The struggles of herstory
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Women’s Day honors workers’ struggle
By LESLIE FARRIS
Of the Emerald
March 8 commemorates a day in
1908 when thousands of working
women marched in New York City
under banners demanding better
working conditions, equal pay for
equal work, childcare centers and the
right to vote.
Local women can celebrate
International Women’s Day at a
Sunday potluck and forum entitled
"Women Minus Money." Local econ
omists Margaret Simeral and Jan
Newton will speak on the effect of the
economy on women and children of
the Eugene-Springfield area.
The celebration, from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
in Lincoln School at 650 W. 12th Ave.,
is sponsored by Women Against War,
Head Start and Lane County Clients
Council. Cost is 10 cents a serving,
which will benefit the Clients Council,
a low-income group advocating im
proved social services.
Also in honor of International
Women’s Day 1981, the African
Peoples Solidarity Committee is
sponsoring a program on "Women in
Chile." Chilean exile Virginia Alarcon
will speak about political prisoners in
Chile and the role of women in the
Chilean resistance. Kevin Duncan
from the Latin America Resource
Center in Berkeley, Calif., will discuss
Reagan’s Latin American policies.
The program will begin today at
7:30 p.m. in the Friends' Meeting Hall
at 2274 Onyx St. in Eugene. A $2
donation is requested to benefit the
Chilean resistance.
It was March 8, 1860, when women
shoe workers marched through
snowdrifts in Marblehead, Mass., car
rying banners with the slogan
"American ladies never will be
slaves About 20,000 shoe workers
were on strike in New England against
$1-per-week wages. Male shoe
workers earned three times as much.
Again on March 8, 1908, a
demonstration in New York City was
organized by socialist garment
workers involved in a long series of
strikes for better working conditions
and union recognition. In 1857,
women garment workers marched
from the poor East Side to a wealthier
section of the city. While police were
breaking up the march and arresting
many of the women, some of the
protesters were trampled.
The International Socialist
Congress, at a 1910 conference in
Copenhagen, Denmark, declared
March 8 a holiday in honor of the New
York marchers.
During the same period, educated
women in Russia began agitating for
women’s suffrage, legal equality,
equal access to education and
employment, divorce reform and birth
control. In 1913, through the urgings
of the All-Russian Conference of
Feminists, the Duma (Russian
parliament) declared March 8 a
holiday for women.
On March 8, 1917, women textile
workers demonstrated in Petrograd,
Russia, chanting "bread, peace and
down with the Tsar,” signalling the
beginning of the Russian revolution.
Although International Women's
Day was celebrated in many countries
worldwide, observance lagged in the
United States until 1969 when women
in Berkeley, Calif., commemorated
"the struggles of herstory.” Even in
this second movement of women’s
liberation, feminists agitate over many
of the same issues.
While earlier feminists sought equai
pay for equal work, women today seek
equal pay for work of comparable
value, says Margaret Simeral, labor
economist for the state of Oregon.
"The problem now is getting equal
pay for slightly different work,”
Simeral says. "In our society, women
do different work than men and, for
whatever reasons, women’s work is
considered to be worth lower wages.
"Women are starting to get their
jobs re-evaluated so, for example, a
skilled word-processing operator
would earn as much as a maintenance
man.”
Simeral says job-evaluation
changes could come through unions.
Within the last 15 years, unions have
responded more to women’s issues
because women have comprised
two-thirds of the growth in the labor
force
However, only about 10 percent of
women workers are organized
compared to 33 percent of men
workers.
"But unions have seen the writing
on the wall," Simeral says. "The
fastest growing unions are those with
large numbers of women workers —
teachers’ unions, service workers.
"It’s still a man’s world, but they're
coming around. They understand
how women workers are absolutely
crucial to the strength of the labor
movement.”
Another struggle facing many
women today is the struggle against
poverty. Simeral says women heads
of-household are twice as likely to be
poor as men heads-of-household.
Any social-service budget cuts will
mean “disaster" for low-income
women, she says.
“Most poor, single women earn low
wages, plus they have to pay for child
care. Anytime you take back food
stamps and support to dependent
children, you’re not trimming flab,
you're cutting right to the heart of
these people’s existence.
"It’s very difficult for a woman to
find a job that pays enough to support
her family above the poverty level."
And although the early suffragists
gained the right to vote, Simeral says
women have yet to gain equal
representation.
Early ‘finishing school'
graduated housewives
By JIM GERSBACH
Of the Emerald
When men and women walk into
Deady Hall today, they enter by
whatever entrance is most
convenient. But a century ago
University women were restricted to
the east steps so that male students,
who entered from the west, would not
see the women’s bare ankles.
Such restrictions were as much a
reflection of the 19th century's
preoccupation with protecting the
respectability of unmarried women as
a deliberate attempt by the University
to subjugate women.
“The University was by social
pressure much more forced to watch
out for the female students,” says
University archivist Keith Richards.
“The University was treated by the
women's parents as a finishing
school,” he says. Women students
were sent to school to be exposed to
good books, good conversation,
French and Latin in the hope this
would make them better wives and
mothers, Richards says.
The University's early women
students did indeed receive an
excellent, rigorous education, the
best the state had to offer. But in
alumni lists from the 1920s, “almost
uniformly the women are listed as
housewives,” Richards says.
However, Richard says, there were
also a sprinkling of women
determined to enter a career.
One, Lila Acheson, a 1917
graduate, went on to found the
Readers Digest with husband Dewitt
Wallace.
The University also produced a
smattering of early professional
women. In 1893 the University
granted a medical degree to a woman
student for the first time. Four years
later the first woman was graduated
from the law school.
Ellen Condon was the University's
first woman graduate, the daughter of
famed geologist Thomas Condon, for
whom Condon Hall is named.
Unlike most of the University’s later
female Victorian graduates, Ellen
Condon majored in the sciences,
specializing in geology. She later
married and became a housewife.
Despite the many social restrictions
placed on women, sports was one
area in which University women didn’t
lag behind. Thanks to Dr. Mary
Chapman, who came to Oregon in
1893, the University developed a
strong women’s physical education
program. Women were playing field
hockey, softball, basketball and
gymnastics — and even boxing — in
their P.E. classes by 1896.
In many other ways, Oregon was
progressive. From the very start,
University classes were integrated,
although separate study halls were
not dropped until a library opened on
campus in 1891.
The University even had a co-ed
dormitory as far back as 1893.
Friendly Hall housed both men and
women during its first year of
existence. The dining hall, social hall
and music room were co-ed, with men
and women’s living facilities on
separate floors.
Although the arrangement worked
out well, in 1894 Friendly Hall was
made an all-male dorm and the
women students were asked to find
rooms in Eugene, says Richards. "At
that point they felt they could trust the
women downtown more than the
men.”
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Cultural Forum
Invites applications for
the following positions:
Popular Concerts
Jazz/Blues Concerts
Folk Music Concerts
Film and Literature
Visual Arts
Performing Arts
Contemporary Issues
If you have the
least amount of
interest, stop by
the office and
learn more about
the rewarding
experience of
working on the
Cultural Forum.
These are volunteer student positions
offering intense practical experience
coordinating major events.
Applications and job descriptions are now
available in Suite 2, EMU. Deadline for
applying is Thursday, March 12.