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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1981)
emerald Vol. 82, No. 160 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Thursday, May 21,1981 Women’s Symposium stirs ideas Organizers deny excluding races from workshops By JOHN MILLS Of the Emerald Women's Symposium workshops advertised only for certain races were not intended to be exclusive, symposium co-director Linda Chase says. Chase says Tuesday’s group sessions were advertised for white women only and for women of color only “as a suggestion.” The YWCA, co-sponsors of the workshops, asked that only certain people participate to make the sessions more valuable, Chase says. Judging from participant responses, they were very valuable, she says. Trudy Cooper of the YWCA said the stipulation “for white women only” should never have appeared on a symposium flyer. “It was an oversight in editing on our part,” she says. “We should have said the topic was white racism. “The reason for the division was to discuss the issue of racism from two different sides of the same coin,” Cooper says. The value of that division "was acknowledged by everyone attending,” she says. Cooper says she met with Sergio Antillano, who wrote a letter to the Emerald complaining about the workshops’ "segregation.” "He hadn’t spoken to anyone before he wrote the letter and he didn’t understand. He finally saw our point of view,” she says. Activities using University facilities cannot exclude anyone from participation on any basis, except in the area of women's health involving self examination, according to JoAnn Een, ASUO execu tive coordinator. There wasn’t any exclusion involved in the sym posium, she says. “Of course men were welcome to participate in any of the presentations but the presentations were geared to certain people,” Een says. “People see what they want to see,” Een says of Antillano’s letter. “They look for omissions or subject matter they disagree with.” Antillano should have “gone to the people in charge,” instead of "hiding behind the guise of a letter in a newspaper,” she says. She adds that symposium organizers “very definitely tried to include an incredibly wide variety of subjects” to interest as many people as possible. “Before people criticize, they should participate,” Een says. The planning meetings for the symposium were open to anyone, she says. Dee Dee Akiyama, co-director of the sympo sium, said the planning meetings were held twice a Emerald Graphic month going back for almost a year, but no males attended those meetings. Colleen Fong of the University's Affirmative Ac tion office says that the workshops were not meant to be "exclusionary or unfair ” She says the division of certain people is a "valuable technique on delicate subject matters.” There were three sessions, one of which was for a mixed group. “We thought we had everybody covered this way,” Fong says. The division in this case allowed women of color to "promote solidarity" and white women to discuss childhood experiences that involved racism "without the fear of being labeled a racist. This in-house discussion is really neccessary," Fong says. Fong says after the divided sessions people got back together in mixed groups and met later Tuesday forapotluck. See related story on Page 5A Separatists’ work, lifestyle focus on other women By KATHERINE MERRILL Of the Emerald Boys will be boys, and some Eugene women prefer not to associate with them. In a lively discussion Wednesday on separatism and the women’s revolution, about 25 local feminists discussed the separatist lifestyle and its place in the women’s movement. "Separatism involves directing all one’s energy toward women and receiving all one's energy from women. It is an extremely emotional issue that neces sitates looking at people’s needs and where they are going,” feminist Sharon Anthony told the women-only crowd. However, separatism isn’t the same as isolation, Anthony stressed Conflict between separatists and other women could weaken the women's movement, she said "To divide them up is to weaken the total strength of the movement, and we need that strength," Anth ony said. Several women said their separatist lifestyles had made them more politically aware. But it’s difficult to decide whether to join men in causes such as the anti-nuclear movement, they said The women said they don't want to join men in these fights if they’ll end up being oppressed by sexist attitudes when the battle is over Women with male children disagreed with the separatist position that excludes male children of any age from separatist society. Male attitudes are mostly a result of socialization and not completely biologically determined, they claimed. Major causes that Eugene separatists currently are fighting for include the establishment of more locations where only women may gather and more women-only social events. At present the upstairs of Mother Kali’s Bookstore is the only place that excludes males, and during the past 10 years legal problems have made it increasingly difficult to schedule all-women events. Men always have had the opportunity to gather privately, women deserve that right also, separatists argue. The separatists said their lifestyle struggle is more difficult than that of other lesbians because separa tists are denied respect when they don’t associate with men. This makes separatists less likely than other lesbians to "go back into the closet," one woman said. Olum gives students grim budget outlook By GABRIEL BOEHMER Of the Emerald Students applauded University Pres. Paul Olum’s view that the state ought to close one of its three major universities rather than curtail the University’s budget 16 percent. Olum was referring to Gov. Vic Atiyeh's recommendation to shave an additional 3 percent from the state’s budget to oblige a new and bleaker revenue fore cast. Olum spoke to more than 250 students about the University’s financial plight at a Wednesday convocation If the Legislature rejects Atiyeh’s proposed tax package, it would reduce the state’s higher education budget a total of 16 percent. ‘ The governor’s budget is already very bad news for us,” Olum said. Atiyeh’s original budget projected a 3 percent — or $1.5 million — higher education fund ing cut. The University would have to give up between 22 and 25 faculty, as many graduate teaching fellows and several classified personnel under the 3 percent cut, Olum said The worst consequence is what that cut will not do, Olum said. An inadequate library, uncompetitive law faculty salar ies and lagging University faculty salary increases would be ignored, he said What worries University administrators more is the possibility that the Legisla ture may not raise the additional revenues needed to mend the state's growing deficit Another 10 percent cut in the state higher education budget would be "devastating," Olum said. An additional 10 percent reduction would cut a total of $7 million from the state’s higher education system, Olum said. Three University professional schools and eight academic programs would shut down — an action that would victimize faculty and students alike, he said. In that event, Olum said he would not consider asking faculty to accept salary reductions to preserve programs. If a faculty salary cut is proposed, "It will have to come from them,” he said Of the $7 million loss, the state s higher education system would absorb less than half in the first biennium, Olum said "The second year of the biennium would be the disasterous one." The "special feature” of this reduction would be the irreversability of the action, Oium said. "You can’t turn the switch off and throw it back on again,” Olum said in reference to the closure of professional schools and departments. "I'm going to be lying on the floor bloodied and bleeding to death before that happens." Olum said the tragedy of bowing to fiscal problems now is that "this institu tion is at its peak in many fields of its academic quality." Faculty would be reluctant to teach in programs that had been closed down before, he said On the other hand, Olum said the 3 percent reduction in state revenue may alert the Legislature to the seriousness of higher education’s plight Continued on Page 8A
