Commentary
University Feminists
One answer to University sexism
Last term the University Feminists
formed the Women’s Rights Defense
Committee. We would like to tell you about
the Committee and why we believe it is
necessary.
Women on the campus, as elsewhere in
society, face incidents of discrimination
every day. The H E W. investigation last
spring documented the University’s sexist
hiring, promotion and salary practices.
The University’s efforts to improve the
situation are moving at a snail’s pace. In
fact, from all available evidence, the
budget cuts will eliminate women
disproportionately from positions; and the
administration has taken no measures to
prevent this.
As serious as discrimination in em
ployment is, it is only a small part of the
problem. Following are the kinds of in
cidents which have come to our attention:
We are asked to buy expensive textbooks
which either contain erroneous and
derogatory information about women or
no information at all. We were expected to
attend an instructional movie which was
billed as a “skin flick,” which portrayed
women as stupid and silly, and which used
a woman’s nudity unnecessarily to attract
the class’s attention.
We take classes from professors who use
class time to insult women in general and
women in their professions in particular.
(This kind of behavior is not limited to the
campus: When U.S. Supreme Court
Justice William Douglas spoke at the law
school this year, he made derogatory
comments about women’s rights and was
astounded when nobody laughed.) We s:re
expected to smile and accept flirtations,
unpleasant jokes, and comments about our
bodies as the price for permission to
register for a course, for a good grade, and
for continued employment.
I
Money needed
One thousand people gathered in the
streets last Tuesday to protest
President Nixon’s criminal and
irresponsible decision to blockade the
harbors of North Vietnam. During the
course of the demonstration 37 in
dividuals were arrested, the majority
of whom were guilty of no other crime
than exercising their constitutionally
guaranteed rights of freedom of speech
and assembly. Many arrests were
needlessly violent and in flagrant
violation of the civil rights of the in
dividuals involved, a number of whom
were in no way active participants in
the demonstration.
Whatever the legal outcome the
i expenses of bail and legal aid will
impose a severe burden, regardless of
J guilt or innocence. Bails ranged from
$150 to $750 and lawyers fees are ex
pected to exceed $200 per person. A
conservative estimate of total expenses
exceeds $5000.
An organizational meeting was held
Saturday night by those arrested to
develop strategy to deal with these
issues. To successfully carry on their
defense these individuals are calling
! upon the community for support
Both legal and financial support is
crucial to a successful defense A desk
will be set up on the EMU terrace this
week to solicit contributions for the 9th
of May Defense Fund. Collection jars
will also be placed at various locations
in the community Dance and movie
benefits are also being considered.
Arrests centered in the vicinity of
Pearl street between 11th and 12th and
the tennis courts at 16th and Alder
Witnesses are desperately needed;
observers of any arrests are strongly
urged to contact ASUO Legal Services,
room 307 in the EMU.
These people need your help'
Hale Powell
Greg Skillman |
Bill MacDaniel
As graduate students we hear explicit
statements that men are given priority by
our departments in the awarding of
fellowships. We hear male colleagues and
professors say we do not make good
researchers and they will not hire us. A
particularly insidious problem are the
correspondence and the letters of
reference which go back and forth in
sealed envelopes between the men who run
universities. Women have discovered
something about the content of several of
these letters and have found the content to
be prejudiced and sexist. All women
employees and students are subjected to
prejudiced assessment of their work and
qualifications, doubts which would never
occur if they were men.
On campus and in the surrounding area
we are subjected to an alarming number of
physical and sexual assaults. These range
from offensive remarks to men exposing
themselves at knife point to attempted
rapes to rape-murders. Only the most
serious of these incidents make it into the
papers.
Women students have to wait three to
four months for an appointment with the
Health Service gynecologist, who is there
only two hours a week (and that thanks to
the University Feminists). Staff members,
overwhelmingly women living on no more
than students, can’t use the Health Service
at all. Staff are often not allowed out of the
building on their breaks, because they are
not trusted to return in time. EMU staff
are not allowed to mingle with students or
they get a reprimand in their file.
Only in the last year has there been any
open swimming in the men’s pool and
there are still hours of recreation
swimming for men only. The women’s pool
is small, old and full of bacteria; it is a
symbol of the well-known discrimination
against women’s athletics. In other words,
there is an absurd class system on this
campus—the pool for men, Faculty Club
for faculty, EMU and Health Service for
students, and very little for staff.
Our student fees go to support a student
newspaper with a sexist editorial policy.
The Emerald misreports and fails to
report women’s issues. The Emerald
prints inane commentaries which ridicule
us. We are glad to see that the Emerald
has just changed an editorial policy of
referring to us in a demeaning way and
differently from men. Specifically, the
Emerald referred to women by our first
names (a review of Sylvia Plath’s poetry
referred to her as "Sylvia” throughout! or
continuously prefaced our last name with
Ms. Men were referred to by their last
names only.
We could go on, there are other exam
ples, but the picture should be clear:
Women on this campus are living in an
environment which constantly and overtly
discriminates against us, insults us,
physically assaults us, and continuously
reminds us that we are thought to be weak,
inferior and unimportant and had better
stay that way. The most pervasive and
destructive aspect of sexism on the
campus may well be the fact that virtually
nothing about women is taught here. The
proper study of mankind is man, ap
parently.
This discrimination is economic,
professional and social. It destroys our
ability to earn a living, our careers, our
self-confidence and self-respect.
Sometimes our health and our lives.
There is no grievance procedure at the
university for dealing with these
problems. Women have complained in
dividually about some of the examples
above and have accomplished little except
to endanger their grades, their jobs, and
their personal files. An employee is sup
posed to take her his greivance to her-his
immediate superior and on up the line to
the vice presidents. Yet these are the
people who have been perpetuating sexism
on the campus in the first place This in an
intimidation procedure, not a grievance
procedure.
The Womens Rights Defensive
Committee was formed to deal with these
problems. We are not members of the
university power structure, and you can
speak to us without fear of reprisals. Our
goal is to help women facing
discrimination in whatever way you need
help. We will abide by whatever restric
tions you place on the use of the in
formation you give us. If you just want to
talk to someone who will know you’re
telling the truth and aren’t crazy, call us
up or come and see us.
If you want to enter a complaint
anonymously in our file, you can do that.
We plan to build up an information file on
the kinds of sexism that goes on at this
campus. This kind of documentation is
very important. Too often we let offensive
incidents pass by, and so they continue to
happen to many women, and each one
feels it is happening to her alone. Imagine
the effect when a university department is
told that 10 or 20 or 30 women complained
about the same course, or personnel
procedure, or text book.
If you would like help in filing a formal
complaint, to the person who committed
the offense or to someone else, we will
support you and go with you. If you want to
make a more direct and forceful protest,
we’ll help.
The philosophy behind the Defense
Committee is that women acting together
are much stronger than the same women
acting individually. When you act alone,
you can be humiliated, disregarded,
treated as deviant. It is more difficult to
treat an organized group of women this
way There is still risk involved, of course
Each of us has to decide for herself
whether the consequences of continued
discrimination are worse than the con
sequences of action.
You can write us anytime: Women’s
Rights Defense Committee, P.O. Box 3244,
Eugene 97403. Monday through Thursday,
3-5 p m., you can call us at 080-5038 or you
can drop in to see us in Hoorn 005 P.L.C.
We are sorry we don't have a full-time
office, next Fall we will ‘Til then we hope
you'll make the extra effort to get in touch
Dennis Gilbert-SUAW
Protests not condemned
Editor's Note: Dennis Gilbert is a member
of the Students’ Union Against the War.
SUAW representatives criticized Emerald
coverage of a Thursday press conference.
Following is their reply to that story as
well as the complete text of a statement
presented at the press conference.
Students’ Union Against the War noted
several errors of fact and emphasis in the
Emerald story on the Thursday news
conference.
Misrepresented was the fact that the
various anti war groups specifically did
not condemn the acts of destruction and
war supporting institutions in Tuesday’s
march, as they have done in past years.
There was a feeling of unity of purpose and
seriousness that the story did not convey.
The statement of Students’ Union Against
the War and New University Conference
were completely left out of the story, even
though these are the existing campus anti
war organizations.
The only correct reference specifically
to SUAW -none to NUC—was that it
‘urged continued demonstrations and
responsibility on the students' part.’’
Presumably the “student responsibility”
part of the statement came in the context
of an answer to a question about parade
permits The SUAW representative said
“marchers should not flaunt the law, but
the absence of a parade permit would and
should not stop protest of the war any more
than the Constitution stops Nixon from
waging war or stops the Supreme Court
from refusing to rule on the con
stitutionality of the war."
The SUAW-NUC statement follows:
“Students’ Union Against the War
supports and works with all people
working to get the U S. government out of
Indochina and for real self-determination
for the Indochinese peoples. I’d like to
stress the kinds of things we’re working on
that others may not cover
“At this time it is important that
Americans show their concern in every
way they can, and we support all means of
doing this We support and will help with
all demonstrations which show support for
the Indochinese and show disapproval of
U S war policy and the institutions that
aid the war There will be a demonstration
this evening and SUAW supports it
“It’s important that people understand
what the war is really about Our govern
ment has lied to us, and the Eugene
Springfield news m«*dia does not contain a
lot of significant information We are
making leaflets with facts and ex
planations. There are too many people
trying to rationalize what the U S. is doing
with total disregard of reality We hope
people will read our information We also
will speak to groups and show films and
slides
“It's important to show that the
American people do not consider the In
dochinese peoples as their enemy As a
way of doing this, SUAW is working on
getting a sister-city in North Vietnam for
Eugene
There’s a lot more that's being done to
end the war which we aid and support, like
talking with Congressmen, inviting
speakers, and working for people running
for office
“SUAW hopes everyone wakes up and
takes some concrete action to stop the war
“The U S. government was wrong in
Vietnam from the start If you don’t un
derstand this, or if you don’t understand
why our government has stayed in In
doehina, then take the time to find out
“The American people were used. Our
labor, resources, and lives were used, and
for what7 We’ve got to stop being used.
“If you think the war doesn't effect you,
then you’re being used Wages that don’t
keep up with inflation is a war tax.
Unemployment and speed-ups are war
taxi's Using our resources to build bombs
instead of health care is a war tax And if
you think you can live free while others are
being destroyed in your name, you’re
fooling yourself.
“And next, if you're worried about honor
and surrender, you’re love of the United
Slates is being used Step back and look
what has happened. The U S. government
was wrong in Vietnam from the start The
majority of Americans could have seen
this but we never got the chance. Our
government lied and withheld in
formation But now most of us understand
enough to want the U S out of Indochina
Now what does our government say? Our
honor is at stake, we are asking for
surrender
“We say: Whose honor7 W'ho is
surrendering7 It’s not the American
people It’s Richard Nixon’s honor and his
surrender Nixon had his chance to get out
If Nixon is forced out, it will be his self
defined honor that is lost. It will be a
victory for Americans and Indochinese.”