoke at UBC and explained her critique of international unions, counter- posing democratic Canadian unions. Several UBC workers concluded that they need an independent union, so that control of policy and funds remains in the hands of those who are directly affected. This statement of their position is reprinted from the Ubyssey (UBC student paper) of March 23. The description of the situation of a UBC secretary (page 7) is reprinted from the Ubyssey Of March 7. We need a union. Last year the average wage increase for secretaries was 3.5% while the cost of living rose 5%. And beyond wages that keep up with living costs, we need daycare provisions, the kind of programs and subsidies for study the Commission on Post- Secondary Education in Ontario recommends and job classifications which fit all we actually do—all the things we can only negotiate through a union. But is CUPE or OTEU the best solution? What if we are under the thumb of a union executive that won't back up what we vote to negotiate for? What if we as a local eventually choose to invest our dues (which would be around $50,000 to $70,000 a year) not only in strike funds, but, say, in a free union training school or in interest-free loans to projects within the community? Whatever we want to do, we must have local autonomy. In the^rH¥e¥rfaflott(u' ^T&P^c&ftStrtufibn,' the president (in New York) has sole power to 'interpret the laws,' e.g. the whole constitution. The president appoints all union organizers in the international union. He must approve all bylaws of local unions with the international executive board (two out of 13 of whom are Canadian, and at the moment the one who represents western Cananda resides most of each week in Seattle.) He even appoints the delegates to regional councils or conventions—or OTEU representatives at the CanadTan|;Labour Congress. The first duty of the executive board is to 'perform such duties as may be determined and assigned to them by the president in carrying out the objectives of the international union,' and these officials must approve all strike funds and all investments. Union funds shall be expended only 'to accomplish the purposes of the international union.' If any member of a union or any local union engages in'any activity or course of conduct which it is deemed bythe executive board to be contrary or detrimental to the welfare or best interests of the international union' that person or local can be suspended or expelled. The president doesn't even need to wait for the executive board: 'When any situation is presented to the president which the president finds to be a matter of emergency and that the interests of the international union reasonably require his action, the president is empowered to suspend...any officer or member of any local union...' and further, 'to suspend a local union and appoint a trustee over its affairs,' which means that all records, funds and assets of the local are seized, 'until such time as procedures hereinafter set forth are complied with.' The "procedures" are the trial procedures in which the president appoints both the hearing officer (prosecutor) and the hearing board (jury) and then makes the final verdict himself (judge) on their report. If a local wishes to withdraw from the international, "all its funds, books and records shall become the property of the international union," only to be returned if it is reconsttuted by the international (on its terms) within one year. In the CUPE constitution, there are many of the same huge powers granted to central authority, e.g. the national president is the sole interpreter of the constitution; in what he judges are 'cases of emergency,' he can place a local under an administrator (trusteeship)—but to each of these powers some checks are provided. His actions are subject to review by the national executive board and the convention (which meets every two years, while OTEU conventions are every three years.) The national executive board, made up of regional representatives, has the power to suspend locals if it "Abelievesvthe local 'may b^dominated, controlled or substantially influenced...by any corrupt influences or that its...activities are contrary to the prin- . ciples...of CUPE' (and these principles are very vague). This is quite a bit of power in the hands of 11 regional representatives (out of a total membership of 136,127.) If CUPE weren't so large, the executive board could be made up of one member per local, which is the case in the constitution of the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers, an independent union. Can local autonomy be a reality in a bureaucracy of such size? We think our own independent union is the answer. We can write our own constitution ensure that it is democratic and that we can control our own fate. The argument against an independent union is that we would be too weak to be effective. There are 1,200 of us at UBC. From our own dues we will have more than enough funds to cover all our needs once we are certified. Until then, while we are writing a constitution and establishing ourselves as a union, we will be protected. The Canadian Association of Industrial^ and Allied Workers, simply because it wants to see more independent unions happen, has offered us a free lawyer and a free, experienced negotiator. .Before you sign a card, think. Best of all, think with us. Independence is the best idea. ^andxinonanzi nzoj taLki I VICTORIA—Over 3500 names on petitions urging governmental intervention in the Sandringham Private Hospital strike in Victoria were presented to Labor Minister James Chabot. On March 20 a delegation from various women's and church groups met with Mr. Chabot to further emphasize the necessity of governmental concern in this situation in which the women employees have been on strike for a year and a half. The discussion continued for over an hour with the delegation stressing the issues of women's rights in particular, and the rights to a collective voice and human rights in general, and the fact that these issues were of such magnitude that interested groups would never allow this case to-die unresolved. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Chabot agreed to arrange a meeting of the management and union representatives to sit down and talk. This is the first positive step prdmised by the government. apr.il '72—pedestal—page five ABOUT BILL THREE... On Thursday, March 16 there was a rally at the I PNE gardens to oppose Bill 3. This is new legislation which would limit the salaries of teachers and maybe other school employees. It was raining fiercely but people seemed more numerous than the raindrops, until there were 3,000-. 3500 packed inside. You could tell it was an important event not only from the number of people attending, but by the fact that all the speakers sitting on the platform were men. The first of the men to speak was Jim Macfarlane of the BCTF executive, then John Fryer of the B.C. Government Employees Union, then Harry Green of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees). Most of the membership of these unions are women, but apparently there aren't many women on the executives. These men told irs we were there to defend collective bargaining. They said we should go out from there determined to defeat Bill 3. They said we were scapegoats in the phoney war against inflation. They said everyone should be willing to stand up and be counted. They said it was all part of a,deliberate plot to impose wage controls. John Fryer demanded, that the government should answer yes or no about whether or not they believe in collective bargaining. All of which was rather hackneyed and boring, but the crowd yelled, cheered and applauded every speaker. I guess that's what you're supposed to do at rallies. Harry Green said there must be four unities: 1) each group must unite for massive resistance, 2)all groups must get together in the battle and the slogan should be 'full collective bargaining rights for all public employees' so nobody would get turned off, 3) unity with the trade union movement and 4) unity with elected officials, public bodies, community groups. There is only one way to go, Harry Green said, forward into the eye of the storm, but we didn't seem to be goirtg.'-' Ray Haynes for the B.C. Federation of Labour called us'brothers and sisters' and said it might sound strange but it might grow on us. He said there was no difference between teachers and any other worker and the audience applauded as much as they had before. Ray Haynes' specific suggestions for the BCTF were: 1) publicity, 2) political action 3) affiliation with the B.C. Federation of Labour and 4) economic action (strikes) as a last resort. That was the high point of the rally. After him came Derril Warren, leader of the Progressive Conservatives. He was really funny and did a caricature of the P.C.'s which was rather strange. Barrie Clark did the nextelectionrally speech on behalf of the Liberals. He said Bennet only recognized the power of thevote and it wasn't enough to rally; join an alternative party, get behind the candidates who stand for the principles you believe in. Dave Barrett, cute and curly-haired, told us Bill 3 was not a new fight and that the NDP until now had been alone in their fight against compulsory arbitration. The NDP always fights for the dignity of the individual in the free society. He said we should all vote NDP. For the question period, people lined up at two ^microphones to make comments. About the 7th one was a woman, the first woman who had spoken that evening. The chairman said he was 'more than pleased" to recognize the speaker at microphone 2'. She was a John Oliver student who said students were also against Bill 3. There were more comments and several more women, the last of whom was Lorraine Sanger of the BCGEU. She said something platitudinous but militant like that the Socreds were going to get a boot in the rear. The chairman said that whoever said it about the more deadly of the species was right. And those two were the only references to the existence of women the entire evening. m THE SOCREDS' UPSIDE-DOWN PRIORITIES 80%of Hospital Employees Union members earn less than average wage. Elementary and secondary education expenditures declined from 23.2% of BC government revenue in 1962- 63 to 19.7% in 1972-73. BC hospitals have the lowest ratio of staff to patients in Canada. Bill 3 Section 140A "An agreement made ... either by negotiation or by arbitration that provides for an increase in salary and bonus in excess of a percentum amount prescribed by the regulations shall not be binding upon the Board or the teachers ... unless the Board has obtained the assent of the owner- electors . . . for the payment of the excess." This makes negotiations between teachers and school boards meaningless. It means that teachers' salaries will be determined by government decrees (by the Minister of Education or by the Cabinet) rather than by collective bargaining. Bill 3f is another stage in the government's attack on teachers and the BC Teachers' Federation (BCTF). Last year, the government attempted to weaken the teachers' organization by changing the Public Schools Act so that BCTF membership is now voluntary. Before that, membership was automatic for all teachers. But nearly all teachers in the province maintained their membership in BCTF. Now the government has abolished the teachers' right to collective bargaining. Bargaining on behalf of teachers is a major function of teachers associations and the BCTF. Of the minority of women workers . who belong to unions, most are public employees. Bill 3 undercuts the rights of all those workers to bargain collectively. Hospital employees, BC government employees, municipal and regional employees are all represented, along with the BCTF and CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) on the committee of unions opposing Bill 3. Perhaps the PNE rally, the establishment of the committee of unions, and the resolutions of the BCTF convention, indicate that teachers are becoming more conscious of themselves as workers, more determined to rely on their own collective strength, and better able to fight and defeat Bill 3. However, the B.C. Federation of Labor and its affiliates have a sad history of responding to anti-labor laws with mass rallies and nothing else. ... And Other Laws For mpo on bhfc Worktna wbrrifejvs AV&orLvca'u £6^-0525 or aorr\fe. to a «\*jfe.cvnrt a?# '111 111 <.<»*£. cnifcnqrir* In the course of organizing on the job, working women find themselves hampered in two ways: First by the employer who always wants to increase profits and keep his workers divided and weak. Second, we are hindered by the provincial government. On the one hand, the government enacts and enforces antiunion, anti-organizing legislation, and on the other hand, it is negligent in enforcing the few laws which do exist to protect working people and their right to organize. The Dept. of Labor has three main bodies which deal with three different areas of legislation. The first is the Board of Industrial Relations which is concerned with standards and conditions of work, such as minimum rates of pay, hours of work, payment of wages and court cases regarding noncompliance on the part of companies with protective legislation. The Labor Relations Board is concerned with certification, unionizing, mediation and conciliation of labor disputes. Working women attempting to organize have had the most contact with this Board. The third body is the Human Rights Commission which is supposed to police the Human Rights Act which supposedly prevents discrimination on a number of grounds, including sex. All three bodies have essentially the same members, so conceivably, if you filed three separate grievances,, you would end up having all three judged by the same people. When the Medieval Inn fired its waitresses, the Dept. of Labor inspector referred to their statements" as "allegations". The Labor Relations Board refused to recognize their union, and the Board of Industrial Relations refused to allow the women pay for the ,la$t-.day. they wenL^o^sw.ork. The inspe£,tp.r;)lwho denied their right to be paid for their last day of work was also the inspector who reported (negatively) to the Labor Relations Board on their application for union certification. What the Inn women discovered was a Department of Labor bureaucracy that was not interested in their situation and that chose to take the word of the (male) owner over the statements of 15 women workers. Although the law states that no individual may be fired for union organizing or union activity, two women at Smitty's Pancake House were fired — and banned from the restaurant — clearly because the company knew they were activists in the union drive. The Labor Relations Board did nothing to stop the illegal firings. They waited two and a half months before taking any action, and then ruled against the waitresses, again without giving any reason (see Pedestal Feb. '72). The Department of Labor, and its Labor Relations Board, purports to be an impartial body — committed to guaranteeing the rights of workers and ensuring some justice for people attempting to organize. What their bureaucracy means in fact, though, is endless waiting (which in businesses where there is a high turnover of employees is bound to help management keep the unions out) and after the waiting, whaLdo we get? They deny our rights to organize without giving grounds for such refusals. What this means is that we have no way of knowing exactly what their criteria are. Working women organizing face not only an in-, dividual company, but a government bureaucracy and system of labor laws that represent all the employers of BC. To win we will need to challenge those laws and confront that bureaucracy.. . ■■ page six—frede«lal—april^ ^ THEY SHOULD CALL IT DOLLAR — 49 BILL Bill 49, which is to receive final reading as we go to press, gives Gagliardi, the Minister in charge of welfare, the power to determine who is eligible for welfare, the power to fix the social assistance rate for those who qualify for welfare, and the power to discontinue, reduce or increase the amount of social assistance a welfare recipient may have. We talked to Toni Cowlishaw today. She's a mother on welfare with seven daughters. "The best string of luck I ever had," she says. At the time of her much-publicized, much distorted court case, the papers said she had six daughters, but they were not counting the one who was living away from home at the time. That's another story-how the government allots more welfare for children if they live separate from their parents, and how the children sometimes decide that things would be better that way. Toni gave me the following information. The reactions are ours. Since the federal government in Ottawa pays 50 percent of the cost of welfare and the city of Vancouver pays 51 percent for those who live in this city, why does the provincial government, which pays only 35 percent, think it can be the only body which can decide who gets welfare and how much? Three guesses. The legislature as a whole should determine eligibility and rates, if a decision is to be made about how its 35 percent is to be spent. I,t would be more humane if the people who receive the.dole from the government were to have some say in the matter, but humanity and logic are not the key words in Victoria, or hadn't you noticed? The majority of the people on welfare are deserted mothers with children, and the 6.5 percent increase in welfare rates was an obvious way to buy off poor people. They can't help but feel grateful, when they have so little, and they are going to get a little more. Odd that the increase comes in an election year, just like the last increase. What is being done? Various welfare rights groups-you mean they THINK THEY HAVE RIGHTS? - have formed a coalition and the Vancouver Community Legal Assistance Society has been asked by the coalition to launch court action against the Dept. of Welfare (or whatever euphemism they are going under now- rehabilitation or inspiration or whatever) once Bill 49 becomes law. To get the case into court requires $50 and donations of even $1 would help them out. Send of you can to: David Mossop Community Legal Assistance Society 513 East Broadway Vancouver, B.C. When the test case goes to court, women can help other women by being in court to lend moral support, and outside the court to show their solidarity. Oh, another thing about the new bill:it has removed the vital words "necessities essential to maintain or assist in maintaining a reasonably normal and healthy existence" from the Welfare Act. The courts will be closed to welfare recipients and access is to be to the Lieutenant-Governor inCouncil, which in effect is the cabinet - P.A. Gagliardi and friends again. In 2 or 3 weeks there is to be a rally to try to get togetherness on the left instead of the usual fragmen- tation:the teachers (BCTF), unionists(B.C.Fed.), pensioners and welfare recipients. If two Social Crediters can cross the floor, why not all? What if they held an election, and nobody voted Socred' MANIPULATION w This month we got a letter from Seattle. 'Dear Sisters,' it began, 'Could you please print the enclosed statement soon? I know it is long but the SWP-YSA manipulation of independent feminist groups has become a dangerous thing on this side ofthe border and many of us in Seattle feel that our Canadiani sisters must know what is happening. It isn't unique to Seattle.' The statement itself is, of course, unreadable and unprintable. It's too angry, too specific, too rhetorical. It was written at the end of a long and heated debate apparently—it refers obliquely to events and arguments that we just don't know about. At the same time, it attempts to put its position with | in an enormous theoretical framework. The result is an oddly familiar combination of gossip and mysticism. (Almost all position papers sound this way. Sigh.) Nevertheless, the letter and the statement do raise—or at least refer to— important issues. And receiving that letter provides as good an excuse as any for talking about those issues in the Pedestal. The Seattle women who sent us the statement thought that a small group of women were deliberately trying to manipulate a larger group. Whether we call it manipulation or not— and whether or not it is—most of us who have been in groups for a while are familiar with the feeling that some kind of invisible power arrangements are determining what happens. Sometimes we're wrong. New to the group,perhaps, unused to acting ourselves, and unfamiliar with the ways of groups, we find ourselves at first unable to function in them—to get our ideas across, to feel we belong. Sometimes, however, we're right. Of course, the fact that some members of a group have more power and influence within it doesn't necessarily mean that the strong are manipulating the weak. Lots of other things can make a group less collective than it might (and should) be. But sometimes—and whether what happened in Seattle was one of those times or not doesn't really matter— a small group does try to manipulate a larger group. And that, sisters, is very, very bad. How can a small group control a large one? Well, one way is by meeting separately to talk things over and decide on issues and strategy. This can happen formally (as the Seattle group is claiming happened with the SWP—YSA) or informally. It probably could even happen without the in-group itself being quite aware of what it was doing. Once several women in a group share a fairly well-articulated position, they can dominate the whole group. The rest of the women come to the meetings with feelings, ideas and questions, expecting to figure things out with their sisters there. But the clique members just sound so together. Their statements are so clear, their opinions so firmly held. Usually this confident unity is enough to control the group—particularly so long as the other women aren't quite aware of the clique's existence, particularly when the clique is informal and its members occasionally disagree. "sfcaa,{- ■" An informal clique can really hurt a group. One of our great strengths as a movement is our openness to the diversity of women's experiences and understandings. When we shut ourselves off from each other by joining cliques, when we shut ourselves off from •ourselves by following a line, we damage our sisters, ourselves, and our movement. A formal clique is a different kind of problem. I don't know of any other purpose for one than manipulation. A formal clique will only stiffle free exchange of ideas while it is unacknowleged or mndiscovered; thereafter its existence will precipitate increasingly bitter and desperate struggles. In the early stages, the existence of a formal clique will hamper the group's effectiveness. Later, it may destroy the group, even make it impossible for any group to exist for a while, till the wounds are healed. Right now, I think, we know very much less than we need to know. We need the open and honest searching of many different women, and we need to be able to talk and work together as well as we can. So we should, I think, discover, confront and dissolve our cliques, from the inside as well as the outside. (Stick around long enough and you see both sides of the wall. For one thing cliques foster counter- cliques...) «Jiw^«» ^1 "72—pede&tal—jpage s« <wLnarii'j^amswfii Loiz riEx ^oaipxji imiLz ana Lzaxn to kick Ify: a±± QJ? « a.. I da loux coon aamn co\ yy\x. & » offe, onzs. reprinted from the Ubyssey 1 GIRLS! are you looking for a fulfilling job, a job with a future, guaranteed to eliminate your self respect, distort your value, reduce you to a mindless, servile, lowly blob or a simpering sweet dolly? Then become a secretary! And if you want a job that eliminates any fear that you might actually be a human being, then become a secretary in a university department! Perhaps you thought that lowly freshmen held the bottom rung of the university status ladder—wrong, even lower than the fresbmen are the clerical staff: the paper typers, the messengers, the coffee makers, the file keepers of the world. Let's drink to the hardworking people, to the salt of the earth...how frustrated 1 get when so many students and professors—some of them freaks and supposedly so hip to the troubled state of the world—run around the department I work in and look through me, oblivious to the fact that I am more than just an extension of my typewriter, or a producer of letters and other academic bullshit, who recognize my existence only and tokenly when they have some minor clerical problem that falls within my limited range of ability. Charity begins at home. Secretaries are supposed to be pleasant, smiling, attractive, amenable, passive. You are not supposed to be bad-tempered, or ugly, or smell. You are either treated like a retard or a child and have every word spelled out to you with microscopically detailed instructions, or you are expected to be a mind reader and to know what you're supposed to do by telepathy. There is only a stock approach to secretaries, a standard method of relating to the girl behind the typewriter—nobody acknowledges the fact that you're different or an individual, nobody relates to you as you are, you are only approached by the standard secretary approach method. We mustn't let our bosses down, we must play out the role. You start off compromising and playing the obliging, simpering secretary role because you want to keep your job and your pay cheque, and before too long, you really Ibelieve in keeping them happy and earning that rewarding little pat on the head from time to time. At home their wives wait on them—and in the office, their secretaries do. And how many secretaries really believe in it and lovingly regard their bosses as some sort of surrogate husband-father-lover figure? We love masters, we crave their approval, we sell ourselves out to oblige, because we have so well assimilated the values that kept us in our lowly position with our negative expectations. Happy, happy niggers. by Sara Gunnard Willingly we rush out to get him his coffee and cigarettes, obligingly, we sit in gaggles over coffee break and giggle and act cute and simple, discussing our ailments, husbandi and-or boyfriends, recipes and other trivia, so that the brilliant scholars can talk academia and feel so , clever and superior. Nothing like a secretary to lift a jaded male ego. My eyes have seen: the professor who complains that he could do a better job on keeping files, or the professor who can also type who sneers because he can do my job in his stride, I have no special or secret talents, I am just a greater convenience, and besides, he had more demanding things to do, and of course it's not work an intelligent person would like to do anyway. But it's my job, it's what I'm given to do, to fill one-third of my day, five days a week. Or the secretary that works overtime, unrewarded for it, because it's expected of her, she's supposed to be dedicated. Or meeting Professor Schmuckatella at a movie downtown, who's all smiles and hallos and leering looks in the office in the daytime, but who doesn't: see or acknowledge my existence out of the office context. Or the first name business, where right from the first day on the job, I'm addressed by my first name, not out of friendship or familiarity or even by my consent, but because of my position in the hierarchy. You can work for someone for 50 years but he will still be Mr. Smith or Dr. Jones. There is no room for satisfaction or pride in our work, or any feeling of labor. I tediously type and type, Only to have what I've done returned to me for retyping when I'm finished because the professor made a mistake or changes his mind and wants to substitute'nevertheless' for 'but'. Not a thought that it might discourage you to see your work returned on a whimsical change of mind. There is no concept in his mind that this is my handicraft, my product. Why should I even expect that at all? Am I not just the typist? I am not part of the creative process, I am just part of the replication process. Why are typists rarely, if ever, mentioned in the acknowledgements of a paper, regardless of what they've put into that paper, in terms of time and labor and care, in producing a perfectly neat copy, reading illegible handwriting, correcting spelling and grammar mistakes, etc? And what of all the sad little delusions the typist might have about her own importance, about putting her best into her work, about having pride in doing a job well? The small low boss's upper-c; a letter stand as z her individuality i r-case initials she types after her se initials at the end of silent, tiny plea for recognition of > the typist. Who cares anyway? Dare anybody seek satisfaction in the things they do for a wage, or are we all supposed to accept our alienation and estrangement from our labor as part of the whole picture, as a necessary drawback to being a wage-earner in society? Some of us actually don't want a man to support us, we want to be self-sufficient. And then there are the working conditions. A woman can work for years and years in her job—but she will gain only years, no promotion, no official recognition, no increased remuneration other than her annual $10raise. Quoted from the Office and Technical Employees Union, in comparing the grades of secretaries, taken from the UBC scales: Secretary II, Stenographer II, Department secretary—preferred qualifications: high school graduation plus business training, ability to type 60 w.p.m., and to take and transcibe shorthand at 110 w.p.m. Four years experience at.the University or its equivalent—salary: $401-495'. A cleaner (no previous experience) in the B.C. government service is paid $490-533 a month. What can be done, short of elimination ofthe secretarial role altogether? Asecretary with the ability should be given greater responsibility and independence and respect— and remuneration—as is the case with other capable intelligent workers in business. Secretaries need not be supervised like children or have their wrists slapped because they are a few minutes late or because they did not follow office procedures to the letter. Moreover, it would surely help if they were treated as separate individual human beings, with different natures, abilities, personalities, etc. Of course secretaries themselves need to develop a better attitude towards their profession, and towards themselves—they should not feel so subservient, they need to be less'^compromising and pliable, less satisfied with,what they have at present, they should be more as^lrtive, more sure of themselves, more demanding and have more respect. They should organize together, not just for better conditions and wages, but also to help develop a stronger, more affirmative attitude towards themselves as workers and women. See also page 5 ;e eight—pedestal—apr\l '72 PUBLICjSU I don't remember when I first learned that I wasn't to talk to strangers. By the time I realized that I knew it, it was already deeply implanted in my consciousness. I don't remember if my mother actually sat me down and told me about not hopping into strange cars; I just knew that I shouldn't - and that the friendly smiling driver was not necessarily (or likely) my friend. I don't even remember when I first became afraid of walking home after dark; I do remember the countless whistles, obscenities, hot hands grabbing, red faces leering . . . but that was as I got older. That was, and, is, my reality. I'm a woman and the world is not a safe place for a woman walking alone. Section 135: Criminal Code of Canada A male person commits rape when he has sexual intercourse with a female person who is not his wife, (a) without her consent, or (b) with her consent if ihe consent is extorted by threats or fear of bodily harm, is obtained by impersonating her husband, or by false and fraudulent representations as to the nature and quality of the act. No man can be accused of raping his wife, even if she doesn't consent, even if she yields to him only out of fear for her life. Of course this is so, for how can any man be accused of stealing that which already belongs to him? This law is clearlydesigned to protect, not the woman, but the man's sexual property. An article in the Yale Law Review (1952- 53) explains why the preservation of the bodies of women is important to men: In our society sexual taboos, often enacted into law, buttress a system of monogamy based upon the law of free bargaining' of. the potential spouses. Within this process the woman's power to withhold or grant sexual access is an important bargaining weapon. PART 2 I knew who these people were, you understand. It wasn't the kids down the street who just whistled and lipped a bit and looked at me kinda funny at times. And it wasn't even the guys in the cars, guys ya didn't know, that would drive along beside ya real slow and try and coax ya into the car - and I kept thinking, well, I can always run into somebody's house, except there was that nasty stretch by the railroad tracks with no houses, and you could taste the fear just a little bit. But they would go away, spin their tires and shriek off into the night to coax someone else, and they were probably just neighbourhood kids too, some other neighbourhood, I guessed. No, the Rapists, they were different. They were crazed, staring, befanged, drooling maniacs driven by the BLOOD LUST. I was younger then. Later on, I read my mother's true detective magazines (she hid them in her underwear drawer, and I was always careful to put them back where I found them), and discovered that most rapists didn't have fangs or long black capes; they looked like ordinary people. And from reading the stories of their crimes, it became apparent that they were ordinary people, who in fact did not drool or stare or cackle maniacally, but who were driven by THE BLOOD LUST just the same (only more quietly). Only it turns put now, you see, that they aren't driven by the b lood lust at all-and that can give us more insight into the nature of the Rapist and the nature of his crimei^^^^atS WHAT ARE THEY LIKE? I had decided that since rape is such an inhuman act, anyone who did it had to be inhuman, Le. insane. Not so. Rapists share the same characteristics as the majority of the male population. They are not psychologically abnormal, nor are they disturbed. They may have hang-ups, but so do most guys walking around on the streets. Furthermore, few rapes are a result of overwhelming impulse. It is estimated that 90percent of 'gangbangs' are planned in advance; that 83 percent of pair rapes are planned in advance; and that 58 percent of single rapes are planned in advance. Many people still believe that men have to be taught not to rape; that if it weren't for social controls, all men would be rapists. We need only examine North American culture to see that rape, whether preplanned or impulsive, is a logical result of cultural and sexual values. When we compare our society with other cultures it becomes more apparent that it is RAPE that is learned here. We learn the myth that male sexuality is overwhelming and uncontrollable, and that the responsiblity for cooling things out, whether after a date with the high school-football star or rapist, is the responsiblity of the woman. In this light, examine the very prevalent attitude that altho rape is illegal, it is very understandable. The poor fellow got carried away...and we (andhe) accept that. At the same time we expect the male to be aggressive, we expect that the female be passive, and we have a convenient companion myth that women secretly want to be raped. Deep in our hearts, ladies, we harbour a secret desire to be ravished. This is obviously a male fantasy;thanks to Masters and Johnson, it is clear that "wham! bang!" is scarcely pleasurable for the female. Still, men persist in the belief that all protestations and struggles to the contrary, the female victim, down deep in her mysterious feminine soul, wants it — and provokes it. What a neat rationalization, not only for the actual rapists , but for the many armchair experts who can vicariously enjoy the experience through detailed accounts of violent rapes in the-media without having to leave the comfort of their own living rooms. The violence is inseparable from the sexuality of rape. Our culture links the two inextricably; James Bond "alternately whips out his revolver and his cock", and pacifism is regarded as suspiciously effeminate. Men are supposed to be aggressive and domineering, and no less so in their sexual behaviour then in any other role. Thus rape isthe ultimate fusion of eroticism and powers and a penultimate expression of sexual potency and masculinity. Nowhere is this clearer than in the ritual of rape to prove masculinity. We tend to associate group rape, through media exposure, with 'bikers' or 'greasers' or Hell's Angels — all the bad guys. We overlook the fact that 'good guys' have similar rituals; we forget that bachelor parties 'celebrating' the coming nuptials of the groom, frequently feature a 'go-go dancer' or 'entertainer' whom the groom expects (and is expected by all the good guys assembled) to screw. In Stockton, a small town in California which epitomizes silent-majority America, a bachelor party was given last summer for a young man about to be married. A woman was hired to dance "topless" for the amusement of the guests. At the high point of the evening the bridegroom-to-be dragged the woman into a bedroom. No move was made by any of his companions to stop what was clearly going to be an attemped rape. Far from it. As the woman described, "I tried to keep him away-told him of my Herpes Genitalis, et cetera, but he couldn't face the guys if he didn't screw me." After the bridegroom had finished raping the woman and returned with her to the party, far from chastizing him, his friends heckled the woman and covered her with wine. She was lucky that the other 'good guys' didn't follow the groom into the bedroom. Heavily outnumbered as the victim may be, it is clear from numerous studies that more force rather than less, is exerted in group rape; the rapists egg each other on. OUR CULTURE NOT ONLY TEACHES MEN THE RUDIMENTS OF RAP!= ] BUT SOCIETY OR MOKE SPECIFICALLY OTHER. MEN,ENCOUR/^E THE PRACTICE OF IT april '72—pedestal—page n AME AND PRIVATE GUIIT EVERY A\AM I MEET WANTS TO PROTECT A\E. CANT FIGURE OUT WHAT FROM,. -A\AE WEST There is a sexual schizophrenia in cultural definitions of what is correct masculine behaviour. On the one hand, men are expected to be aggressive and dominating in their sexual behaviour, but they •are also championed (and must live up to the image) as proteetor of Women. But it is not, therefore, a -division of men into them what rapes and them what protects. In fact, those men who most fervently believe in virginity and chastity (for women, naturally) are most likely to commit" this aggressive variety of sexual exploitation." In the system of chivalry, men protect women against men. This is not unlike the protection relationship which the mafia established with small businesses in the early part of this century. Indeed, chivalry is an age-old protection racket which depends for its existence on rape. Any woman who does not respect and follow the double standard deserves what she gets, or at the very least, "is asking for it." Thus, in the courtroom, if the victim admits to having sexual relationships at at all, she admits to being defiled and valueless - and therefore unable to be further violated. In a sexist society that is prevasively racist as well, the prevailing attitude is that women of minority groups (Indian, Mexican, black) cannot, in essence, be raped at all, since they are by definition valueless and impure. Third World women frequently do not report rape and for good reason. When blues singer Billie Ho 11 id ay was 10 years old, she was taken off to a local house by a neighbour and raped. Her mother brought the police to rescue her, and she was taken to the local police station crying and bleeding:"When we got there, instead of treating me and Mom like somebody who called the cops for help they treated me like I'd killed somebody . . . I guess they had me figured for having enticed this old goat into the whorehouse . . . All I know for sure is they threw me into a cell. . . a fat white matron . . . saw I was bleeding, she felt sorry for me and gave me a couple of glasses of milk. But nobody else did anything for me except give me filthy looks and snicker to themselves. After a couple of days in a cell they dragged me into court. Mr. Dick got sentenced to five years. They sentenced me to a Catholic institution. Clearly the white man's chivalry is aimed only to protect the chastity of "his" women." PART 3 WHEN SHE IS GOOD... SHE IS VULNERABLE. Of course, I'm a good girl. I keep my knees together when I sit down, and keep my eyes modestly lowered in public places and never acknowledge that I even know men exist (except for my husband, and sometimes I'm not too sure about him.) So I won't get raped. That's what the police say women should do. Don't trust strangers. Don't go out alone. Lock your doors. And above all, "of course, you don't have to be paranoid about this type of thing." Don't provoke it and you'll be safe; that's what they say. But it's not true. 80 - 85 percent of rape victims are of "good reputation". Staying off the streets doesn't seem to help much either;half the cases reported are committed in the victim's home by a man she's never seen before. Rape can happen to any woman, "good" or "bad", and it's a reality few women forget. 1 The greatest irony is that the male code of chivalry provides women with a complimentary code of behaviour called femininity. This behaviour may not ward off the possibility of being raped, but "femininity" contributes substantially to the possibility of the rape succeeding. To be feminine is to defer to masculine strength, to be submissive; to be feminine is to wear skirts that hamper movement, shoes that make it difficult to run. The very costume that is thought to be flattering to the female and attractive to the male is the one which makes it nigh on to impossible to defend oneself from attack. Passivity itself stops women from thinking in terms of self-defense. We are taught to fear, and yet we are taught to look for protection to the one we fear. Truly we do not have freedom to be - without fear. PART 4 What functions does rape serve then? Has it any positive value in our society ? (That may seem to be an obscene question even to pose, but after all, our society has its obscenities). From what we understand about the nature of rape, we can see that this act of violence plays a useful role in maintaining control in our society (useful to-whom? Not to the victim.) Rape is a form of terrorism which limits the mobility and independence of women, and maintains their dependence on other men for protection. Furthermore, rape is an outlet by which a less powerful man can vent his anger and frustration against another man through an attack on his woman. For every man there is someone lower on the social scale on whom he can take out his aggressions. And that is any woman alive. At the same time, it deflects righteous anger into channels which do nothing to change the social system which generates this anger. It leaves unchallenged the white, male ruling class. Rape is an act of aggression in which the victim is denied her self-determination. It is an act of violence which, if not actually followed by beatings or murder, neverthless always carries with it the threat of death. And finally, rape is a form of mass terrorism, for the victims of rape are chosen indiscriminately, but the propagandists for male supremacy broadcast that it is women who cause rape by being unchaste or in the wrong place at the wrpng time-in essence, by behaving as though they were free. The threat of rape is used to deny women employment, and it is a real threat. The fear of rape keeps women locked in their homes, locked in traditional roles, hoping to avoid that violation of personal space by chaste behaviour. Some women want to grasp freedom:learn self defense. Yet we cannot be free until the threat of violence, of attack, is removed. To remove that threat, it is clear that the nature of men's behaviour must undergo a fundamental change. We see rape not as an isolated and incomprehensible act of impulse. Rather, it is the logical outgrowth of a patriarchal society which values power and profit above all things. The same power structure that victimizes women is engaged in the rape of Vietnam and of 'underdeveloped' countries, the rape of our environment, and rape of native peoples. Rape is the classic act of domination, and only a revolution in our society can end such domination. -r^Sh*'^ Bibliographica This was shamelessly plagiarized from Susan Griffin's article in Ramparts (Sept. 1971) called "Rape: the AU-American Crime." It is highly recommended as a more detailed and coherent analysis of the functions and dynamics of rape. Another article with more information on Canada is Erna Paris' "Nice Girls Don't Get Raped, Do They?" in Chatelaine (Sept.1971) ) page ten—pedestal—april '72 "Not to have confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in onesself." Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex don't take your rape to court, babe Rape is one of the most difficult crimes to take to court, involving as it does, the unsupported testimony of one person against another. Because the penalties are so heavy, the defense attorney is allowed considerable leeway in questioning the complainant. Unlike most court cases, the defense does not have to restrict questions to the evidence presented, or even to the specific events before the court. The whole of the victim's sexual and social history can be exposed to the court: the question of the woman's morals becomes of critical importance in determining rape. A former crown attorney for the Province of Ontario said: "In cases of rape, the complainant is as much on trial as the defendant." If a woman has had voluntary sexual relationships with men to whom she is not married, it immediately raises the question of why she said no this time. In fact, it becomes problematical that she even has the right to say no. The deck is stacked against the woman in court. Generally the jury is all-male; defense attorneys would veto women jurors on the grounds that they would tend to identify with the victim! (What about a jury that identifies with the assailant? Oh, that's fair!) Then there are the sexual myths that operate against women: the myth of impulsive male sexuality, the myth that women provoke sexual assault, the myth that women really like being ravished, the myth that women mean "yes" when they say "no." The humiliation and brutalization that the woman undergoes at the hands of the police and the courts will discourage the angriest of victims from pursuing legal redress. A woman who was raped in Berkeley was asked to tell the story of her rape four different times "right out in the street," while her assailant was ■ escaping. She was then required to submit to a pelvic examination to prove that penetration had taken place. Later, she was taken to the police station where she was asked the same questions again: "Were you forced?" "Did he penetrate?" "Are you sure your life was in danger and you had no other choice?" This woman had been pulled off the street by a man who held a 10-inch knife at her throat and forcibly raped her. She was raped I at midnight and was not able to return home until five in the morning. Police contacted her twice again in the next week, once by telephone at two in the morning and once at four in the morning. In her words, "The rape was probably the least traumatic incident of the whole evening. If I'm ever raped again, ... I wouldn't reported it to the police because of all the degradation. . . ." It boils down to this: unless you are 14 years old, a virgin, and can display grievous wounds to the police and jury, the chances of successfully prosecuting a rapist are slim. The Attorney General of Ontario mused: "I sometimes ask myself what I would do if my wife or daughter were raped. Knowing what I know about the courtroom, I don't know if I'd lay charges." closer to home Women travelling alone on the B.C. Ferry system should be particularly careful. It has come to our attention that an officer on one of the Vancouver ferries has abused his position of public trust to inveigle women travellers into accepting rides with him, and then raping them. An account of his activities follows, from one of his victims: "So far police have received complaints from six of his victims. He was taken to court once and beat the charges. (According to police, a lineup of women nearly convicted him, but a good lawyer won an appeal on a legal technicality.) Another known rape has been committed since then. He is very professional, forcing his victims at knifepoint and leaving no marks or evidence. The Ferries threatened to fire him but failed to because of union difficulties. (Without a conviction, they feel powerless to act against him.) The last two victims, several months apart, signed statements to the Ferries that were nearly identical, according to one official. Each person was approached either on the boat or at Schwartz Bay by a gentlemanly officer in uniform and were engaged in conversation. After being asked a few questions they were offered a ride home in his direction towards Sooke Road. They trusted him because of the uniform and took the ride. Afterwards they were faced with a knife at the throat and were forced to remove their clothing. Resisting the rape, and terrified, they were strangled until they gave in. If reported, he gets himself off the hook by lying, claiming he had sex by consent, and playing on the common idea that men have been framed by women 'crying rape.' He says things like, "She got mad 'cause I didn't give her any money and said I raped her." He is very dangerous, but his violence is normally hidden and he sometimes plays meek. Victims say they never experienced fright so badly in their lives and believed they were going to be murdered." This is no joke. Beware of the ferry rapist! self-defense Karate, combining quick movements with minimum strength, is a method of self-defense admirably suited to women. In the past month I have been taking Karate Kyokushinkai at the Vancouver YMCA. In that time I have been learning the punches, strikes, blocks, twists and shifts of karate that can be used in both offensive and defensive maneuvers. However, as it is presently taught, karate is not an ideal way for a woman to gain a sense of her own body. Traditionally, karate has been a male sport, and no woman in Vancouver has a Black Belt needed to qualify her as an instructress. No woman in my karate class has ever received even the first coloured belt. Since I enrolled in the Vancouver YMCA karate class, I have felt out of place as there are about fifty men to seven women. Women are treated very MhMy,: formally and "respectfully,", at least on the surface, but they are charged half-price and allowed to come only once a week. This gives them a disadvantage as they are not allowed ,to practice as often as the men are. Male chauvinism is masked by the fact that the Karate Code says that everyone must treat everyone else with great respect and humility regardless of rank of belt. The unspoken slogan is "We are all brothers." However, there are many subtle forms of chauvinism towards women. The instructor addresses the class repeatedly as "gentlemen," which is a polite way to ignore the women. The women practice with each other and the men practice with each other. On one occasion the instructor told me to practice with a Black Belt holder. His reaction was "This is the greatest insult of all, to have to practice with a woman." He 'encouraged' me with "Why don't you take ballet. You'll never make it in this class." I have the feeling that the men wish the women would ndt come back though if they do, they will tolerate them. Nevertheless, I feel that I am becoming physically stronger: the knowledge that I can defend myself gives me more courage because I am gaining more control over my life. If you would like to watch a karate class in session, please feel free to come down to the Vancouver YMCA on Saturday from 2:30—5:00. Visitors are welcome. Ms. Joa> Cotti NEEDED: A woman defense instructor in Karate, Taekwon-Do or Tai Chi Please phone the Women's Centre, 511 Carrall Street, Vancouver, at 684-05*23 l_ womans escace In 1966 a long essay by Juliet Mitchell, "Women, the Longest Revolution," was published in New Left Review (no. 40, Dec. 1966). This paper was widely read and. discussed; for many of us who had just become radicals, it was the first attempt that we had seen to deal with women's situation from a Marxist perspective. That essay, essentially unchanged, forms about half of the book under consideration, and provides the basic theoretical framework. Mitchell has added new material which (1) describes the Women's Liberation Movement itself and its background in the radicalism of the sixties and (2) illustrates her theoretical analysis (using the specific situation of women in England and extends the analysis to deal with the ideology and psychology of the family. I've found this a difficult book to review. Even though her work is valuable and important in the questions it raises and the problems it tackles, I disagree quite profoundly with Mitchell's analysis and with her conclusions. Such disagreements however are part of an internal debate within Women's Liberation and to make these public may make them seem more important than they are. But such debate is necessary and we should not (I keep telling myself) be afraid of our differences when these are over questions of fundamental importance. Such disagreements need not divide us. Having said that, let me examine what seems to me to be the major problem with the book. The basic theoretical position is that of the 1966 essay. Mitchell sees women's position as a product of four different factors: The key structures of woman's situation can be listed as follows: Production, Reproduction, Sexuality and the Socialization of Children. The concrete combination of these produce the 'complex unity' of her position; but each separate structure may have reached a different 'moment' at any given historical time. Each then must be examined separately in order to see what the present unity is, and how it might be changed, (p. 101) By Production she means women's participation in wage labour; under Reproduction of Children she discusses contraception, the structure of the family, relationships within it and the ideology that supports these (she does/tor deal explicitly with production of goods and services within the home, either here or elsewhere); Sexuality is discussed in terms of sexual repression and the institutions, like marriage, that maintain such repression ;Socialization of Children concerns the relationship of mothers and their children. Except for the fact that the actual, physical work that women do in the home is not mentioned (relationships are stressed instead) she is talking about all the right things. But her analysis never somehow lets you get a real grip on them. Crucial variables are not clearly defined; relationships between all the factors are not spelled out. Most importantly, she rejects the idea that "woman's condition can be deduced derivatively from the economy"(p.l00), apparently on the grounds of rejecting economic determinism. But to see the economic structure as crucial is not to say that the relationship between it and women's situation is a simple one. The two critical areas seem to me to be Production and Reproduction. About Production, Mitchell says that socialists say that physical weakness is the basis for women's exploited position in commodity production. Since this is no longer a factor in most industrial jobs, the economic pre-conditions for that exploitation have ended (she says); the maintainance of such exploitation she then sees as a kind of culture lag perpetuated by capitalism. The conclusion implicit in this is that Production is relatively unimportant as a determinant in women's lives even though 30-40% of the work force at any one time is female and probably nearly all adult females will work at some time in their lives). What I think she was doing in 1966, when this was developed, was trying to get out of the Old Left trap of seeing women's role in Production as the only important aspect of their lives. In that view, women's revolutionary potential is simply as another (subordinate) part of the working class. In addition, this conclusion leads into her position that the 'super- structural' parts of women's lives are the crucial ones (more on this later). When she discusses reproduction, she points out:...What is true is that the 'mode of reproduc tion' does not vary with the 'mode of production'; it can remain effectively the same through a number of different modes of production. For it has been defined till now by its uncontrollable natural character and to this extent has been an unmodified biological fact. As long as reproduction remained a natural phenomenon, of course, women were effectively doomed to social exploitation, (p. 107) Good so far, but does this mean that the Pill alone will liberate women? Apparently: ...For what it (the Pill) means is that at last the mode of reproduction could be transformed. Once child- bearing becomes totally voluntary (how much so is it in the West, even today?) its significance is fundamentally different. It need no longer be the sole or#ultimate vocation of woman; it becomes one option among others, (p. 108) But this does not take into account the fact that if ' a woman chooses children (and if society is to continue, many women must so choose), her options for raising the children are still unchanged. The 'mode of reproduction' is more than the bearing of a child, it is the whole system by which children are raised — the nuclear, family. When she trys to connect Production and Reproduction, she also ignores this factor: Women's absence from the critical sector of production historically, of course, has been caused • not must by their assumed physical weakness in a context of coercion — but also by their role in reproduction. Maternity necessitates withdrawals from work, but this is not a decisive phenomenon. It is rather women's role in reproduction which has become, in capitalist society at least, the 'spiritual' complement of men's role in production. Bearing children, bringing them up, and maintaining the home — these form the core of woman's natural vocation, in this ideology." (p. 106) Apart from the fact that women are not absent from production (on the contrary they are crucial to it), this seems to say that women withdraw from work because of ideology — not because there is no one else who can take the responsibility for raising children. The whole analysis, it seems to me, can be reformulated in a much more satisfactory way, one which shows more clearly the relationshivs between her four areas and which also included consideration of production in the home. Let us begin with the work that women do. One part of this work is traditionally within a family • structure and centers around the care of children. In by Juliet mitchell review by mcirgaret benston this area of production which even now remains outside the market place, women are the people responsible for the care and maintainance of the family members. Capitalism adds a new dimension since now women are an essential part of the wage labour force. Both structurally (there is no one else to take responsibility for the children) and by socialization, women's priority is their work in the home. It is this that makes them so valuable as workers — it insures that they are a docile, flexible, cheap pool of labour. The family as an economic unit for the maintainance and reproduction of new workers (or new members of the bourgeoisie) is thus both outside of commodity production and a basic part of it. The sexual repression of women, their role as socializers of children and tensionmanagers in their family, the fact that the family is the one place left where intimacy is possible, the importance of the family as a maximizer of consumption — all of these 'superstruetural' things can be seen as contributing to the stability of the family as an economic unit. Mitchell instead wants to make Sexuality and Socialization independent variables. But, for example, marriage patterns, be they monogamy or whatever, are basically aresult of the whole 'mode of reproduction'. Such patterns cannot be changed without fundamental changes in the way that children are brought up and housework done. And that will imply changes in the way that all of the work of the society is done.In rejecting the idea of the primacy of the economic base, Mitchell has abandoned the major tool that Marxism has to offer. Another difficulty in doing this review is that the' book is not internally self-consistent. One reason for this is that the new material shows the Influence of experience and discussion over the last five years. But even apart from-that, one can find support for almost any position (it may be only a sentence or two) and it is hard to grasp Mitchell's actual position in a clear way. If you say, for example, that she does >not give adequate weight to economic factors (which she doesn't) you can find counterinstances where she says she does. Another example: ~J11|I| You can say that she attaches too much importance to consciousness and consumerism, in discussing the sources of radicalism in the sixties, and not enough to the imperialist crises in the Third World and to the economic downturn that started about 1965. That is in fact true, but she does mention Algeria and Cuba and Vietnam, if only in passing. It is necessary almost to deduce her position from the relative amount of space that she gives various factors. Very frustrating! The overall result seems decidedly in favour of the superstruetural — she sees ideological, psychological, cultural, etc., factors as driving forces. The strength of the book is in her insight into these processes — such insight is vitally important in understanding the forces that affect individual lives. In the last chapter, for example, she lays out a brilliant sketch of how the conflicts between women's work in the family and as wage labourers prevents them from developing any militancy or class consciousness. The weakness of the work, and it is one shared by much analysis in the U.S., is in not being able to link these insights to an adequate analysis of the economic forces operating in the society. I have not at all done justice to the depth of thought in this book. It is an important work and if 1 have been critical it is, I hope, in terms of the high goals that Juliet Mitchell set for herself. . page twelve—pedestal—april'72 BY WELEN POTREBENKO A vacuum can only exist, I imagine, by the things which enclose it. Zelda Fitzgerald Zelda Fitzgerald was a racist, fascist, member of the Establishment of the deep South. There is no reason tb like her and it may even be counterrevolutionary. Together, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are examples of the decadence of the bourgeoisie. To like them is to confirm the authority of the ruling class, and the values of racism and dissolution.But Nancy Miiford wrote this book called 'Zelda' and I succumbed and now can only sit around protesting to a imaginary people's court that yes, I know what Zelda was, but she went mad, you see, she couldn't stand what she was any more than we can. She was the American girl living the American dream and she went mad within it. Zelda was born in 1900 and has been dead for more than twenty years already, before half the present population was born, even, so it's all probably irrelevant. But a long time age, I and a lot ofothers of my generation, read Sheilah Graham's 'Beloved Infidel' and fell ijo, love with the romance that was Scott Fitzgerald. Some of us read Ernest Hemingway and many reporters wrote storiqs which keep cropping up of the-life in Paris during those wild days of Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, John dos Passos, Morley Callaghan. Thomas Wolfe gives us a picture of Scott Fitzgerald and the editor of all these writers, Maxwell Perkins. I fervently hope there is now a whole generation growing up who have never, heard of Scott Fitzgerald and maybe I shouldn't be introducing him to people who were joyfully unaware he ever lived. Unfortunately,.nearly everyone knows Scott's friend, Ernest Hemingway, who Zelda and I both despise. She thought Hemingway was a phoney and his novels were all about 'Bullfighting, bullslinging, bullshitting.' It is only proper that Ernest and Zelda should hate each other and each recognize the phoniness ofthe other. Hemingway was the ultimate man, playing the masculine role to its logical conclusion (suicide) and Zelda was the completely feminine woman and did her thing to the bitter end which was suicide (unsuccessful women being too passive to kill themselves properly) and madness. For those who have never been victims of the Fitzgerald legend, the depth of my emotions about the matter may seem incomprehensible. I'm not sure what to say about that, and can only protest that I read Wolfe, Graham, Callaghan and numerous references throughout the years, and it's not nry fault, really, it's not, things like that sort of seep in through the pores and there isn't any way to avoid the influences, one can only try to understand them. The Fitzgeralds were the golden children of the golden age of* America, and are used to make the wickedness and despair of the 20's in eastern U.S. into a le"gend of beauty and fun. Together they personified the immense lure ofthe East, of young fame, of dissolution and early death... Zelda is called the first flapper, Scott is considered the spokesman of an entire gereration. (The Jazz Age) He wasn't no spokesman, he was the mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie instilling the valuesof the ruling class as the dominant values. Zelda, was not a gay abandoned flapper, she was a person playing a role and it drove her mad. She was born in the deep South, to a mother who would have acted on the stage or written boo's, had she not been a woman. She was a woman a ,d her father said he'd rather see her dead than on stage and brought her forcibly home. Once a Louisville publisher asked her to write a novel for him, but she'd had 5 children by then, one of whom had died, and she didn't have the energy to write. Zeida was brought up in the normal way. The young ladies of the [Establishment] families ^wejx^expected to behave themselves, to be m april '72—pedestal—page thirl decorative and charming. One was taught to sit without letting one's back touch the chair, to cross one's ankles, but not one's legs, white gloves were buttoned on before one left the house and remained immaculate in the warmest weather. She rebelled against it all and went quite wild, but she was the daughter of Judge Sayre and beyond criticism. Boys wanted to protect her and she became the wildest, most exciting belle the south had ever known. It's all terribly romantic. Tomboy becomes belle. Meets exciting, handsome Scott Fitzgerald and they lived happily ever after. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered and I was delivered to you to be worn — / want you - to wear me, like a watch-charm or button hole bouquet — to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help — to know that you can't do anything without me. They were married, and tried to live the American ideal only this ain't no fairy tale so Scott Fitzgerald drank himself to death and Zelda went mad. It was an application of business acumen to feminity: you created yourself as a product and you showed yourself with all the flair of a good advertising campaign. Women were to dramatize themselves in their youth, to experiment and be gay; in their old age (in their forties) they would be magically content. . . That this code was potentially destructive and that it would demand its own continual and wearying performance, she did not take into account. They went to wild parties, drank for days and days, said funny things, did all the kinds of stuff people still do when they think they ought to be having fun. Scott undressed at the Scandals. Zelda, completely sober, dived into the fountain at Union Square, and when they moved from the Biltmore to the Commodore they celebrated by spinning around in the revolving doors for half an hour. Dorothy Parker^never forgot meeting Zelda for the first time-astride the hood of a taxi with Scott perched upon the roof. She even wanted her daughter to be a flapper because...flappers are brave and gay and beautiful. That Zelda was straining to create an effect of gay abandon did not seem to occur to anyone. The appearance had not given away. Zelda Fitzgerald went mad in 1924 after her first suicide attempt was unsuccessful. Nobody noticed for 6 years. What is, after all, the difference between a totally disassociated person and the gay and decorative flapper? The suicide attempt was her reaction to the hopelessness and destructiveness of her position, but she couldn't do it right, and then her situation was even more hopeless. She couldn't live and she couldn't die, and she became progressively more disoriented and disassociated. She was first admitted to a mental hospital in 1930 and for the next 18 years, she was to spend most of her life either going into or coming out of hospitals. Scott stuck by her. He wasn't a bad guy. He became rich and famous early in life being born into the right kind of family, and striving with incredible energy to become a success. He was a success and the Fitzgerald legend tells us of the rich and famous and brilliant Fitzgerald, who had this terrible tragedy happen in his life. The legend goes that he loved his wife madly when she was gay and brave., and continued to be kind to her even when she was ugly and mad. From the stuff I read before Nancy Milford, I could only conclude that the reason he looked after Zelda for all those painful years was because he was such a good guy. But the story is much more complicated than simply, poor Scott, wasn't it good of him to put up with a wife who ceased being beautiful. It is usually taken for granted that it was this tragedy which drove him to drinking and early death. Scott Fitzgerald wrote all these books including This Side of Paradise', 'The Great Gatsby' and others which people thought were brilliant. He also wrote masses of short stories and his income was usually around $30,000 a year. But Zelda Fitzgerald was also a writer. Writing is a strange s occupation . Beyond motivation and ability, there is the thing about self- confidence., It requires more boldness than most people are capable of to commit oneself in publicthe way writers must do. It's all very nice to be creative, but creativity depends entirely upon the social context and it is not possible to be creative if nobody recognizes it as such. In all the lives of people who are considered most creative, there is the one or two" faithful disciples who provide the necessary confidence to the'genius', who accept unquestioningly the right of the person to be an artist, who suffer all ~ the emotional stress of publicity and provide in general, a bulwark against the world. Vincent Van Gogh had his brother, Theo, George Bernard Shaw, his mother; Thomas Wolfe had his editor, Maxwell Perkins; Leo Tolstoy, his wife. Zelda did the supportive thing for Scott until she was sucked dry and quite useless, at which time he turned to Sheilah Graham. There was no one to reassure Zelda. Scott had very fixed ideas of what a woman's place should be in a marriage: T would like you to think of my interests. That is your primary concern, because I am the one to steer the course, the pilot.' 7 tell you my life has been so miserable that I would rather be in an asylum. Does that mean a thing to you?' 'It does not mean a blessed thing.' What then, Zelda asked him, did he want her to do. 7 want you to .stop writing fiction.' Her first stories were published in 1922. Later, Scott was the one who was famous so it was easier to sell Zelda's stories with both their names on them. It was even easier to sell them without Zelda's name on them at all, and at one time the Saturday Evening Post paid $4000 to take Zelda's name off a story she wrote and print it as Scott's. Even more important, throughout their lives, Scott used Zelda's letters and diaries as material for his books. When she wrote a book which used their marriage and her madness as material, Scott went completely hysterical about the matter and he, the doctors and the editors conspired to convince Zelda her life belonged to Scott. Right to the end, she never realized what was happening to her and tried to do what was expected of her. She may have exaggerated her sense of dependence on him [Scott] in order to demonstrate to him and to herself how perfectly normal she had become, for part of Forel's cure had been a somewhat mysterious 're-education' of Zelda in terms of her role as wife to Scott. That may have instilled in Zelda a standard of normality against which she tried to measure herself. Throughout her illness, she protests to Scott her love for him and apologizes for not being the fiction he created. Try to understand that people are not always reasonable when the world is unstable and vacillating as a sick head can render it — that for months I have been living in vaporous places with one-dimensional figures and tremulous buildings until I can no longer tell an optical illusion from a reality — that head and ears incessantly throb and roads disappear, until finally I lost all control and powers of judgment. I don't think there is such an animal as madness. An insane person is one who is totally isolated. Zelda's isolation became progressively more irreversible as she lost her ability to communicate with those around her. She did various weird things, like a person trying to fight her way out of a cage which was getting smaller and smaller. She wrote to give herself the illusion of communication and in an attempt to earn her own living, but then was not allowed towrite. She took up dancing because this could not. be | considered .an. .encroachment upon . Scott's territory. Although she took it up too late in life to be a great dancer, she was nevertheless, a better dancer than Scott and her doctors gave her credit for. Then she went to a mental hopital. ...I'm so tired of compromises. Shaving off one part of oneself after another until there is nothing left... She had only the vaguest notion of how the society she lived in had victimized her. We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion. Scott Fitzgerald understood only somewhat better what was happening to the people of the Jazz Age, for all that his descriptions of them were supposed to be so great. / know scarcely a beautiful woman of Zelda's generation who has come up to 1938 unscathed. Zelda cried out against what was happening to her, but she was unable to control her situaion. There's no justice-no quiet place of rest left world and the longer I have to bear this the and harder and sicker I get... She turned to religion and fascism in an effort to find some meaning in the chaos, but then she wrote to Scott: Stop looking for solace, there isn't any... In 1940, Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack at the age of 44. Zelda lived another 8 years, most of it back in the south with her old mother. She died at \ the age of 48 in an asylum fire, when she and 8 other women were trapped in the top floor of a locked asylum. In Zelda's last novel, she gives us this description of Scott: Jacob littered his fire-place with duplicates from his files and receipts for his insurance and cigarette-butts and pencil stubs and wine bottles. Then he shoved the screen across the disarray and tipped the maid a little extra and was absolved. Zelda could not be absolved. She was a stupid woman and she was anti-human and nobody told her that she was wrong. She was a blob, an emptiness. In the same novel, she wrote of their early lives: All these bedraggled wan spectres seemingly so immersed in the pattern of tragic futility were very much engaged in turning accident into memoir. They imagined things about themselves, then forgot the thread of the current romance and disintegrated through the fumes of the night in search of the story of their lives. Zelda was a story written by Scott only the plot falters and breaks down near the end. There is really nothing to be said in her defence, no real explanation for being interested in* her. She personifies the bourgeois ideal of woman. She was entirely her role, and when she lost the ability to play the role, she was nothing. The only reason I like her is because the American dream drove her mad. I'm sure that if she'd had other choices, she'd have taken them, but there weren't, so she did what she was supposed to do, to the best of her ability. She didn't ask for mercy, but for hellfire and damation and she died as she had expected to die, in flames and madj- . . . and if you do cure me what's going to happen to all the bitterness and unhappiness in my heart — It seems to me a sort of castration, but since I am powerless I suppose I will have to submit, though I am neither young nor credulous enough to think you can manufacture out of nothing something to replace the song I had. ;e fourteen—petfesttt—^prH "72 ATTENTION WOMEN POETS. Black Moss, a Canadian poetry t magazine which comes out when it feels like it, is going to have an issue BY WOMEN, FOR WOMEN, ABOUT WOMEN. Send your poetry to: Black Moss, P.O.. Box 22, Windsor 14, Ontario, by June 15th. The Gauntlet U. of Calgary Calgary 44, Alta. Dear sisters, I visited you at Christmas and said that I would mail anything that came up that you might be interested in. Nothing has happened until another person who is very much into liberation brought this poster to my attention. It advertises not only the course but 'girls approaching the marriageable age'. I have underlined the areas and wording of interest. How does it feel to put your charms up for sale, capture the mate of your choice, and build a home on it to boot? What mates it worse is that it is sponsored by the government. Some of us are going to see what we can do about it and I will keep in contact over it. Please excuse any typos but I am in an absolute fury over it and want to get . this out in the morning mail so you will get it as soon as possible. Yours in rage, P.S. You even have to have a textbook to be a woman !! FASCINATING GIRL This wholesome practical class is a timely guide for girls approaching the marriageable age. Most girls depend on luck or instinct, but there is a class to teach young women the principles of winning the mate of her choice and building a happy home. JOIN THE FUN ! Discuss ariffidiscover what men find fascinating about a girl! Some subjects under discussion: * The kimirof girl a man wants * Understanding a man's needs * Choosing a mate * Social ease around men * The six stages of winning a man A FAMILY LIFE PROGRAM*spon- sored by HEALTH EDUCATION CENTER, Calgary , Alberta. Dear Sisters, I've just recently moved from Vancouver to Hay River. The need for a women's group here is obvious, especially with the exploitation of native women and the incredible influence of religious groups such as Roman Catholics. I've enclosed $5. Please send me any good information you can on Birth Control, Pedestal, ideas for group discussions, any special information you may have on fighting the problem of Treaty rights (i.e. a woman loses her rights if she marries a white man). The need for a day-care centre is obvious too. The women are interested in crafts. Equal job and pay status is not much of an issue because l)race discrimination takes priority 2)large percentage of unemployed men 3)low levels of education or job training. Any other suggestions for community involvement for these women? They seem enthusiastic about doing something other than housework but are lacking ideas for alternatives (so am I!) The only things that I've put forward so far are 1 )a craft shop operated as a coop for teaching, learning and selling, 2)women as teaching-aids in schools and day-care, 3)writing recipe books, 4) researching history. / Please also send me any information you have on the effects of excess alcohol and any ideas for combatting the problem. As you probably know the native woman's problem is compounded by loss of culture, unemployed husbands., attempts at integration by gov't, degradation of welfare, devastating effects of alcohol, religious imprisonment, side effects of prostitution (Hay River is distributing point for N.W.T. i.e. transient truck drivers, seasonal employment). Hay River's women are also divided tribally i.e. mixture of Doguib, Cree, Chipwen, Slavex. The tribes traditionally don't get along. Also the native women are treated terribly by the white women who are mostly teachers or teacher's wives, or gov't secretaries or administrative wives. Thanks for any help you can give me. I'm trying to get money from C.Y.C. If you have more information than $5 covers let me know. Bye for now, Dianne Radcliffe P.O.Box 1711 Hay River, N.W.T. RELOCATION SERVICE, 1262 East 6th Avenue, Ann Walkey, Director, 874-7830. Do.you have to move? Or do you have inexpensive accomodation for rent? The Relocation Service helps people forced to move to find new accomodation. You qualify for their assistance* if you are: 1. A resident 'of Vancouver over 65 whose only income is the pension. 2. A resident of Vancouver under 65, with low income, with no transportation, with no help available from friends or family in finding housing and with some kind of disability. "Disability" is given a broad definition so as to include physically handicapped persons - paraplegics, the blind, those who are hard of hearing, persons crippled by arthritis and persons who are seriously ill. Those who are emotionally unable to cope with the problems of looking for housing are also included in this "disabled" category and are eligible for assistance. Single parents will also be helped, provided they meet the other criteria for income and transportation. 3. A resident of Vancouver eligible for public housing. The Relocation Service is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Their telephone number is 879- 0926. There is no charge made for the service , either to tenant or landlord; neither is there any obligation. # NEWS PLACE FROM THE WOMEN'S Women's Place is in a house! — 1766 West Broadway at Burrard. We are cleaning, repairing and painting. You are welcome to join in the spring cleaning celebration, Saturday April 8, from 10 am to 5 pm. We need rugs, sofas, tables, beds — any donations welcome (call Melanie, 733-9377). The Abortion Referral Bureau is moving in on Thursday, April 6, at which time we will have telephones. The office will be open 12 to 8, Monday to Friday and 12 to 6 Saturday. Carpentry, photography, silk- screening, children's room, library, yoga and body-energy groups, health discussions, support for women in distress — by early May? The most exciting thing is to have a place to be together without meetings. WOMEN'S PLACE 731-9619 HEALTH LINE 731-8471 and 731- 8472 The Health Line is for Abortion Referrals and other health and doctor help and information. A second health group is starting on Thursdays. We come together to share experiences and information on health and related issues ^birth control, sexuality, menopause, etc.). Call Catherine at 733-1886 if you would like to come. NEWSFLASH from the last health meeting: WOMEN REFUSE TO MENSTRUATE! Two women from Kansas told us about a simple vacuum device which will easily and safely reduce your 5 day period to 20 minutes. Think of- the implications for the Kotex- Tampon-Midol cartel. april '72—pedestal—pageynB£en/ 1622 8th Avenue, North Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Dear Sisters, Was surprised and delighted with the manner in which you printed one of my poems (sweet golden girl, p. 7, March 1972 ed.) It came ironically at a time when my artist-image and ego needed support. For reasons, probably also of ego, I would prefer you use both my first and last names when acknowledging "writership". That aside, I repeat, great satisfaction with the tone and level of the paper: Yours in sisterhood, Maureen Storey The Women's Studies Program at San Diego State College is recruiting for Fall faculty. We need women who can teach: Women in History, Women in Education, Racism and Sexism, Contemporary issues of Women's Liberation, Women in Comparative Cultures, Socialization Process of Women, Self-actualization of Women, and Women in Literature. We need applications in by March 30 - please include your involvement in the Women's Movement. As we have limited positions, 2.5 (but we are expecting one other)placement will most likely be half-time. Women's Studies Program, San Diego State College, San Diego, California 92115. FREE EA&ysiTTiNG- XES.-WED.-THUR. 12-5 WOMENSCEMTKE . Gita 6S4-0523 Child. Care Information and Resource Services - 45 45 Kingsway, Vancouver 10, B.C. 872-1824 A local initiatives project sponsored by Canada Works, Manpower. THIS BOOK IS FOR OUR CHILDREN A catalogue of B.C.'s child care services will be published this spring and distributed, free, to community groups and individuals throughout the province. It will contain a directory of day care, pre-school, and after school facilities, and summaries of the procedures and requirements for starting them anywhere in B.C. There will also be access lists to quality toys, equipment, books and films for children - and more. Help make it The compilers of this 'ACCESS CATALOGUE ' want to know what is happening,old and new, for our children in our localcommunities.They are particularly interested in hearing about parents' co-operatives, communal (urban and rural) arrangements, and any "experimental" programs in child care in order toinformthe people of B.C. about what the people of B.C. are developing and creating. Any information regarding your local child care arrangements will be helpful. The compilers will be touring B.C. during March and will be able to arrange meetings and interviews. Letters commenting on the state of day care in B.C. and/ or what you would like to see happen here will also be useful. Please write to: Child Care In- formation and Resource Services, 45 Kingsway Vancouver, 10, 872-1824. Keep On Top Of Things! * "W.P.C.: The Polities of Politics" * "Phallacies About the Movement" * "The Stafrue-tory Rape of Pightin' Father Duffy" READ the March Issue of MAJORITY REPORT features: calendar for H.T. area, feminist directory, action page subs - 13 for 10 issues to Majority Report. #5B 89-19 171 St. Jamaica, N.Y. 11452 /single copy 400 March 17, 1923 Dear Pedestal staff, Have found in your paper some material of real interest and value. My busy schedule has prevented me from writing before now to tell you so. What's prompted me to take the time to you just now is that I've recently become involved with the Midhudson Women's Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. We have a lending library and I'd like very much to see copies of the Pedestal on the shelves. I consider it one of the best Feminist papers currently publishing and we don't have much literature of its type. Would you care to donate 2-3 copies, particularly copies of January 1972 (vol.4, no.l)? Perhaps exposing the Pedestal to users of the library might result in a few subscriptions and repay you for the donation. How about it ? Another thingdiaving worked as a temporary secretary for about 5 years, I've often thought about organizing a temporary agency or a union for tem- poraryworkers. I was, therefore, extremely interested in learning of the plans, announced in the Pedestal to attempt to form such an agency. Can you tell me any more about this? If any of you ever come to the New York area and need local help of any kind, don't hesitate to phone me. I'm always glad to assist travelling Feminists in any way I can. You can write me c/o the following address: Elizabeth Natale, c/o Marry Sparrow, 470 Atlantic Avenue (side entrance) Oceanside, Long Island, New York,USA.Phone area code 516- 678-1926. I am doing research on the menstrual cycle for a book. Will women of all ages, whether on the pill or not, please call Sylvia 254-3659 Confidential. ' page sixteen—pedestal—april '72 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDA/THURSDA/ FRIDAY SATMRD/y +iii 19-m -meN b 5 Uealthgroup ,4,4 W-7TK •B-OO P/v\- 6 7 WWA- informal meetim6 1173 Pehdrell Z'OO P/A- PRENATALCUM»C iq52. VV ATH A^RiELUHRLNG, :DR£B5WOMAN> BECOMES FIRST WOIMAK IN THE SocieiYc^ AMTcViorwe. 9 of JO W-W-Ar McchMq WoaaeM'S CBMTKE 12. HEALTH <SKpUP SrooPM |3 NEWANOOfvl 14- Z.-.00 P/A- FREE PKEMMAL- curmc 15 7:OOPM. GYA4E.COU061S.T i^B-a- W- -=tTH DR. WEBB II Pede^tau MEETING IIWAM- WOMEN'S CENTRE 16 i WWA- /MEETlMfcV 7:co PM- WOMEN'S CeNTRE ATTEHPINJ3 AIKIU5 ATSALEH OHK) u^rn THATS\rbERjK\sJ WOMEN ARR MOT ALUavOE'bTO SlFiP PR*Brs op hen oe. HEALTH GROUP S-OOFVA- 20 t€Ve^sL HUWDR£D SYMPATHIZE^ EMMA GolDH^ TAKES A 15-TAX CVER^A # IOO FINE R^ LECTURE Ctf £1 0lfe. J WvV-A JMR5RMAL MEET/>46 1173 PEMI>R£L1_ 7:00 PAA. fftee CUNIC 18 ZOO PM - F^&E PRENATAL. <^LtMVC, 22. PEDESTAL AAEET//s^G I TOO AAA- WOMEN'S CENTRE 23 Z4- WWA- MEET/N6- 7-00 PAA- •WOMEM'S OENTT^E TYPTSSeTT7M<&- pED&STAU. •S.F-U- 26 TYFESEXT//S& PebesTAL. HEALTH <SI^)UP "S-OOPM, 27 2&FULlaaoom £:oo RM.. peee prenatal CL(M\C Z9 WOO PAA- PREE" CUNIC 25 PEpestal LAyou-r -S-F.U 30 A'VAY 1 WW A- MEETl/M<Sr womem's cent^: 3 HEALTH G^OUp SOO PM 4 5 W-WA- fNFO^MAU MEETlMG, 1173 PEHDRELL 7:CO PAA- PfeEE CU/MVC z 2-OOPAA. FKEte PRENATAL CuMlC 6 SUBSCRIBE TO THE PEDESTAL. AWKE CHEQUES PA/ABLE TC> THE PEDESTAL 5U CARRALL VANCOUVER NAME-„ ADDRE5S ^(YFORE/GN 5ELI_ THE PEDESTAL PICKUP COPIES AT 511 CARRALL /MONPA/- SATURDAY 1Z- 5 PAY KEEP A PIA\E FOR EVERY CQPy SOLp
Vol. 4, no. 4; April 1972
Newspapers
British Columbia
English
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Library
Vancouver : Vancouver Women's Caucus
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/
Original Format: Simon Fraser University. Archives and Records Management
Women's rights--Periodicals
Feminism--Periodicals
Pedestal: A Women's Liberation Newspaper
Text