Continued from Page 1
the proposed draft. Two spokes people for the Eugene BJcycle
Committee expressed support for the inclusion of a Fern
Ridge bike path in the proposal, a project that one spokesper
son said had been "delayed in years past.”
The league of Women Voters expressed its concern that the
OP had allocated money to the improvement of the
downtown mall area.
"What is needed most to enliven Eugene's downtown is
improvement In the county, state and national economy.”
the I.WV spokeswoman said. The group commended the
overall goals of the budget proposal but asked that the City
Council resist the notion that "some tinkering with the land
scape downtown will make a significant difference in the
level of economic activity.”
"This was only a preliminary review of the projects pro
posed in the Capital Improvement Program." according to
one city planner.
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DIABETES SUPPORT GROUP
Students with Diabetes Mellitus are invited to a
meeting of a support group on Friday,
December 12, 1986, from 3 30 pm to 5.00 pm
in the library of the Student Health Center.
There will be lots of time for questions and to
share concerns.
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Behind Campus
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Feminism c-*-*—**!
changing.' but we need the realism to say we
have a long way to go." Ryan said
Brown views the situation more critically.
"We have a superficial appearance of equality."
she said. "There's an incredibly powerful and
subtle backlash against feminism right now.
"In order to keep women from completely
overthrowing the power system, men have to get
us to believe everything's OK." she added.
Society, which Brown believes is controlled
by men. is performing a "delicate balancing act to
get us to think of ourselves as liberated and at the
same time not being so independent that men no
longer have the benefit of our economic, domestic
and sexual services," she said.
Pope agreed that the feminist movement has
been "most successful in issues that have not
directly come up against the most powerful and
ingrown ideologies." she said.
"The big gains have been spearheading the
acceptance of women into work outside the
home, and it has certainly agitated for Job equi
ty,” Johnson said
‘A lot of young women in high
school or early college years
believe that they haven't been
oppressed even when they've
been educated (about the
oppression).'
— Barb Ryan
Many feminists believe gains in the work
force contribute to the illusion of equality and
distract women from the structural inequalities
that still exist.
"A lot of young women in high school or ear
ly college years believe that they haven't been op
pressed even when they've been educated (about
the oppression).” said Ryan, who has taught
women's studies classes at the University.
"They're under the illusion things have
changed." Ryan said. “In answer to ‘Are things
getting better1?’ this is an indication they’re not."
Pope sees the same lack of awareness, but
defended young women. "As a generation they
get a bad rap." she said. She believes college
women have a fairly high level of sophistication
concerning feminist issues, but. "You do feel like
you're starting from zero." she said.
"For one thing, it's just age. Older women in
that class always know they've been
discriminated against," she said. Also, people
don't realize that most of the activist feminists in
the 1960s were graduate students, she said.
"Older women are not so deluded," said
Joan Acker, a sociology professor who studies
women and work. Kven though inequality and
oppression still exist, "the same formal rules app
ly to everybody so it may be difficult to see what’s
going on," she said.
This apparent delusion poses a question that
currently is dogging the feminist movement:
"Are women doing this to themselves?" said
(.auren Kessler, a journalism assistant professor
who teaches a women and media class.
"If we were united in demanding equal op
portunity, we are the majority, and supposedly
what we want we should set." Kessler said. In
stead. the Equal Rights Amendment was
defeated, and women make about ti2 percent of
what men receive in salaries, she said.
“It's really hard to reconcile those two hits of
information unless you come up with an explana
tion like internalizing sexism." Kessler said. In
ternalizing sexism is the buzz word among many
feminists who see women’s acceptance of ine
quality as one of the biggest obstacles in the path
of equality. (
“All of us internalize sexism. That's what the
whole thing is. The entire social structure is set
up to delude us," Brown said, fine reason women
internalize sexism is because "the image has been
that if you are complaining it's not because you
have a legitimate complaint, it's because you're
weak." she said.
Some women who make it in the career
world "tend to see themselves as just being more
able than anyone else," Acker said. "These
women are almost always minorities in a male
world. To survive and prosper they've had to ad
just to a lot of pressures others haven't had.
"To be successful in the system you have to
be an honorary man.” which includes adopting
elitist values, she continued.
"They may be denying these things to
themselves and others, but if you scratch Queen
Bee I think you'll find someone who has been
discriminated against," she said.
Ryan believes prostitution and pornography
are two areas in which women contribute to their
own oppression but believes that society is also
responsible.
“Every medium from TV to books to por
nography socializes women to be subservient to
men, to be really passive." Ryan said. "If a
woman has been objectified all her life, she learns
the way to get approval is through some sort of
sexual means
"What we do is buy into all of those devalued
and objectified images of women.” she said. Ad
ditionally, society needs to look at "why por
nography and prostitution pay so much more
than other jobs." she said.
"One reason women buy that is because we
don't like to think of ourselves as a victim.”
Brown said "For women to have to admit we
have been duped is very painful because it makes
ur, almost blame ourselves.”
Whether women internalize sexism or not.
“ there is discrimination. It’s not an opinion; it s
a fact,” Kessler said.
"We live in a society that perceives men to be
more valuable," Kvan said. As an example, if
women could choose the sex of their child, 24
percent would choose a male child. 20 percent
would choose a female and 56 percent would
have no preference, according to a Media-General
Associated Press Poll.
Among men. 31 percent would choose a male
child and only 12 percent would choose a female.
Those who would choose males said they
understood or liked boys better, boys were easier
to raise, or they wanted to carry on the family
name, according to a Dec. 8 Washington Post
Weekly article.
Women’s status as objects is probably most
apparent in the media, Kessler said. "People still
sell products with a woman in a bikini sprawled
across a drill press.” she said.
Sexist portrayals of women can be much
more subtle than that and also more damaging
such as when women are almost always the ones
who have problems and don’t have the solutions,
Kessler said.
"All of the sex-role stereotypes are incor
porated into the commercials as well as the pro
grams," Kubel said. "The media portrays happy,
successful, competent women as tiny, thin,
young, just emerged from the beauty shop and as
still primarily interested in a relationship."
This depiction encourages eating disorders
that mainly affect women. Rubel said. She cited
an episode of "Dallas" where J.R. Ewing describ
ed his wife as being beautiful when she was 5 feet
10 inches tall and weighed 117 pounds, which is
"clinically anorexia nervosa,” she said.
"If a woman keeps herself thin, she makes a
statement with her body that ‘I’m tiny and
helpless and frail so don't expect too much of
me.' ” she said. This reinforces sexual
‘All of us internalize sexism.
That's what the whole thing is.
The entire social structure is set
up to delude us. ”
— Betsy Brown
stereotypes, creating an inescapable circle, she
said.
“If women are physically smaller, then men
perhaps have the illusion that women are toys,
less of a threat or less important," Rebel said.
Another undeniable example of oppression
against women is rape. Ryan said. FBI statistics
estimate one in three women will be raped in
their lifetime.
“As far as I'm concerned, as long as sexual
violence is as rampant as it is. we still have a lot
of work to do to gain equality between the sexes."
Ryan said. "Sexual violence or the threat of it
works to keep us in our place."
“The big problem to me still is the gender
wage gap." Johnson said. Women who work full
time make about 62 percent of men's wages, and
in total all employed women make about 53 per
cent of men's wages. Acker said.
At the University 3.8 percent — nine women
— were full professors in 1970. By 1985 the total
had risen to 8.5 percent, 23 female full professors.
“It's a great big increase, but it's not very
big," Acker said. One reason there has been little
improvement is that "traditionally women
haven't been channeled into the lower-level posi
tions that lead to the higher-level positions," she
said.