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