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TANYA MELICH: WHY VOTE? • GREENPEACE WARRIOR • RAISING SONSTHE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'SQUARTERLY9n*'A 1 'A 1Mianne Malveaux & Tammy Bruce on Race and Hypocrisy

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SUMMER 1996VOLUME V • NUMBER THREEON IKE ISSUESTHE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'S QUARTERLYfeatures16 COVER STORY Can We Talk? TAMMY BRUCE AND IULIANNE MALVEAUXOn racism and domestic violence, two radical radio hosts get their signals crossed.PAGE 16Talk showdown?*22 RELIGION Claiming Sacred GroundWomen's eight-year struggle to pray out loud at "the Wailing Wall."26 MEDICAL POLITICS Women Who Trust Too MuchWliat AIDS commercials don't tell you.29 SELF-DEFENSE When Street Harassment Gets Nasty...Should you mouth off or bite your tongue?PHYLLIS CHESLERDEBORAH JOHNSONTERESA YUNKERABUSE PREVENTION LAWS"wiaBE ENFORCEDPACE 12Cambridge initiative32 PORTFOLIO An Artist Takes StockFrom inside slaughterhouses and meat farms...36 CIVIL RIGHTS Attack of the Morally ChallengedCongress goes after the disabled.40 ACTIVISM Greenpeace WarriorHow I set sail from Tahiti to stop the bomb.SUE COEFRED PELKAGILLIAN MURPHY44 FAMILY VALUES Raising Sons as AlliesWJiile race and gender uwrs rage, what can parents do on the home front?PAUL KIVELPACE 32Carnage a la cartePACE 40Protest, Tahitian stylePACE 48Republican renegadedepartments6 Feedback8 Pith & Vinegar10 Talking Feminist• Affirmative ActionDEBORAH A. COOKSEY AND MARILYN K. EASTER• Galloping Media Monopoly STEVEN HILL• Domestic Violence-Free ZoneELEANOR J. BADER• Insurance Companies Sock Itto Battered Women DONNA PARSONS• Our Clinics/OurselvesMARY LOU CREENBERG• An Eye for an Eye Can Makethe Whole World Blind SIOBHAN BYRNE60 Back PageSmile, Baby, Smile ELLEN SNORTLANDcolumns2 Front Lines Speaking Truthto One Another RONNI SANDROFF3 Merle Hoffman Peak Experiencebook & film reviews48 Tanya Melich, author ofThe Republican War Against WomenINTERVIEWED BY JULIA KAGAN51 A Woman Scorned, by Peggy ReevesSanday REVIEWED BY LORRAINE DUSKY52 Amazing Grace, by Jonathan KozolREVIEWED BY ELEANOR j. BADER53 Books in Brief54 Antonia's Line and Anne FrankRemembered FILM REVIEWS BY KATHI MAIO55 Home Videos in BriefON THE COVER Photographed for ON THE ISSUES by David Butow/SABA.

frontlinesRonni SandroffONlWSSIIEST H E P R O G R E S S I V E W O M A N ' S Q U A R T E R L YVOL. V • NO. 3 SUMMER 1996SPEAKING TRUTHTO ONE ANOTHER"Hit the mute button" was my cry for over a year whennews and non-news ("The jury has taken a long weekend") about the O.J.Simpson case dominated the airwaves. My one-woman protest against themedia's psychic assault helped me tune in to how the deeper issues for womenwere being drowned out by the blaring static of over-reporting.One piece of information that's been underanalyzed is the polling resultsthat revealed that many black women and white women had diametrically opposedviews on the Simpson verdict and the essential social lessons of the case.This issue's cover story brings those clashing perceptions to the surface in aconversation between two feminist radio-show hosts—Tammy Bruce and JulianneMalveaux—about the strategic priority the feminist movement placeson issues of gender and race. "Can We Talk?" is a raw, authentic, impassioned,and sometimes angry conversation about the feelings and deep disagreementsthat have been buried by both the media blitz and our own self-censorship andpolitical correctness. We bring it to you in the hope that understanding one anotherdeeply on a political and emotional level will help us work better togetherin the future. In the words of the poet May Sarton:For a long time, we shall have only to listen,Not argue or defend, but listen to each other.Let curses fall without intercession,Let those fires burn we have tried to smother.What we have pushed aside and tried to buryLives with a staggering thrust we cannot parry.Another piece of unfinished feminist business tackled in this issue is how weraise our male children. Although feminist thinking has had a sweeping, positiveimpact on the raising of girls in this society, it's had relatively little to sayabout how we raise our boys—especially when they reach the rough waters ofadolescence. Paul Kivel's compassionate, nitty-gritty piece, "Raising Sons asAllies," is one of ON THE ISSUES' first forays into the politics of parenting.This issue is Kathi Maio's debut as our film-and-video reviewer, and, happily,she finds two films to love. If you're looking for inspiration, read "ClaimingSacred Ground," Phyllis Chesler's account of courageous Jewish women fightingfor their right to pray aloud at "the Wailing Wall" in Jerusalem. And don'tmiss Gillian Murphy's riveting account of serving as a "Greenpeace Warrior"in the South Pacific.In our book section, special projects advisor Julia Kagan interviews TanyaMelich, a former Republican activist, who tackles the question of whether votingin national elections is a profound (if often depressing) duty or simply adistraction from "real" political work. This is one of many issues that haveprovoked deep disagreements among our editorial staff. But, hey, at ON THE IS-SUES we don't push the mute button on controversy. •Publisher/Editor-in-ChiefMERLE HOFFMANEditorRONNI SANDROFFExecutive EditorJOHN STOLTENBERGEditor-at-LargePHYLLIS CHESLERArt DirectorJOY TOLTZIS MAKONSpecial Projects AdvisorsJULIA KACANANNE MOLLECEN SMITHBook Review EditorSALLY OWENProduction EditorKAREN ROSEContributing EditorsCHARLOTTE BUNCHIRENE DAVALLKATHERINE EBAN FINKELSTEINCAROLYN CAGEBELL HOOKSFLO KENNEDYJULIANNE MALVEAUXFRED PELKAMARGE PIERCVELAYNE RAPPINGARLENE RAVENAdvertising SalesC. J. LONOFFMarketing DirectorJOY SILVERON THE ISSUES: THE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'SQUARTERLY: a feminist, humanist magazine of criticalthinking, dedicated to fostering collective responsibilityfor positive social change.ON THE ISSUES: THE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'SQUARTERLY (ISSN 0895-6014) is published quarterly asan informational and educational service of CHOICESWomen's Medical Center, Inc., 97-77 Queens Blvd.Forest Hills, NY 11374-3317. Fax: (718) 997-1206.World Wide Web:Home page: http://www.echonyc.com/~onissuesor http://www.igc.apc.org/onissuesE-mail: onissues@echonyc.comUnsolicited Manuscripts: AU material will be readby the editors. For return, enclose a self-addressed,stamped envelope with proper postage. Articlesshould not be more than 2,000 words. All editing decisionsare at the discretion of the editors. Feministcartoons are also acceptable under the same provisions.ON THE ISSUES does not accept fiction or poetry.Advertising accepted at the discretion of thepublisher. Acceptance does not imply endorsement.Publisher's Note: The opinions expressed by contributorsand by those we interview are not necessarilythose of the editors. ON THE ISSUES: THE PROGRESSIVEWOMAN'S QUARTERLY is a forum where women mayhave their voices heard without censure or censorship.Subscription Information: 1 year $14.95; 2 years$24.95; 3 years $34.95. Institutional rate: Add $10 firstyear, $5 each additional year. Add $4 per year forCanadian orders; $7 per year foreign (surface mail) or$20 per year foreign (air mail). Send to ON THE ISSUES:THE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'S QUARTERLY, P.O. Box 3000,Dept. OTI, Denville, NJ 07834. Second-class postagepaid at Forest Hills, NY, and additional mailing office.Postmaster Send address changes toON THE ISSUES: THE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'S QUARTERLY,P.O. Box 3000, Dept. OTI, Denville, NJ 07834.Copyright ©1996 byCHOICES Women's Medical Center, Inc.ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

on the issuesMerle HoffmanPEAK EXPERIENCEEverest—avatar of the Himalayas.Everest—whom the Nepalese call Sagantartha and the Tibetans call Chomolungma"Great Mother Goddess of the Earth."The coldness-starkness-eminent loneliness of the thing.Rising in self-contained purity, its summit draped in a constant cloudlike some diaphanous shawl—worn with a bit of pique.Just enough to make a difference,to separate it from all the others.Mother Goddess—sitting at 29,028 feet—the highest point on the planet.Eternally indifferent to her lovers—paying ambitious self-centered homage to herdangerous challenges; performing physical rituals of her demanding worship—struggling over the landscapes of her contours.No possibility of mutuality here—only the form, function, and paraphernalia of conquestropes,hooks, chains, oxygen.And death as a constant companion.ON THE EVE OF MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, IT SEEMSoddly natural that I find myself in an oldRussian helicopter rising thousands of milesover the Himalayas with a sense of destiny fulfilled. Ihave traveled to Everest, the ultimate metaphoric andmaterial challenge, to stand in her presence in a sacredsingular ceremony to mark my passage.I needed a rarefied atmosphere to contemplate themeaning of life and the meaning of my life, and Ifound it at the Everest View Hotel at almost 14,000feet, the "hotel at the highest point in the world."Here, with the Great Mother Goddess outside mywindow, with no running water and no heat, wherethere is a history of at least one guest dying of altitudesickness, I wanted to deny physicality—to transcendthe limits of my body and breathe only theoxygen of reflection.Fifty. The number looms, stands apart, pulsateswith external meanings. I wanted to pass through itlike all the others, to diffuse the boundaries of timeand date—the statistics of celebrity achievement at50-plus, the inane jokes, the anti-aging propaganda—all the wisdom static that surrounds this particularpassage. The world was definitely too much with me.Erica Jong knew the feeling. In Fear of Fifty shewrote that "at fifty the last thing I wanted was a publiccelebration." For her fiftieth birthday, "unlike GloriaSteinem," she did not want to "rise resplendent inan evening gown, shoulders dusted with glitter andsay, 'This is what fifty looks like.'" Taking off for aspa in the Berkshires three days before her birthdaywith her daughter, Molly, her thoughts "alternatedbetween terror and acceptance."Even so, Jong did not have the added pressure ofbecoming 50 in 1996.1 who never was a joiner, whoam an only child who never liked to be part of collectivesand groups, find myself by pure accident bornin the first baby boomer year to reach that milestone,fated to read about my birthday in The New YorkTimes as the beginning of a "fateful countdown" thatwill have "a member of the baby-boom generationmarking a 50th birthday every seven seconds everyday for the next 18 years." That's more than 10,000people "crossing daily into the 'mature market.'" Yes,I want to escape from the culture that will now barrageme with appropriate products for this "point" inmy life—from reduced-fat Campbell's cream soups toa "boomer-relevant Mercedes Benz."To remove myself from materiality, I have come toNepal, to a world that is, ironically, intensely physical.From Everest, where the rarefied atmosphere createsa constant focus on one's breath, to Katmandu,MERLE HOFFMAN is publisher/editor-in-chief of ON THE ISSUES magazine, and founder I president of bothChoices Women's Medical Center, Inc., and Choices Mental Health Center.Summer1996 • ON THE ISSUES

If, as many theorize, gender is socially constructed, why is the colorof biological determinism bleeding through everything I see here?where the fog of pollution and the stenchof poverty and incense do the same, Ifind myself immersed in the body farmore than at home, surrounded by anendless cycle of death, birth, and rebirththat triggers a rush of physical memoriesof my own history.IWHO AM so MU.ll \ CHILDof my time and place, whohave spent so much of my lifeand work helping women tofree themselves from "biologyis destiny," find myself ina place where separating thetwo is impossible, where thesocial and political conditionsthat allow Western womensome degree of control overtheir bodies do not exist.Katmandu, where abortions(illegal for all reasons)are done by inserting filthychopsticks into the uterus;where women suckle theirnewborn babies on mats incow dung because childbirthis considered ritually unclean;where there are no boundariesbetween life and death,the sacred and profane, cleanand dirty, sexual and cerebral;where Hindu worshipers ofShiva prostrate themselves oncigarette-strewn altars withmonkeys chattering madlyabove them and the smell ofshit everywhere.Katmandu, where yogisdemonstrate their renunciationof the flesh by drinkingurine and lifting 20-poundstones with their penises, andthere is the daily ritual of families crematinga loved one—on public funeralpyres—with yellowed arms and legsdangling visibly through the flameswhile the ashes brush up against myface.And the whole thing is going on atonce, played out next to and througheach other. It is a lived expression of avalue system in which all reality is perceivedas ultimately connected, whereanimals and humans participate equallyin the divine, and life and death are signpostson an eternally renewable journey.Hoffman in the shadow of the Great Mother Goddessbescent girl who reigns for the yearsprior to her first menstruation. The "Kumari"is housed in a temple with a femaleguardian where she remains foryears, practicing the daily ritual of showingherself to mortals for a few secondsevery 10 minutes.I am told that repatriated menstruatingKumaris are not sought after aswives in their villages—something aboutthem being too difficult, too different.Perhaps the loss of their temporary sacredpower leaves a residue in the collectiveconsciousness, or is it that all thatKatmandu, where I come face to facewith a living Goddess.Chosen at age four for her courage inthe face of death (candidates are shownthe head of a recently slaughtered animal),this particular Goddess is a preputimebeing worshiped as a Goddess reallychanges them forever?Photographs are forbidden, butmoney is expected as an offering for herupkeep. In a strange combination ofvoyeurism and prayer, I drop a few coinson the plate and eagerly waituntil She appears—dressed inred satin, head high, a flash offantasy made real.Red: the color of blood, passion,and death. Sense memoriesbring back my first menstruationand the rituals thatsurrounded my physical andsymbolic entry into female sexuality.I can feel it, smell it, seethe redness that miraculouslyemanated from my body. Iknow again the sting of mymother's hand as it struck theside of my face in an ancient ritualhanded down from motherto daughter. The slap thatmeans "your sex is your curse.Now that you are a woman youwill know Eve's legacy of childbirthand pain."w:HAT DOES BEING FIFTYmean for a woman—for afeminist? Is it possible to deconstructthe passage of time sothat one remains purely intellectualin response to an agingself? If, as many theorize, genderis socially constructed, whyis the color of biological determinismbleeding through everythingI see here?I think of Ecclesiastes, my favoritebook of the Bible, the mostphilosophical and existential ofall the texts: "Vanity, all is vanity." Is thebelief that one can truly escape one's biologicalreality the ultimate vanity?Here in the shadow of the Great MotherGoddess and in the presence of theliving one, there is no room for rhetoric. Iknow that I am the result of my choices.I have transcended my biology for atime, but at a price.Motherhood had never been part ofmy girlhood fantasies or lexicon of self.Always shunning the domestic andmaternal, I turned toward the mythicand heroic to commit myself to a move-ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

article took the side of the men andignored women's exploitation. Butyou utterly miss the irony and complexityof the male actors' situation,and ultimately you miss the point,which is that our image-based economyincreasingly places men in the"feminine" role with all the exploitationand agonies that implies. This isa phenomenon that is manifest in themost extreme and literal form in theporn industry, but is presentthroughout our "glamour" (a word Iuse, by the way, ironically, not, asyou seem to think, with approval)culture—a culture that demands andjudges increasingly on the basis ofbodily display.There's lots of room for debatewith such a theory, but you chose notto deal with the ideas, opting insteadfor an ad feminem attack. You seemto think that anything that inspectsporn (short of categorical condemnation)must be porn—a dogmatismmore befitting of the religious right.Most troubling, to attack a womanwriter not for her ideas but in theveiled terms of sexual innuendo(Margold is my '"pimp," etc.) is characteristicallymisogynistic.Susan FaludiLos Angeles, CARadical NotionI am a 13-year-old female who received acopy of your amazing magazine. It blewme away, and woke me up. It made merealize the raping and torturing ofwomen is basically accepted in most ofthe world. After all, feminism is the radicalnotion that women are people.Alex OrbanDenton, MDMind ControlLast night before bed I began readingyour magazine—I was just going to readone or two articles because it was alreadylate at night. I finally tore myselfaway from the magazine at about 3:00A.M., after reading almost every article.Your reasoned arguments were a joy toread. As I read the articles, I felt I couldtrust the writers—I didn't feel as thoughI were being coerced into someone'simage of an ideal feminist.As an anti-Castro Cuban lesbian-feminist,I've had my fill of attempts at mindcontrol: The mucho-macho anti-CastroCubans dislike feminists, and the feministsall seem to be pro-Castro. I disagreewith right-wing, anti-Castro politics; yetST. JAMES'S PALACELONDON SWIA IBSFrom: The Office ofH.R-H. The Princew ofWules4th March, 1996Thank you for your recent letter addressed toThe Princess of Wales. I will certainly ensure that HerRoyal Highness is aware of the contents of your letter.Yours sincerely,Maureen A. Stevenslill/ohnston sent her article "£500 With Interest"[spring] to Princess Diana and received this reply.I cannot agree with his cruel, totalitarianrule (which I experienced first-hand). Ibelieve there is no excuse for totalitarianism—notunder any guise. I would loveto read an article on the position ofCuban women today. Have the sexists'attitudes really changed? Pre-CastroCuba was terribly sexist, anti-Semitic,homophobic, and racist. Has thischanged?Martha Gonzalofmartha@aol.comBrotherhood Is PowerfulAfter reading Elayne Rapping's column["The Ladies Who Lynch," spring 1996],I have one thing to say to the author andall the ON THE ISSUES readers. Welcome!You have now achieved the equalitywith men for which you have fought sohard. Welcome to the world of infightingand back-stabbing.Women have learned the lesson wellfrom their male teachers. And the goldenrule of those lessons? Give up the greatercause for personal fulfillment and selfaggrandizement.The view from the top is always jadedby the trappings of achievement. Theego becomes all-important while thestruggle becomes a distant memory.In Rapping's closing paragraphs shetalks about how complementary eventhe anti-feministattacks are to the overallcause. But because something istalked about by right-wing, leftwing, or whatever wing in this countrydoes not mean they plan to do adamn thing about any of it—especiallyif it threatens their power base.The struggle for all human equalityhas just begun.Thomas EvansN. Massapequa, NYTake Your Daughterto the Do joAfter I read "What Is Justice for aRape Victim?" [winter 96], one statementmade by Phyllis Chesler keptrattling around in my mind: "As yet,not a single Bosnian woman haspicked up a gun to defend herself..."I kept asking myself why this wastrue. Then I asked myself if I wouldknow how to defend myself if someoneattacked me and the answer wasno. Then I asked myself why womenof all ages are not routinely taught todefend themselves against the predatorswho do rape and worse so thatwe could break this vicious cycle thatexists over the myth of femininehelplessness.Why haven't national organizationslike NOW insisted that self-defensetraining become part of school curriculums?Taking your daughter to work is awonderful idea; but I think it would bebeautiful to teach your daughter that shenever has to be a victim of violence againand to know yourself that you could bethe one to leave the mugger unconsciousin the subway instead of becoming anotherstatistic in the endless strings of violenceagainst women. A woman with aweapon, any weapon, including thoseprovided by her own body, and a willingnessto use them is too dangerous acreature to be approached with anythingother than caution and a healthy respect.We will never be safe if we wait for mento take the initiative to make the changeswe want. Even the men who love us andwould never dream of harming us arepowerless to protect us from the violenceof others. Only we as women can choosewhen and how to defend ourselves, anduntil we have that knowledge, men willalways have the power to deny us ourlives.[Name withheld]Kalamazoo, MICORRECTION: A photograph in "£500 WithInterest" was miscredited to Rachel Vaughan.The photographer's name is Vaughan Rachel.Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES

pith & vinegarAnother Lefty Boy Loses ItGood-ole-boy Jim Hightowersez he lost his radio show onABC because ABC mergedwith Disney. Not so. Accordingto an ABC Radio Networkexec, the plug was pulled onHightower Radio because aftera year in syndication manystations were opting to cancelit for lack of ratings gains.Hightower lost a few morepoints the night he emceed apanel of journalists in SanFrancisco. Even his trademarkTexas twang could notmake charming his introductionof Nation columnistKatha Pollitt with a tackycrack about the green stockingsshe was wearing. Thencame his smarmy introductionof MTV News reporterFarai Chideya by saying he'dfallen in love with her overlunch. At least Hightower'slost wattage has not gone tohis head.Whereupon William SafireHad a Hers-y FitThe New York Times, journalism'seminent "Gray Lady,"which declined to print thehonorific Ms. for more than adecade, has published a sentencecontaining the genericshe. In a Business Day articleabout a new audio recordingformat, Times writer AndrewPollack reported that it"would be more realistic thanexisting systems in makingthe listener feel as if she werein a concert hall." Holyshe/he/it.Watch Your Back, Gray LadyNot to be outdone, nowcomes The New Girl Times,"the only national newspaperwritten by girls." It featurescartoons, puzzles, reviews,plus articles on the spendingpower of teenage girls, depression,guns, and endangeredspecies. Publisher MiriamHipsch envisions theeight-page tabloid as "a dynamicpublication that willgrow and evolve through decisionsmade by its readership.One thing they will decidewill be whether toinclude anything by boys."ice cream topping. The recipesays it serves 12. Who decidesthese things? If one is reallybummed—say, from losingthe Pillsbury Bake-off—couldn't it just serve 1?No Thanks, We're FullPsychotherapist Susie Orbach,who treats Her Royal#726 WHY DOGS/IRE BETfER THAWNO DOG EVER VoTEP ToCLARWCl THOMAS.Pillsbury Boy Dough; Perhaps boys could conitribute recipes. Last year top| prize in the Pillsbury Bake-offwas raised to a million dollars,and first to win it wasKurt Wait of Redwood City,California. His grand-prizeMacadamia Fudge Torte isheart-stoppingly laden withsweetened condensed milk,chocolate chips, devil's foodcake mix, oil, nuts, and a jarof butterscotch caramel fudgeHighness Princess Diana for,among other things, her royalbulimia, will host a six-partTV series on the BBC nextseason about emotional literacy."I know the hunger thereis in this country for peopleto have the space to talkabout their emotions," saidOrbach, author of Fat Is aFeminist Issue. Next time weare tempted to overemote, weshall close our eyes and thinkof England. And all thosestarving analysands."I Didn't Do It"An overemotional monthafter Orenthal James Simpsonwas accused of murderingNicole Brown Simpson andRon Goldman, he applied tothe Federal Patent and TrademarkOffice to trademark hisfirst and middle names. Butthe Florida Department ofCitrus planned to fight his application,as The New YorkTimes notified her readers,"because 'O.J.' has been apopular name for orange juicefor decades." Happily, thetwo parties reached an agreement.The former footballplayer gets marketing rightsto O.J. on about 50 products,but not food and beverages.One loophole in the deal: Mr.Simpson could legally publisha cookbook titled In theKitchen with Rosey—coauthoredwith the Rev. Grier.SqueezedSingle mothers currently raise24 percent of the children in'• United States, notes AmericanDemographics magazine, upfrom 6 percent in 1950. Andaccording to NOW LDEF,; over half the women on welifare are experiencing, or havei fled from, domestic abuse ori sexual assault.i Lien on Mei Meanwhile, deadbeat dadsI got fresh support from thePatriot movement, an allianceof white, far-right, Christianmen who are very ticked offat the feds. A fave tactic—used by the Freemen encampedin "Justus," Montana—involvesusingcommercial liens (a legalmeans of attaching property)against "government forces."Against women, too, accordingto a rambling and un-ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

grammatical missive interceptedon the Internet fromone R.L. Cheney Jr., executivedirector of the Sovereign PatriotGroup: "All mens, andfathers rights groups and allfathers, SHOULD IMMEDI-ATELY LEARN AND STARTUSING COMMERCIALLIENS against those whomhave for so long, illegallydamaged you. (That evenmeans your EX-WIVES/Girlfriendsguys!)."alt.parental.guidanceFor some strange reason, thefathers' rights movementthinks the federal governmentis not on their side.Congress recently passed theCommunications DecencyAct, which could make it afelony, punishable by fiveyears in prison and a fine of$250,000, to discuss abortionon the Net. NARALandother pro-choice groups suedto block this provision. PatSchroeder introducedH.R.3057 to overturn it, asdid Frank Lautenberg withSenate bill S.I592. MeanwhileMicrosoft iibernerd Bill Gatesurged in his newspaper columnthat there be no laws incyberspace whatsoever. Instead,he recommends a ratingsystem, as there is formovies, so that "authorities,including parents in anycountry, [can] effectively filteraccess to information."The Global WillyageEffectively filtering female athletes'access to the OlympicGames, 35 countries sentmale-only delegations toBarcelona four years ago. TheInternational Olympic Committeehad no problem withthis, even though the OlympicCharter officially bans "anyform of discrimination...onA child of the '60s, and her little daughter, Backlash.grounds of race, religion, politics,sex or otherwise." So theAtlanta Plus Committeelaunched an internationalcampaign to keep countriesthat discriminate againstwomen athletes from participatingin the AtlantaOlympics. "Gender apartheidmust be fought with the samevigor as racist apartheid becauseboth embody the samenegative and demeaning senseof unworthiness," said theParis-based group. Just do it.Jock KitschWomen under Islamic law donot enter swimming eventsbecause it is awkward toswim wearing a chador. Coincidentallyit is also not possibleto swim competitively inany of the garments womenwore in the 1996 Sports Illustratedswimsuit issue.The Conned Nasty TravelerTired of catalog shopping?Fun couple Marc Tedoff andMaria Jimenez are solicitingguys to join them on ThePhilippine Frenzy, their veryexpensive tour to Manila tofind "unspoiled" Filipinawomen and girls. Marc andMaria will take men to partiesto meet 'n' greet lots of them."At least six," they promise;"American Men are KINGS inThe Philippines." If a guybrings a buddy, it's 10 percentoff. Marriage is an option immediately.Then, presumably,it's between him and the INS.Calling the GoebbelsDefense CommitteeIn an unusual move for apublisher, St. Martin's Pressabruptly canceled Goebbels:Mastermind of the Third Reichby David Irving. The book'seditor, Thomas Dunne, initiallystood by his decision to acquirethe book. In a free society,he stated, publishers donot and should not investigatethe loyalities, politics,and/or personal lives of authors.But CEO Thomas J. Mc-Cormack overruled Dunneupon learning that Irving isan internationally knownNazi apologist and Holocaustrevisionist and that criticswho saw the book in galleyscalled it "repellent" and"filled with camouflaged admiration."So, is McCormack'saction "censorship"?We asked some anti-censorshipfolks who are knownpornography apologists.• "It's an outrage," said BarbaraDority, cochair of NorthwestFeminists Against CensorshipTaskforce. "In thewords of Woodrow Wilson: Ihave always believed that thegreatest freedom of speechwas the greatest safety. Becauseif a man or woman is afool, the best thing to do is toencourage him or her to advertisethat fact by speaking."• "Nobody has approachedus," said Courteney Morris,spokesperson for the AmericanCivil Liberties Union,"but if they did I imagine ourstand would be with the publisher.It's a freedom-of-thepressissue."• Leanne Katz, executive directorof the National CoalitionAgainst Censorship,"hasn't been following this,"according to her assistant, "soshe doesn't feel qualified tomake a statement."The Hochheit ReportIronically, author Shere Hite,I whose book The Hite Report: on the Family was onceI abruptly canceled by Dutton,i has become a citizen of the; very country that wasi Goebbels's. Renouncing heri U.S. citizenship, Hite madeI her announcement to coin-: cide with German publication; of her autobiography, The\ Hite Report on Hite. Said Hite• from Bonn: "I find in Ger-! many there is a more proifound public debate abouthuman rights and other is-I sues than there is in the UnitedStates now."What the Dickens...Novelist Stephen King,whose books are rarely canceled,is publishing his next,The Green Mile, in six installmentsand without anyrecipes. A serial thriller, ittakes place in 1932 at ColdMountain state prison where[...uh, to be continued]. >£Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES

talking .feministQ. What Do You CallHiring a Nephew?A. White Affirmative Actionby Deborah A. Cooksey andMarilyn K. EasterWe hate to admit it, but some of thestereotypes about African Americans aretrue. In fact, the authors of this article fitthe disturbing profile of girls in the'hood. We are young, black, raised in theinner city in large families and brokenhomes. Many of our homies are lockedup, cracked up, or smacked up. We'vehad close encounters with the welfaresystem and one of us has been doing battlewith the court system for most of heradult life. The other has been in schoolfor what seems like an eternity and justcan't seem to get out. One has enoughkids to fill a classroom and the othersometimes doesn't even know where herol' man is. We think of ourselves as assertive;others call us domineering andcombative. On the job we're labeled as"quota hires" or "affirmative action babies"—everything except qualified.Now that we've got the attention ofthose who think you know us based onthe above profile, here's the truth behindthe stereotypes. The protracted stint inacademia has netted one author a doctoratein education. She is a college professorwhose "kids" fill her classroomsto capacity; her courses have a one-yearDEBORAH COOKSEY, ESQ.,practices law in Oakland, CA.MARILYN EASTER, ED.D., teachesat several universities in the Bay Area.They dedicate this article to their mothers,Mary Cooksey and the late DeloisPettigrew, whose hard work and sacrificemade their accomplishments possible.waiting list. She is married to a dentistwith his own practice. The other authoris a practicing attorney specializing inlabor and construction litigation. Sheearned her law degree from anIvy League school back eastand also is married go asuccessful professional,a corporate attorneywho travels extensively.In short, we arethe beneficiaries ofaffirmative action.And we are fed upwith the pre-electionhype that saysundeserving minoritiesare "gettingover" at the expenseof whites. The implicationis that minorities nolonger need affirmative actionbecause (1) it has servedits intended purpose of levelingthe playing field in education and employmentand/or (2) attempting to rightpast wrongs is unfair to the white majority.We recently interviewed over 700 peopleof all races in a research study to findout just how level today's playing fieldis. What we discovered is that affirmativeaction has opened doors for womenand minorities but has not been able toovercome the unfairness of white maleaffirmative action, otherwise known asracism, elitism, and nepotism.Racial PerceptionsMany African Americans in corporatesettings and higher education find themselvesresented and referred to as "quotahires" in the workplace. It is as thoughtheir hard-earned credentials are nomore than consolation prizes in the affirmativeaction sweepstakes. In general,while white professionals are likely to beheld in high esteem even if they graduatedat the bottom of their class from anonaccredited university, African Americanprofessionals are prejudged as possessing"tainted" degrees even thoughthey graduated from Ivy League schools.No amount of power positioningseems to overcome racist perceptions. Inthe courtroom, for example, oneauthor is usually mistaken fora legal assistant or courtreporter, despite the factthat she sits at counsel'stable beside herclient. The other authorstarts each newuniversity course byentering the classroomand writingher name and titleon the board. StudentsneverthelessI assume she is a teachingassistant ratherthan a professor.Grandfathering thePrivilegedDespite the politically correct lipservice paid to equal employment and acolor-blind society, entrenched elitismcontinues to be a barrier. When one authorearned her doctorate in education at35, after more than 10 years of practicalexperience, she was informed that shewould need at least 20 years of work experienceto qualify for an entry-level universityteaching position. She challengedthe obvious unfairness of the situation;many currently working white teachersand some high-level university administratorshad neither a doctorate degreenor 20 years' work experience. The explanationgiven is that many academicswere "grandfathered" into teaching and•s310 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

It is as though our hard-earned credentials are no more thanconsolation prizes in the affirmative action sweepstakes.administrative positions. In many sectorsof society, grandfathering allowsless qualified administrators to set arbitrarystandards they themselves are notrequired to (and in some cases, couldnot) meet. Grandfathering can make itimpossible for women and minorities togain equal access to employment.Phony AffirmationsThere are those who argue (with astraight face!) that affirmative actionshould be abolished because it is unfairto whites, particularly white males. Theyignore the fact that white males have alwayshad their own peculiar form of affirmativeaction. Consider the 1960s,when white college students, sons ofprominent politicians and leaders of industry,were routinely awarded draft deferments.Other examples of white affirmativeaction include tax breaks forcorporations, the bailouts of savings andloans, red-lining to keep white suburbshomogeneous, prep-school connections,and membership in exclusive clubs...justto name a few.The creation of phony companies isone way powerful whites have used affirmativeaction laws to their own advantage.Businesses throughout thecountry have established separate entitiesheaded by a minority or a woman(often the wife or a female relative of theCEO of the parent company). The newcompany boasts a racially diverse workforce, which qualifies it to bid on thoseportions of government contracts earmarkedfor women- and minorityownedbusinesses. However, the newcompany is not actually competing withits sire and has no real autonomy; theparent company continues to control thenew company's board of directors andfinances.Chips off the Old BlockNepotism is perhaps the oldest and mostsubtle form of white affirmative action.Our research subjects told of countlesssituations in which business owners andcorporate executives hire, retain, andpromote family members and friends,regardless of their qualifications, training,or abilities. Qualified minority applicants,who because of historical discriminationhave no relatives in highplaces, are often out of luck.White affirmative action is a part ofthe fabric of American life. It is hypocriticaland wrong to call for the eradicationof affirmative action for minorities whileaccepting affirmative action for bankers,high-level managers, and other whitemen in power as normal entitlements.After 30 years of affirmative action,the playing field is far from level. For allthe angry white males who want to abolishaffirmative action for women and minorities,we say, "No problem." But whileyou're at it, don't forget to eliminateracism, elitism, nepotism, and the otherforms of white affirmative action. Theytoo must go! •Galloping Media Monopoly Is theReal Threat to Free Speechby Steven HillWhile the "decency" provisions of theTelecommunications Act grabbed frontpageheadlines in February, another,more ominous piece of news was tuckedinside the business pages. Federal regulatorscleared the way for Disney'stakeover of ABC, creating the world'slargest media company. Also in Februarythe federal government continued itsauction of the public wireless airwavesto wealthy investors, with total bids approaching$7 billion. And cable industryleader TCI, which is positioned to benefitgreatly from the TelecommunicationsAct, announced its intention to plowmore than the $40 million it has alreadyspent insinuating new cable venturesinto the classroom. While civil libertarianswere litigating out of fear of governmentcensorship, a much greater threatto the First Amendment—monopolizationof mass media—slipped by withhardly a peep of protest.The Telecommunications Act is a "freeSTEVEN HILL is a writer and activistwho works for an Internet serviceprovider in San Francisco. His web site isat http://www.igc.apc.org/enVISION.trade" agreement for corporate media.The bill deregulates the telecommunicationsindustry and makes Disney-liketakeovers and mergers easier. Many expertspredict it will inevitably result inincreasing media centralization and joblosses as merging corporations downsize.Why, then, has so much protest andlitigation focused on the decency standard,government censorship, andpornography on the Internet?Truth be told, corporate media lovethe anti-censorship lawsuits of civillibertarian groups like the AmericanCivil Liberties Union (ACLU). Anticensorshippolicies fit corporate agendasto a T. As the fight over the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) showed, corporations wantderegulated environments. When thecorporations are media conglomerates,anti-censorship policies have the sameeffect as NAFTA. They become theopposite of anti-trust policies, creating a"free trade" environment sansgovernment intervention, where thewealthiest media companies can grabbigger and bigger chunks of the market.If the government isn't allowed to regulatecorporate behavior—media or oth-Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 11

A fundamentalist anti-censorship approach sellsspeech rights to the highest bidder.erwise—who can? Certainly not consumersor the free market. Handcuffingthe government in matters of speech iswhat allows corporations and wealthyindividuals to buy more speech thaneveryone else.Effective speech today is no longerfree. In fact, it's quite expensive, andvery few can afford it. Anti-censorshippolicies turn the First Amendment into arace in which those with the most moneyand resources win. The specter of lawenforcementpersonnel shackling streetcornerpamphleteers is much less athreat to freedom of speech than aneconomy in which the First Amendmentis captured by market forces./"\ne of the goals of the First\J Amendment should be to enhance—in the words of free-speech championJustice William Brennan—a "robust publicdebate" on significant social issues.This robust-debate principle recognizesthat sometimes it may be necessary toturn down the volume of certain loudand clamorous speakers—say, NBC,CBS, Rupert Murdoch—in order to giveothers a chance to speak. At the veryleast, it may be necessary to turn up thevolume of some who can't get heard,with policies like the Fairness Doctrine, abeefed-up public broadcasting system,the National Endowment for the Arts,and set-asides. And in certain caseswhere one or two loudmouths dominatethe discussion, it may be necessary toask them to shut up for a little while.Who but the government can be aFirst Amendment referee in such instances?The government already acts asa referee in matters of civil rights, education,low-cost housing, health care. Whynot in matters of the corporate mediaand the First Amendment?The public-debate principle woulddistinguish between the "cheap" speechof individuals and small institutions andthe "wealthy" speech of multinationalcorporations. Each would be guided by adifferent set of laws and policies. But thefundamentalist anti-censorship approachtreats corporations as if they are individuals.According to the civil-libertarianrationale, as well as the conservativeRehnquist court, the speech of a singlehomeless mother is equivalent in theeyes of the law to the speech of Disney/ABC—asthough they both sprintfrom the same starting line. Such a simplisticview of the First Amendmentturns this great doctrine into a battle betweenDavids and Goliaths, with priceyFirst Amendment lawyers representingmonster media moguls.Look at the net effect: In the name ofthe First Amendment, corporations andthe ACLU have fought attempts at campaign-financereform. The ACLU, for example,was a plaintiff in a suit that defeateda 1974 Congressional law thatwould have capped campaign spending,and the resulting Supreme Court rulingvexes us to this day. Recently the ACLUsued to block Missouri's popular Initiative41, which would have limited contributionsin citywide races to $100. Bothcorporations and the ACLU have litigatedagainst restrictions on commercialspeech and advertising. The ACLU hasalso sued to bar "truth in advertising"laws that keep political campaigns fromknowingly making false statements, callingthe laws too vague and censorious ofthe free flow of political ideas. This is the"NAFTAization" of free speech, and ithas been promoted for years by civil libertarianswho thirst more for liberty thanequality.The telecommunications bill couldhave inspired a major public debateabout the domination of the public airwaysby multinational media conglomerates,and about the differences betweencheap speech and wealthy speech.Instead, attention was diverted to theACLU's sideshow.The Telecommunications Actshould indeed be opposed, but notsimply because of its decency standardand not because the government has nocompelling interest at times in acting asreferee in matters of speech. Rather, theTelecommunications Act ought to be opposedas an infringement on the publicdiscourse and the First Amendment thatis increasingly being dominated by multinationalcorporations and market forces.If we are to imbue modern FirstAmendment jurisprudence with democraticand egalitarian values, we will haveto divest ourselves of the naive notionthat Big Brother comes only in the guiseof government or law-enforcement bureaucrats.Big Corporation is watchingyou, and trying to gobble up all the publicspeech it can. •Sign of the times: part ofthe movement to combatdomestic abuse inCambridge, MA.Photograph by Jane Tyska."DomesticViolence-FreeZone"by Eleanor J. BaderIn March 1994, municipal signs warningthat "abuse prevention laws will be enforced"suddenly appeared all over thecity of Cambridge, MA. The signs, abrainchild of City Councilor KatherineTriantafillou, are part of a manyprongedcommunity movement to createa city free of domestic violence.The magnitude of the problem in thissmall city, home to both Harvard Universityand the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT), didn't becomeclear until a 1992 federal grant enabledthe city to create a domestic violenceunit in the police department. For thefirst time, calls and complaints weretracked and the true breadth of batteringand violence became obvious. In 1995,investigators found that between 500and 600 restraining orders were issuedin Cambridge—population 95,000."We know that simply putting upELEANOR J. BADER is a freelancewriter and teacher from Brooklyn, NY.12 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

signs saying we do not tolerate domesticviolence in Cambridge is not enough,"says Triantafillou. "City policies set atone for the community and we wantour community to be reassured that educatingourselves and increasing awarenessabout domestic violence, and coordinatingefforts to decrease violence, is apriority."The 55 signs, located in front of publicschools, libraries, hospitals, and policestations, represent one, and only one, ofthe many tactics developed since thedecades-long struggle to end domesticviolence began. Other strategies—somehave been tried, while others are brandnew—were first discussed at a summitmeeting, held in the spring of 1995, thatbrought together more than 50 local people,all of whom are working to stop domesticviolence. At the summit longtimefeminist activists sat at the table withservice providers, police officers, courtpersonnel, and city officials—and attemptedto hammer out short- and longtermsolutions."We walked away from the summitwith some key definitions and concepts,"says Cambridge's violence preventionCoordinator Richard G. Wright.For example, the group wrote a definitionof domestic violence that includes"male to female violence, same-sex battering,child abuse, elder abuse, siblingabuse, relationship violence, and sexualviolation... We also now have some ideasabout what services work and don'twork, and what can be improved."Monthly meetings, called by Wrightand Nancy Ryan, executive director ofthe Cambridge Commission on the Statusof Women, have helped to improvethe flow of information between thesegroups.In addition, meeting participants havecalled on the government to meet thehousing and economic needs of womenwishing to leave their abusers. They arealso working on a proposal to requireHarvard and MIT to fund Domestic ViolenceFree Zone projects such as the buildingof additional shelters and the creationof permanent, subsidized housing.The group has also formulatedother initiatives aimed at making aviolence-free zone a reality, including• Organizing ongoing focus groupsfor survivors of domestic violence sothat they have a systematic way to givefeedback and advice to policymakersand program developers.• Encouraging people from all 11Cambridge neighborhoods, and from allcity departments, to engage in publicconversations about gender disparitiesand sexual violence.• Creating after-hours services forbattered women and their children ateach of Cambridge's three hospitals—two private and one public. In a highlypublicized move in the fall of 1995, eachhospital began providing beds, food,and counseling, on a rotating basis, as abackup to services offered by shelters.• Distributing an Emergency AlarmResponse System, dubbed Project EARS,to give women at risk of being battered away to contact police if they do not havea telephone or fear that they will be unableto access one.• Educating the public through publicservice announcements, made in conjunctionwith Cable Vision and aired inSpanish, English, and Creole, urgingwomen to "make the call" to a shelter orcounselor if they are being abused."We're trying to do as much on a feministmodel as we can," says Ryan. "Ourbiggest challenge is to keep alive the factthat since day one, this issue has beendefined not by government, but bygrassroots women." •For more information contact: TheCambridge Commission on the Status ofWomen, 51 Inman St., Cambridge, MA02139;617-349-4697.Our Clinics/Ourselves:Defending Providers Is Up to Usby Mary Lou GreenbergLevels of clinic violence in 1995 declinedsubstantially, according to a recent reportby the Feminist Majority Foundation.But I have visited and talked withmany abortion providers in the pastyear who are living a very different reality.While the foundation report acknowledgesthat one third (!) of clinicsare "still under serious attack," its mainmessage of a decline of violence contributesto a false sense of security andthe false assumption that pro-choicepeople can rely on law enforcement totake care of the situation. One furiousclinic owner told me, "This will effectivelyput us out on a limb!"MARY LOU CREENBERC, a revolutionaryactivist, has in recent years defendedclinics and talked with abortionproviders in many cities.Some people just don't know aboutthe continuing state of siege that manyclinics and doctors are under. Some mistakenlythink that the FACE (Freedom ofAccess to Clinic Entrances) act, injunctions,and local and federal law enforcementare taking care of business. Othershesitate to come out to the clinics becauseof fear for their personal safety.And many who would like to come forwarddon't know what to do or are toldto stay home."We can't defend ourselves againstthis kind of violence," and therefore "wehave to get the government on our side"so they'll protect us, one leader of a nationalwomen's organization stated at amemorial service for the Brooklinewomen in January 1995. Such statementsonly demobilize and disarm people bypromoting illusions that this capitalistpatriarchy could ever really act in the interestsof women. It also encourages theSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 13

Some Federal marshalls made it clearthat their sympathies were with the antis.myth of women's passivity and so-callednatural nonviolence and inhibits theirability to fight back.There is much that needs to be figuredout in the battle to defend reproductivefreedom, and many different tactics,ranging from writing letters to the editorsto demonstrating against the antis,need to be used change the climate. Butto ensure access to abortion today,providers and clinics must also be physicallydefended. Pro-choice people, especiallywomen, must take responsibilityfor this. When Refuse & Resist! activistsraised a banner with the slogan "NoFear! No Silence! Defend AbortionProviders by Any Means Necessary!"after the July 31,1994, murders of Dr.John Bayard Britton and James Barrettby Paul Hill, we were surrounded by reporterswho asked, "Are you advocatingviolence?"And "Won't this escalatethings?" To that we answered: "The antishave escalated things by killing our doctors!We have to defend ourselves andour providers from them! If we don'tstand up to anti-abortion terrorism, itwill escalate." (And it did escalate onlyfive months later in Brookline.)t's not only hostiLe media whoIhave challenged this position. "Youwant us to put our feminist bodies onthe line; we want the cops to do it," onewoman berated an activist who was encouragingwomen to defend clinics. Ithink this comment crystallizes much ofthe wrong thinking around this issuetoday. Many women have a real reluctanceto deal with issues of security. Afew examples of official response in theabortion battle show why we must relyon ourselves to defend providers:• Federal marshals were sent to anumber of clinics after the Brooklinemurders, but most have now been deployedelsewhere, despite continuingdeath threats against doctors. Duringtheir deployment some sat listlessly incars outside clinics; others made it clearthat their sympathies were with theantis.• At one clinic, owned by a doctorwhose life was threatened on TV by ananti-abortion Catholic priest, two antisburst into the waiting room and beganscreaming at clients. A fast-moving receptionistbodily threw them out. Whenthe doctor called the feds, they told himthat he needed a federal injunction. Heanswered, "I have a federal injunction!"They said they'd "write up"the incident.• After Dr. David Gunn was killed inMarch 1993, Paul Hill wrote and circulateda statement that said the killing ofabortion doctors was justified. He was afrequent, loud, and threatening demonstratoroutside Pensacola clinics. The directorof the Ladies Center pleaded withthe FBI to have Hill arrested—but theysaid that Hill had not broken any law.Later, a U.S. attorney said that "someonewith a clear intent to commit violence regardlessof the outcome to themselves isalmost impossible to stop."Well, this may be the opinion of lawenforcement, but it's not mine. CouldPaul Hill have been stopped? Let's lookat the situation. Hill was lurking outsidethe Ladies Center before James Barrettdrove into the clinic parking lot with Dr.Britton. Before the car drove in, the parkingarea should have been secured—thatis, no antis should have been on thegrounds. And if antis were in the adjoiningarea, clinic defenders should havebeen keeping an eye on them. Second, noone, especially a known anti such asPaul Hill, should have been allowed toget close to the car. Third, Hill shouldnot have been able to pull out a shotgunand shoot both Mr. Barrett and Dr. Britton.If pro-choice people had been on thegrounds and appropriately trained forself-defense, as many doctors themselvesare, Hill quite likely could have beenstopped before killing anyone.Some people have said to me thatupholding the right of self-defenseagainst armed attacks would only makethings worse and would make prochoiceforces "look like" the antis. Thereis no way we could ever be "like" theantis for the fundamental reason thatthey are trying to force women to bebreeders and submit to patriarchal domination,and we want women to be free!Further, defending abortion providersis like a woman fighting back against arapist. The violence she might use to defendherself is totally justified and qualitativelydifferent from the violence of therapist. When women defend ourselvesand our providers from attack, we declareour commitment to women's freedomand show by word and deed thatwe will do what is necessary to defendit. One heavily targeted Florida providersaid to me, "If providers stand alone, theright to abortion will be lost." We mustnot let this happen. •For a copy of a 10-point program on howto defend abortion rights, write: Refuse &Resist! 305 Madison Ave., Suite 1166, NewYork, NY 10165.Insurance CompaniesSock It to Battered Womenby Donna ParsonsThe insurance industry, which back inthe early 1970s lobbied vigorously toblock ratification of the Equal RightsAmendment, is still up to its sexisttricks. Having triumphed over women'scivil equality in that legislative battle, insurancecompanies nowadays are rubbingit in—by denying coverage towomen for injuries that result frombeing beaten by their husbands.DONNA PARSONS,a long-time activistin the women's health movement,is a degree candidate in anthropology atEckerd College in Florida.A woman in Delaware was denied lifeinsurance by Nationwide based on medicalrecords "indicating an unstable familyenvironment" because they showedthree assaults by her husband and abusecounseling. In Pennsylvania a womanwas unable to obtain reimbursement forhealth-care costs due to abuse because ofa policy exclusion for expenses arisingfrom any domestic dispute. In yet anothermodern romance between corporategreed and male gender bias, women allover the United States are being systematicallydenied insurance coverage becausethe industry refuses to take seriouslya woman's safety in her own home.Arguing that women who have been14 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

attered are at continued, ongoing,knowable risk, insurance companies regarddomestic Violence as a "pre-existingcondition." Ironically, this argument confirmswhat courts have been denying,when battered women on trial for murderclaim they acted in self-defense. Eitherway, women lose and male dominionis sanctioned. The message towomen is that there is no recourse andno way out.M ot only are women blamed andIN persecuted for the violent behaviorof others; we are denied the supportneeded to escape from a life of brutalization.A woman in Washington State, forinstance, even though she was divorced,was twice denied insurance because shehad been treated for physical and emotionalabuse by her former husband.Without insurance, women cannot affordhealth care for themselves and theirfamily, secure provisions for their childrenin case of their own death or disability,or even purchase a home or a car.These tools necessary for an independentlife free from violence are denied towomen—not because of poor credit oran inability to pay but because insurancecompanies, members in good standingof the old guard, embody the rightwing's nostalgia for the 1950s, whenwomen bore up and shut up.There are no federal laws protectingwomen beaten by their husbands frombeing victimized again by insurancecompanies, hi fact, insurers may pursueany avenue to deny coverage, no matterhow insidious. Documentation compiledby physicians to refer women to sheltersfor protection against abuse, for instance,may be used by insurance companies todeny or reduce coverage or to chargewomen higher premiums. Furthermore,if you are abused, seeking counselingcould disqualify you from coverage inthe future. The divorced woman fromWashington State was denied insurancesolely on the grounds that she had obtainedabuse-related counseling.If a woman stays in an abusive relationship,she risks continuous harm andpossibly death, as well as the condemnationof society that blames her for notsimply pulling herself together and hittingthe road. Whether she leaves or not,she is denied health, life, and oftenhomeowners insurance, and if she seekscounseling to help regain her mental andemotional strength, she is penalized bythe refusal of coverage.Since the federal government takes nolegislative responsibility for abusedwomen, it is left to the states to decidewhether a victim of abuse is affordedprotection under the law. At present onlyIowa, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts,and Florida have passed legislationto outlaw insurance discriminationagainst victims of domestic violence.Similar laws are pending in 11 otherstates.The National Association of InsuranceCommissioners, an association of allstate regulators, is working on a modellaw. The problem is that no state is requiredto adopt it. Consequently in conservativestates with powerful insurancelobbies, women don't stand a chance ofgetting legislative protection.Laws against insurance discriminationare urgently needed so long as corporations,such as insurance companies, continueto support abusers. When was thelast time you heard of a man denied coveragefor beating his wife? •Death Penalty: An Eye for an EyeCan Make the Whole World Blindby Siobhan ByrneIf you were killed in a violent crime,what would you like to happen to yourmurderer? Sister Camille D'Arienzo ishoping you don't want the ultimaterevenge.A staunch opponent of the deathpenalty, Sister Camille, president of Sistersof Mercy Brooklyn Regional communityin New York, has come up with anovel idea. Her group, the Cherish LifeCircle, is distributing a document called"The Declaration of Life," which states:"Should I die as a result of a violentcrime, I request that the person foundguilty...not be subject to or put in jeopardyof the death penalty...no matterhow much I may have suffered."To date, the declaration has beensigned by 2,400 people, including formerNew York governor Mario Cuomo. ActorMartin Sheen signed at a party, attendedby Sister Camille, following a screeningof An American President. Another notablesignature came from Carolyn Mc-Carthy, a nurse from Mineola, whosehusband was killed by Colin Fergusonduring a shooting spree on the Long IslandRail Road in New York in 1993."The Declaration of Life" is akin to aliving will and proponents hope it willwield the same power in a courtroom.Because there is no case law, it's difficultto say what would happen if "The Declarationof Life" were brought to criminaltrial. Anthony Girese, Counsel to theBronx District Attorney's office, said:Screenwriter SIOBHAN BYRNEteaches the art at Rutgers University."How a jury would react is anybody'sguess. But I think they would be verydisinclined to give the death penalty" ina case involving the declaration signedby the victim of a homicide.The declaration urges family andfriends to deliver copies to the prosecutor,the attorney representing the personcharged with the homicide, the presidingjudge, and the county recorder, as wellas to television and radio stations.The declaration clearly states that it "isnot meant to be, and should not be takenas, a statement that the person or personswho have committed my homicideshould go unpunished." The main objectiveis to give those who oppose thedeath penalty a voice. "The documentgives us that power. It is an opportunityto take a stand, and to go on record withit," says Sister Camille.In the archives of her religious community,Sister Camille found documentsfrom the 1860s about "prisoner Greenwald,"the last prisoner to be executedby hanging in New York State, where thedeath penalty was reinstated in August,1995. The Sisters of Mercy had visitedthe prisoner in a Brooklyn jail andrecorded that Greenwald maintained hisinnocence to the end. After his execution,the records show, the real murderer confessedto the crime.Studies support the idea that innocentpeople die as a result of the death penalty.A1987 study in The Stanford Law Reviewfound that from 1900 to 1985,139innocent people were sentenced to deathand 23 of them were executed. In 1993,seven innocent people were releasedfrom death row. •Summer 1,996 • ON T.HE ISSUES 15

JULIANNEMALVEAUXis an economist whose columnappears weekly in some 20newspapers. A regularcommentator on CNN andCompany and PBS's To theContrary, Malveaux is authorof Sex, Lies and Stereotypes:Perspectives of a MadEconomist (Pines One).••ON THE ISSUESSummer 199 6CANWE TALK?On racism and domestic violence, tworadical radio hosts get their signals crossed.Photographed for ON THE ISSUES in March 1996 by David Butow/SABATURN ON THE RADIO AND LISTEN TOwomen talk-show hosts. Most likelythey're talking therapy, cooking, orsex, or they're laughing their heads off atsome male host's jokes. Only about twodozen women radio hosts in the UnitedStates talk politics and social issues. OTIbrought together two of the most prominentand asked them to converse.Both have fervent fans and critics. JulianneMalveaux, a distinguished progressiveeconomist, was recently called "idiotic"by the conservative American Spectator. Farmore excruciatingly, Tammy Bruce, the locallypopular chapter president of Los AngelesNOW, was denounced last year by nationalNOW president Patricia Ireland for"racially insensitive statements."In Los Angeles, Bruce hosts The TammyBruce Show, a three-hour call-in programaired Saturday and Sunday afternoons over50,000-watt radio station KFI-AM. FromWashington, DC, Malveaux has hosted andexecutive-produced The Julianne MalveauxShow, an hour-long news-and-public-affairsA N O T I D I A L O G U E W I T H T A M M Y16 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

mm-TAMMYBRUCEwas the only woman includedin a Time magazine coverstory on the impact of talkradio. In 1990, at the age of 27,Bruce became the youngestperson elected president of LosAngeles NOW, one ofNOW'sfounding chapters and thelargest in the United States.•IStarprogram heard daily in a dozen markets nationwide.Bruce and Malveaux (a contributing editor of OTI) metfor the first time March 4 in a studio at KFI. Soon after themikes were turned on, they hit their first disagreement...TAMMY BRUCE: I go to women callers first. We make apoint of hearing other women's opinions—and we'vedrawn women to the medium, which is imperative, becausewomen traditionally aren't listening to talk radio andit really is shaping our lives.JULIANNE MALVEAUX: I don't think it's enough tosimply hear women's voices. The reality of the '90s is thatyou are going to find women who are not only right of centerbut anti-feminists.TB: In the city of Los Angeles there are no women indrive time on talk radio—I'm on the weekends; I welcomewhatever those voices are.JM: Well, talk radio is about a dialogue, but we shouldn'tsimply settle for saying, "I want a woman on the air."We have to deal with issues of content, too, because withthe policy debate right now, a whole bunch of issues havedropped off the screen. When you say, "We want awoman's voice or we want a black voice" without talkingabout content, I don't think you change the conversation.TB: I think you do. At a very basic level a woman'svoice or an African American's voice is going to bringsomething different to the debate.JM: What does Clarence Thomas bring to the SupremeCourt?TB: Well, I was going to use Sandra Day O'Connor asmy example. As a conservative woman, suddenly she wasmaking choices and decisions and saying things thatwomen say, on issues of sexual harassment, on issues ofabortion. Wherever a woman is on the political spectrum,invariably we have things in common.JM: I can't tell you how much I resent that woman, andher hypocrisy and temerity. Sandra Day O'Connor, in affirmative-actioncases, has asked for proof of past discrimination;yet she has talked in detail about the discriminationthat she experienced. That white woman doesn't get race.She doesn't get gender all the way either.TB: But I'm making a different point than you are. Iagree with you. She is not, certainly, the only voice. RuthBader Ginsberg is bringing wonderful things to those decisions.My point is that if we want women to be heard—andmay the best organizer win and may these debates continueso that we get it right on social issues—I'm not going tosay that only certain kinds of women's voices get heard.And I would trust that if Sandra Day O'Connor is wrongon an issue, then those debates are going to prove herB R U C E A N D J U L I A N N E M A L V E A U XSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 17

MALVEAUX: I really do not see many white women being as sensitiveas they need to be about race issues, especially in politics. Lots ofwhite women simply don't get it.wrong, and the social sentiment will prove her wrong, butI'm not going to shut it down to only certain kinds—JM: Well, I'm not shutting it down either. But hey, ain'tI a woman?TB: And ain't she a woman?JM: She is an upper-class, Republican, white womanwhose interests do not come from anywhere else. So callher woman if you will—TB: I will.JM: —but she does not speak to a whole range ofwomen.TB: We can disagree with ideas of those upper-middleclassRepublican women who are wrong on the social issues.But if we are going to decide who is a woman andwho is not, we are participating in the division; we are classifyingand judging.JM: The real question is "Are they feminist?" I think alot of women come to women and say, "I'm a woman, votefor me"—then they put the screws to a women's agenda.You can't have it both ways—TB: Julianne, I know plenty of women's agendas—JM: Don't be so disingenuous as to come to womenand say you want the women's vote but you don't want toraise the minimum wage, you don't like welfare reform,you don't have any room for child care. It's hypocrisy.TB: As a feminist I certainly think a feminist agenda iswhat's going to improve everyone's lives. And there areplenty of women out there who don't identify with thatfeminist agenda. Even though I know it's the better one, Iam not going to think that those women should not at leastcome to the table. Our success doesn't discriminate. Ifwe're successful in changing the quality of women's lives,it's going to affect those other women who might not identify,and don't, virulently, with feminism.JM: I stand by what I said. These women who come towomen asking for a woman's vote on the basis of genderbut are not prepared to put out a gender agenda are hypocrites.I mean, don't come together as women to bashother women.TB: All the women senators, Republican and Democrat,stood together asking for the resignation of AdmiralKelso of the navy after the Tailhook scandal. They were togetheron that issue of sexual harassment. Do they need toget better politics on occasion? Absolutely.JM: On occasion?TB: When they stand together on sexual harassment,they're right.JM: Tammy, sexual harassment is not my number oneissue.TB: Eighty-five percent of Americans identify as feministwhen asked by the dictionary's definition. Women arenow at a point where they're going to participate in differentways, with different political views, and I'm not aboutto shut certain kinds of women out or not take them aspotential allies on occasion because they are wrong oncertain issues.JM: I'm not prepared to shut women out, but I willlook askance at those women who have spoken againstthose issues that I find important.TB: We can talk about individual problems with Republicanand Democratic senators who aren't getting itwith welfare or affirmative action or a whole host of issues—buton the larger perspective of women in generalmaking progress in politics and in business, is there goingto be a criterion that only certain kinds of women shouldmake progress in those areas?JM: But you keep going back to that and that's notwhere I'm coming from.TB: Julianne, but that's where I'm coming from. I'mnot going to not care that they're wrong on a certain issue.But I think when you've only got six or seven U.S. senatorsand the rest are those guys, I'm not going to suddenly getreal nervous if you've got a Kay Bailey Hutchinson who'sin there who's going to be wrong on some issues.JM: You know, some of those guys, quite frankly, arebetter than some of the women. That's just how it is. Manytimes, if I'm faced with a white woman candidate and anAfrican American man, I go with the African Americanman because I really do not see many white women beingas sensitive as they need to be about race issues, especiallyin politics.TB: Women have a different life experience. No matterhow progressive or liberal a man, there are some things hewill never know and never understand, and that includesissues of violence, issues of economics. No matter where hecomes from, he does not know what your life has been likeor what my life has been like. And women take that withthem. And that is why when I look at women candidates orwomen in business, it is incredibly important to vote forthat woman.JM: Well, perhaps that's the difference between you andme. Clearly a man cannot bring a woman's experience, butneither can a white woman bring an experience of people ofcolor. The question then becomes: Which experience is morevalued? Which experience does the person, the womanis O N THE ISSUES • S u m m e r 19 9 6

BRUCE: Is there a good reason sometimes to think that? Sure.But we can carry through the anger and not have a discussion —or we can begin to give women sometimes the benefit of the doubt.who's evaluating the experience, look at? And in the case ofsomeone like a Kay Bailey Hutchinson, please—there arewhite men in the Senate that I'd rather see in there.TB: When I'm talking about women's issues, what I expectas an advocate for women, from women candidates, isthat common thread I know that's in her. Now for you theissue may be different, and you're going to vote for thatblack man before you vote for that white woman, becauseyou're more unsure of her than of him.JM: Well, it depends on the white woman and theblack man, but I would more than likely vote for a blackman over a white woman.TB: If they're both liberal, and both kind of equal onthe issues?JM: Yeah, because African Americans are also underrepresentedin politics.When some women are in the room making decisions,they're not making feminist decisions; and when somewomen are in the room making decisions, they're not makingdecisions that speak to me. That's where I've got todraw the line. African American women who identifythemselves as feminists often have to walk a tightrope betweenour feminist interest and our racial interest becausealthough the organized women's movement is doing muchbetter on race matters, lots of white women simply don'tget it. And to talk this "life experience" stuff—of courseeverybody's life experience is valid, but if you can makethe parallel that no man has had a woman's life experience,no white person has had an African American life experience.And most women refuse to stretch their brains pastthe discrimination experienced as women to understandthe other—TB: Can I ask you, if you vote for that black man whois on the same par politically with the white woman who'srunning, you are more sure that he is going to understandand deal more with the woman's experience than, let's say,a politically OK white woman—you're that cynical about awoman candidate who is not black?JM: It would depend, but in general yes. I am moreconfident that a black man will deal with a black woman'sexperience than that a white woman will deal with a blackwoman's experience. And I don't mean to state that asharshly as it sounds, because I don't think that we veryoften get a case where you really have that.TB: When we talk about needing to begin a dialogueabout what it is we're all doing, there is an automatic assumptionof white women's hypocrisy—that we don't getit. I have yet to say a block of individuals don't understandsomething or do not care. When we're talking about movingwomen forward, moving a feminist agenda or a progressiveagenda forward, if we are going to continue tomarginalize and speculate and demonize those who are differentfrom us, we've got a very serious problem on ourhands.JM: Tammy, are you ignoring the reality of skin-colorprivilege? Are you saying that does not exist?TB: No, not at all. But if we are going to address issuesof racism through issues of feminism, there's going to haveto be at least some expectation that there isn't an entire segmentof that debate that is either wrong or has an agendathat is negative or is hypocritical or is not part of the sisterhoodsome of the time. Can I say that there is a real goodreason sometimes to think that? Sure. But we can carrythrough the cynicism and the anger and not have a discussion—orwe can at least begin to give women sometimesthe benefit of the doubt.JM: Why are African American women always askedto give the benefit of the doubt?TB: If we are going to give benefits of the doubts, I'mnot suggesting that it's one side to the other. It's got to becomplete and universal.JM: But I don't see you giving much benefit of doubt.You've got your position. You're not moving from it. You'repretty firm in where you're coming from, and so am I.TB: I have the same expectation of black and whitewomen and Asian women who are running for office, ofconservative women and liberal women: I'm looking at abase of women collectively because of the differences thatwomen bring and the strength that women bring. You'retalking about segments, about divisions, about what'swrong, about who's hypocritical.JM: I didn't say that all white women were hypocritical.I said some white women. I was talking about—TB: All right, now the word some comes in—JM: I do make an effort in a conversation, as I do on theradio, to make sure that someone can finish their sentence.I'm not clear that you do the same.TB: That's unfortunate. And you're mistaken.JM: No, I don't think I am, because the whole issue ofconversation is about who talks when, where, how, and therespect or the benefit of the doubt that we accord someoneto finish a sentence really does speak to where we're comingfrom.TB: Is that why you're angry?JM: I'm not angry. I am attempting to get a few pointsSummer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES 19

N.O.W.'S RUSH TOJUDGMENT: THE AMERICANPSYCHO CONNECTIONBY TONI CARABILLOOn December 6, 1995—sixth anniversary of the mass murder of 14women at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal—national NOW presidentPatricia Ireland observed the date by publicly rebuking Tammy Bruce. "Ioffer my most sincere apology," Ireland told a press conference in Washington,DC, "for the racially insensitive statements attributed to or madeby the president of a local NOW chapter."This unprecedented censure by the national officers and board of NOW seemed tomany of us—especially the old-timers—a rush to judgment, a process marred by lackof due process and based on highly ambiguous evidence. In the wake of the O.J.Simpson verdict, between October 3 and 12, Bruce appeared on television 39 timesin Los Angeles and 26 times on national broadcasts. Out of these media appearances,the national NOW leaders who pressed to censure Bruce found four comments—twofrom television, one from a newspaper profile, and one from a telephone conversationwith a TV producer—that they could identify as "problematic." Many of us suspectedanother agenda at work.Bruce's conflict with national NOW leadership goes back to 1990, whenshe announced a boycott of Knopf for publishing American Psycho, by Brett EastonEllis, a bizarre book saturated with explicit descriptions of torture and sexualized violenceagainst women. It was a boycott soon backed by such movement stalwarts asGloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Phyllis Chesler, Charlotte Bunch, Sidney Abbott,and Kate Millett. [See ON THE ISSUES, fall 1991, "Torturing Women as Fine Art: WhySome Women and Men Are Boycotting Knopf," by Robert Brannon.—Ed.] At the nationallevel of NOW, however, Bruce's boycott initiative stimulated discussion of aboard resolution entitled "Who Speaks for NOW?" Although not passed, this resolutionwas NOW's first official attempt to silence her.Tammy Bruce functions in the best tradition of the very early chapter presidents ofNOW: When she sees an opportunity to advance a feminist issue, she moves on it,and she does so with an impressive skill at wording sound bites to capture the attentionof the media and public. Granted, she can be inattentive to possible trespasseson state and national turf and NOW's internal politics.Tension between the Los Angeles NOW chapter, based in a media-rich city,and California State NOW, based in media-impoverished Sacramento, is almost a tradition(as it is, for instance, between New York City NOW and New York State NOW).The L.A. chapter's activities have always dominated NOW publicity in California, tothe frustration of a long line of state coordinators. Soon after national NOW censuredBruce, California NOW took the unprecedented step of asking the National NOWboard to revoke her membership as well.Undaunted, Bruce has continued to speak out on other issues, becoming an effective,recognized source of explicitly feminist comment whom national and localmedia contact and quote frequently. Many of us in NOW believe that far from censureand revocation of membership, Bruce deserved credit for successfully channelingraw anger that ignited after the verdict in the Simpson case into demonstrations focusedon the feminist issue of domestic violence.Regardless of what action the NOW national board takes next, Tammy Bruce hasvowed to continue work on issues of sexism, violence against women, and the imageof women in the media. Whether she does so from within NOW is the only unknown.TONI CARABILLO is founder of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, a former officer ofnational NOW, and former editor of National NOW Times.across, and I'm finding myself somewhatfrustrated in your inability to listen.This isn't worth being angryabout. You're not that important.TB: Oh, that's a wonderful way tocontinue this. We have a dynamic opportunityto explore the differences,and what you end with is how I amnot important. There's a reason whywe're both at this table. I don't moveforward or operate presuming that acertain kind of woman is not important,and obviously you do.JM: I operate on the basis of mutuality.I give what I get. I have sathere and listened, and a couple oftimes swallowed as you interrupted.I'm not getting mutuality.TB: I think this is a perfect exampleof what some of the inherent problemsare, in how we're communicating—andsometimes how we don't.We can discuss how to continue—howto give someone more space perhaps—andwe can do that without diminishingor demeaning the otherwoman we're speaking with.JM: No one was demeaned. If youfeel demeaned, that seems to be yourproblem.TB: [laughing] Keep going, Julianne,go for it—JM: No, I'm not going to be patronized.I must say that I'm not surprised,Tammy, after the comment,which I would like you to explain,about not wanting to get into it with abunch of black feminists. I did findthat offensive.TB: This is a very good exampleof hearing what we want to hear becausewe expect it to be that way—and that's not always the way it is.I was approached by a televisionshow in Philadelphia that I've knownfor a number of years, when L.A.NOW was doing work dealing withissues of domestic violence. Consideringthe racial tensions in this city afterthe Simpson verdict, we made veryspecific decisions to deal with theissue of domestic violence—and notdo shows that were going to inflameracial tensions. I was told by a producerin Philadelphia that they wantedme to do their show because "thereare a bunch of black women here inPhiladelphia who want to argue withyou because they think what you'redoing is racist." My response to thisindividual was: "I don't have time to20 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

do that. If you want to do a show on domestic violence,we'll do that, that's fine. I'm not going to argue with anyone.We've moved beyond it." That became paraphrased,third person, on the air, by a reporter saying that TammyBruce doesn't have time to argue with a bunch of blackwomen. I said to the Associated Press, I've said to everyoneranging from Time magazine to The New York Times to TheAdvocate, and I'll say it to you: I didn't say that.I think that when you have something that sounds sowrong, you have to wonder if that was what was said. Interestingly,women who could dial my phone, who couldask, "Is that accurate? What's going on?"—because that'snot my style—some did, some didn't. And I think youwould agree that that is a significantly different exchangethan what was said over a tabloid television show inPhiladelphia.JM: Well, let me say this, OK? If I give you benefit ofthe doubt and say, "She says she didn't say it," why dopeople believe it? Are people simply eager to believe badthings that Tammy Bruce says?TB: I think that's an important question.]M: Or were some of the things that happened a functionof some of the actions that you've taken? For example,what did you say, O.J. needed to leave the country or somethinglike that? I'm probably paraphrasing you yet again—TB: Sure.JM: —but there were some things that a lot of peoplehad a problem with. Let's be very clear about the O.J.Simpson case. It has become a symbol for a lot of division—byrace, by gender. Not having all the facts in frontof me, I'm not prepared to characterize your actions asracist or not, but I got a certain impression of you fromwhat the media depicted: marching against O.J. Simpson—an African American man who's a batterer, who has admittedthat he's a batterer. And this notion he should be askedto leave the country when you have millions of white menwho are batterers—I guess they can just hang out, huh?TB: When you say that I said he should get out of thecountry, I can tell you where that came from. It was from astatement I made outside of NBC. I said, "This is your newmessage: You are not welcome here. You're not welcome onour airwaves. You're not welcome in our culture. This isAmerica's new message about domestic violence."JM: "You're not welcome in our culture"—explain thattome.TB: Our culture is a violent one, our media perpetuatesviolence. The way women are viewed through our mediaindustry is negative. And I don't think anyone would disagreethat men who beat up women are not welcome here.What national NOW did, when they acted against me, isthey lopped off that last line, about "This is America's newmessage about domestic violence." They edited that lineoff. And they then said that my message was promotingsegregation.I have worked for close to 10 years in this city on feministissues, on issues of violence against women, and withoutexception people who saw my work on O.J. Simpsonknew that I was dealing with a batterer, using the symbologyof O.J. Simpson; so when I said "culture" in front ofNBC, dealing with the issue of domestic violence, that iswhat I meant. I've never suggested O.J. Simpson leave thecountry—although I hear he is considering it. I was referringto men who beat up women. In the context of L.A.NOW's activity that was clear. Why my sentences and mystatements would be edited, I can't tell you. I've had tospeculate, because national NOW and Patricia Ireland didnot call me to clarify or to ask me about those statements.Patricia knows me. Prior to her [December 6,1995] pressconference, Patricia said to the California NOW PAC, "Iknow Tammy Bruce would not say that. That is not somethingI take seriously." Despite her saying she knew me,and has for close to 10 years now, she still put that into hercomplaint.This is about being taken out of context. My chin hasbeen out there. I've been saying a lot of things that somevery rich men do not like—JM: But the rich man you're going after is O.J. Simpson.He is not the only rich man who batters.TB: You're right.JM: And this is problematic from the standpoint of theAfrican American community. What I think people are sayingis: Why could these women suddenly get so exercisedabout battery that they're marching against this man? JohnFedders was the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission;he beat his wife. At one point back in the '80s, TheWall Street Journal opined that that behavior had nothing todo with his ability to regulate the monetary system. Whitefeminists were just as quiet as they wanted to be. OK, thatwas the '80s; these are the '90s; consciousness is raised. Butwe hear about these cases all the time, and I think whatblack America is tired of is being the stage upon whichwhite America acts out all its social pathologies.You can say to me, Tammy, that you've got a 10-yearrecord on domestic violence, and I applaud that. I thinkmany women have worked to make sure that domestic violencestops, to make sure that our court systems take it seriously.But don't tell me that in your 10 years of activity, O.J.is the only example you've had, because he can't be.TB: In my capacity as the president of L.A. NOW, Isend out a lot of releases and talk about a lot of issues. Andnot all of them make Time magazine or Nightline or anythingelse. We've done a lot of work; 95 percent of what Ido, you don't see in the news. And I'll give you an example.Danny Sullivan was arrested in September of last yearfor allegedly strangling his common-law wife. She survived;he has yet to go to court. Danny Sullivan is a whiteman, a race-car driver, a commentator for ABC.In 1989 when O.J. Simpson was arrested, a lot of thecomplaints were: Where were you, NOW, then? Well, Iwasn't president of L.A. NOW then, and I would havebeen somewhere. And it reminded me that perhaps in thisinstance we should find out what ABC's policy is on domesticviolence. So I had a discussion with the president ofthe ABC television group. We discussed their internal domestic-violencepolicy, the fact that they didn't have one.He said to me, the president of ABC, that domestic violencereally doesn't affect the workplace—when in fact if youhave a man with a propensity for violence, of course he'sgoing to treat women differently in the workplace if he hasno regard even for the woman he supposedly loves.That conversation was detailed and was very progressive.We sent out a release prior to the (continued on page 56)Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 21

eligionCLAIMINGSACRED GROUNDWomen's eight-year struggle to pray out loud at "the Wailing Wall"BY PHYLLIS CHESLER' Jewish women were firstordained as rabbis in 1972,by Reform jews. Today, allbranches except the Orthodoxordain women as rabbis,and permit them to serve ascantors. In Israel, Orthodoxrabbis are the only ones permittedto marry, divorce, orbury jews, and Orthodox religiouscourts control all familylaw. In her brilliant work JewishMen, Jewish Women(HarperSanFrancisco, 1995),Aviva Cantor demonstratesthat in exile, without land orguns, Torah knowledge becamethe measure of manhoodfor lews. The occasionalrabbi's learned daughteraside, women were not allowedto become trulylearned lest they further"emasculate" Jewish men.2 A Bat Mitzvah is the femaleversion of the Bar Mitzvahceremony that marks aJewish boy's coming of age at13, in which he is called toread from the Torah during aprayer service. The first BatMitzvah was celebrated in1922. By the 1970s it wascommon among all but Orthodoxlews. Today, an increasingnumber of Orthodoxgirls do have one. They give alearned speech at home, or inthe women's section of thesynagogue, with only womenpresent and no regular prayerservice held. Some boys havea Bar Mitzvah in Israel on themen's side of the Kotel (theirmothers cannot easily watch,only listen, from the women'sside). Cirls, however, are notpermitted to have a Bat Mitzvahat the Kotel, not even onthe women-only side.Once upon a time, in 1948,there was an eight-yearoldJewish girl who lovedto study Torah. Herteachers said she was the smartest"boy" in her class, but, because shewas a girl and came from an Orthodoxfamily, everyone knew she couldnever become a rabbi, a cantor, ajudge, an interpreter of Jewish law 1—or celebrate a Bat Mitzvah. Shecouldn't even pray to God out loudas part of a religious quorum.No, the little girl wasn't me (atleast, not exclusively), and her namewasn't Yentl. Her true name andguiding inspiration was, perhaps,the world's first human teacher: thebiblical Eve.Eve was earthy, psychic, intellectual,compassionate. Eve talked toboth animals and God/dess, lustedafter knowledge—could almost tasteit, shared its fruits with her moresluggish mate, and, as a result,taught us that pain is a lawful consequenceof creation. God forbade onlyAdam, not Eve, to eat of the Tree. Afterward,Adam told God that Evemade him do it; she was an evil influence.Funny: We think of Eve asdisobedient, not Adam as a snitch.The sons of Man decided theygot thrown out of Paradise becauseof something a woman said. The rabbisdecided that "a woman's voice"(kol isha) was dangerous. It was,henceforth, forbidden. A 5,000-yearspell was cast. To this day, OrthodoxJewish men insist that hearing awoman's voice engaged in prayerwill interfere with a man's ability toconcentrate on his prayers, will sexuallydistract him. Nocturnal thoughtsof this nature are attributed to Eve'seven more scandalous precursor,Lilith (for whom the first feministJewish magazine was named).For generations, "good" Jewishwomen believed that their own religiousignorance was a virtue. Anywoman who thought otherwise, whowas again tempted by knowledge ordirect, unmediated contact withGod, was deemed a crazy witch; herfate: not pleasant. Among Orthodoxwomen today—and those subject toOrthodox law—that requirement ofsilence remains. They may go to synagogue,seated separately from men,but they may not pray out loudwhere men can hear them.^ Among Orthodox lews,a quorum of ten men, aminyan, is required in orderto say certain prayers or havea religious service; women donot count in establishing aminyan. They do count towarda minyan among Reform,Reconstructionist, andConservative jews, though.While an increasing numberof Orthodox lewish womenare praying and reading fromthe Torah together in prayergroups, they often do so behindclosed doors. They omitprayers that require aminyan to say.4 According to learnedcommentary and legend,Lilith was the name of thewoman whom Cod created"in Cod's image" in the firstcreation myth in Cenesis (see1:26). Eve was Cod's secondfemale creation, this timefrom Adam's rib. Lilith, presumably,was even more uppitythan Eve and fled Edento become a patriarch'snightmare. Rabbis said shetempted lewish men intonocturnal emissions that resultedin Lilith babies, performedabortions, was responsiblefor miscarriagesand stillbirths, and was a sexuallyinsatiable death-dealer.These stories fit the classicimage of the witch thatfueled Christian torture andmurder of Christian womenfor three centuries in Europe.22 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

WELL, GUYS AND HANDMAIDS: SOMEWHERE, EAST OFEden, the biblical Eve and her predecessor,Lilith, are on the move again and I am privilegedto be among them.On December 1, 1988, I was one of 70 Jewish womenfrom Europe, North America, Australia, Asia, South America,and the Middle East who prayed together in Jerusalem,out loud, with a Torah, wearing ritual garments, for thefirst time in thousands of years, at the Kotel, better knownas the Western, or "Wailing," Wall. The Kotel is arguablythe spot most sacred or symbolic of all that was lost andlonged for in Jewish history: King Solomon's Temple, ourown country, an army to protect Jews from being beaten,raped, slaughtered in Christian and Islamic countries.I opened the Torah thatday—a great honor. Weprayed at the Kotel butonly on the women's side,behind a high barrierthat separates men fromwomen and women fromthe Torah. On the men'sside, dozens, maybe hundredsof Torah scrollsreside. Siddurim—prayerbooks—too. Religious quorumsneeded for prayerservices take place amongthe men three times a day.On the women's side—nothing: no Torah, no religiousquorums, no groupspirit, no solidarity, onlysingle, solitary, eerily silentwomen, sometimes weeping,sometimes clutching a prayer book, silently mouthingtheir prayers.HERE, 0 ISRAEL: Jewish feminists have sued the government of Israel inorder to pray at the Kotel ("the Wailing Wall") in Jerusalem. Above, womencelebrating Purim there March 6 read from the Megillah of Esther.What we did at the Kotel in 1988 was, in a sense, analogousto nuns taking over the Vatican and helping at a mass.What we did was historic, uncustomary, but not forbiddenaccording to Jewish law. The service was disrupted by verbaland threatened physical assaults from some ultra-Orthodoxmen and women at the site.In March 1989, when the attacks continued during subsequentprayer services, the newly organized Women of theWall (WOW) petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court for anorder to allow women to pray together at the wall, with aTorah and wearing ritual garments, and to protect them fromviolence. According to Bonna Haberman, visiting scholar atBrandeis, "women shouted, cursed, and pushed at us. [Ontwo occasions] men burst into the women's section...circled,began to tear at us. [Men] hurled metal chairs at us. The police[watching nearby] refused to intervene. On a third occasion,a black wall of men cursing and taunting us blockedour entry... [Men] violently thrashed at the petition. One wildblack-coated fellow burst through, hurling a chair at ourheads. One woman collapsed under the blow, bleeding fromthe neck and head and requiring hospital treatment."Editor-at-krge PHYLLIS c H E S L E R is the author of eightbooks, including Women and Madness (Harcourt Brace).The court's response in May: a temporary injunction forbiddingwomen to pray aloud. That injunction is still in effecttoday.That December, the International Committee for theWomen of the Wall (ICWOW), established as a supportgroup early on, donated a Torah to the women of Jerusalemand tried to pray with it at the Kotel. Unlike WOW members,the international women were not attacked physically,but we were prevented from praying at the wall. This becamethe basis for ICWOW's lawsuit filed in 1990 againstthe government of Israel and the Ministry of Religion.Eight years later, the issue remains unresolved, andwomen are still forbidden from praying together out loudat the Kotel (see chronology next page). In 1994, the IsraeliSupreme Court recommendedthat a Parliamentcommission find a way toallow women to exerciseour rights at the Kotel in away that will not lead toviolence. After numerousdelays, the commissionvoted in April to banish usfrom the Kotel. But thegroup has grown, bringingtogether religious feministsof all denominations.Jewish visitors fromaround the world havejoined WOW at and nearthe Kotel in prayer; visitorsof many religionshave also come to witnessin solidarity. For the lastsix years, Jewish girls havebegun to hold their Bat Mitzvah near the Kotel underWOW auspices. Recently a Bat Mitzvah asked some of herfriends to donate monies to our cause in lieu of gifts.As attorney Miriam Benson said, "Getting used to readingthe Torah in exile, even under WOW auspices, is not good."I agree. Nevertheless, once you've got this kind of energymoving among the people, there's no way of stopping it.How we have been treated in this search, what we've done,has taught me the following lessons:A WOMAN DEMANDS TO BE TREATED AS Ahuman being, even if she defines her humanityWi'HENas (only) a "separate but equal" place at her Father'stable, whether she's a "good" or a "bad" woman, sheis viewed as a brazen revolutionary. We asked for ourrights under civil and religious law. When we prayed,other worshippers, both men and women, verbally andphysically assaulted us. We asked the Israeli state to protectus so that we could exercise our rights. The state claimed itcould not contain the violence against us, and that we ourselveshad provoked the violence by "disturbing/offending"the "sensibilities of Jews at worship." Women are notseen as "Jews" or as "worshippers'' with "sensibilities."What makes this line of reasoning difficult to swallow isthat Israelis have continued to administer time-sharing accessto the Cave of the Patriarchs at Hebron, a site holy toSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES23

Women at the Kotel: Eight Years and CountingDecember1988During firstInternationalJewish FeministConference inJerusalem, 70women gatherfor prayer serviceand Torahreading at theKotel. Serviceis disrupted byverbal andthreatenedphysicalassaults fromultra-Orthodoxmen andwomen at thesite.January 1989A group ofJewish womenorganize asWomen of theWall (WOW).They continueregular prayerservices at theKotel. Violentattacksescalate. Policerefuse toprovideprotection.TheInternationalCommittee forWomen of theWall (ICWOW)is organized.March 1989Four WOWwomenpetition IsraeliSupremeCourt for anorder to allowwomen topray at theKotel withTorah andritualgarments.May 1989SupremeCourt givesstate sixmonths torespond topetition andissuestemporaryorder thatwomen maynot pray aloudat the Kotelbecause "thevoice ofwoman islewd."August 1989WOWpetitionsSupremeCourt for aspeedierresponse fromthe state andremoval of thetemporaryorder. Bothrequests aredenied. To thisday it remainsillegal forwomen topray out loudtogether at theKotel.December1989ICWOWdonates aTorah scroll tothe IsraeliWOW andtravels to Israelfor thededicationceremony.June 1990ICWOWfiles anindependentlawsuit withthe IsraeliSupremeCourt.January 1994Three yearsafter the oralarguments areheard, theSupremeCourt decidesagainst WOWand ICWOW,but itspresidingjudge, JusticeShamgar,recommendsthat thegovernmentset up acommission toresolve thematter.February1994Request toappeal deniedCourt statesthat "thedoors of theCourt areopen" if thecommissiondoes notprovide aproperremedy.both Moslems and Jews, even after Baruch Goldstein shot29 Moslems at prayer. Authorities could do as well on ourbehalf at the wall.Many secular and otherwise enlightened people underestimatethe psychological importance of organized religion.I am a liberation psychologist, engaged with theworld's mental health. Therefore I know how important itis for both women and men, Jews and non-Jews, thatwomen begin to claim sacred ground in spiritually autonomousand authoritative ways.At first, fiercely agnostic Israelis claimed that no Israelicared about the Kotel, that Israelis had nothing but contemptfor organized, Orthodox Judaism. Some secular feministstook me to task for "caring about a symbol of a patriarchalempire." "Who wants a piece of that tainted pie?Without misogyny and homophobia, there would be noOrthodox Judaism. If you absolutely must 'do' religion,why not found a Goddess grove /embrace Buddhism/openup a soup kitchen?""But," said I, "when learned religious women are psychologicallyand physically ready to claim sacred ground,isn't it your responsibility as feminists to assist them?"Meanwhile, the patriarchy mounted a full-fledged attack.In their brief, the Israeli state and its minister of religioncalled WOW and ICWOW "witches" who are doing"Satan's work," "more like prostitutes than holy women,""misled, tainted by modern secular feminism." Fiercelyfundamentalist Israelis did not like what we were doing either.They joined the state in opposing us before the IsraeliSupreme Court. If you find yourself opposed (or notstrongly supported) by groups on both the far right and thefar left, you're probably doing "feminism."It is crucial to fight for territory. In this case, the territoryis real as well as psychological and spiritual, and haseverything to do with Jewish women's coming-of-age spiritually.(Here, the little girl gets to have her Bat Mitzvah, alittle late, but on a really grand scale.)Religious women and men can, paradoxically, also befirebrand feminists. This doesn't mean they're "tolerant" ofthings they disapprove of; in fact, they're hell-on-wheelstoward anyone who flouts their religious authority. I'llnever forget how, in the spring of 1989, some WOW supporterssurrounded an Israeli official to chew him outabout the violence against WOW at the Kotel. They werefierce, a swarm of locusts. They were all over the man, alltalking at once. "How dare you hold female life so cheap?We will hold you personally responsible if a single hair onthe head of any woman is harmed." Theirs was a passionateand direct interpersonal "hit," almost primitive; fewacademic or career feminists ever confront men of power insuch righteously unladylike ways.Religious feminists are not all alike; they differ widely,on both theological and political issues. While most religiousfeminists are wives and mothers, an increasing numberare also physicians, academics, stockbrokers, lawyers,writers, politicians, businesswomen.RELIGIOUS WOMEN ARE NOT ALWAYS LIBERAL, AND DOnot always practice gender-neutral feminism. Sometend to be essentialists who believe that men andwomen are different and that women are superior. An example:Once, in the early 1980s, during Shabbos, a LubavitcherHasidic woman in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, tookme aside and said: "Let the men have their titles and alltheir public displays of importance. They are not as strongas women are. They need this encouragement. We givebirth to life. Our every act is holy. We are always close toGod, not just when we pray."Another example: I studied Torah with a group of religiouswomen. I will never forget the intensity and excitementof our studying together—nor how often thesewomen allowed our Torah study to be interrupted by theneeds of others: a husband who needed to be fed, a child ora parent in need of comforting, an employer with an emergency.At first, I was filled with outrage and disdain. Intime, I came to understand that religious women viewedthemselves as God's hands and hearts on earth. Unliketheir male counterparts, nothing—not even Torahstudy—could preempt their mission of service toward others.In time, I came to view my own (patriarchal) need to24 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

May 1994An all-malecommission isappointed topropose asolution to theissue of womenat the Kotel.ICWOWfacilitatessending thecommissionmore than 600letters on itsbehalf fromindividuals andorganizationsrepresentingthree and a halfmillion Jews.February 1995ICWOW andWOW finallygrantedpermission totestify beforethe commission.Six Israeliwomen and oneAmericanwoman testify.May 1995Commission misses its seconddeadline and WOW files a newlawsuit. Supreme Court rejectsWOW request to ban thegovernment from granting thecommission further extensions. InJuly, the government grants thecommission an extension toNovember 1995. Commissionreveals that it's exploring analternative, non-Kotel site forwomen to pray. Court sets hearingfor remainder of new lawsuit forApril 14,1996.October-November1995ICWOW andWOW petitioncourt to beallowed to prayout loud at theKotel whilecommission isengaging indelaying tactics.Petition denied.Novemberdeadline passeswith nocommissionreport.February-March 1996Commission submits discussionpaper suggesting we pray atanother part of the Kotel in theMoslem quarter or at severalnon-Kotel sites. We protest andpropose a time-sharing arrangementlike that Jews and Moslems use atHebron. WOW does a full-heartedPurim reading of the Megillah ofEsther (not a Torah scroll, so notillegal) at the Kotel and leavesbefore the time for the middayprayers.April-May1996The commissionvotes to banishWOW from theKotel to outsidethe city walls inMoslem EastJerusalem. Anall-maleministerialcommission isappointed toimplement orreject this plan.WOW returns tothe SupremeCourt May 19.brook no interruption when I read, wrote, studied, as hereto stay, but also heartless.Feminists can work together even when we deeply disagree,and are "different" from one another—as long as werespect and value one another for those very differences,and remember to acknowledge each woman's accomplishmentson our behalf. Women, feminists included, have sucha long history of acrimonious, broad-side-of-the-tonguedealings with one another that a little civility, generosity, appreciation,goes a long way. Women are inspired and encouragedby it. Both liberal and radical feminists have supportedus. Three and a half million Jews, of both genders,all denominations, and truly varied political opinions havedonated money and written to the government commissionon behalf of women's right to pray at the Kotel. We may notwin this struggle quickly, but in a sense we have already"won": by forging a uniquely pluralist alliance.Grand vision, coupled to human, imperfect action, iseverything. If we wait for the exact right moment to do themost "politically correct" action with the most "politicallycorrect" people, it will never happen. Without women whoare willing to put their bodies, skills, time on the line forwhat they believe is right, there would be no lawsuit, nograssroots struggle.The women with whom I've served are all utterly amazing:learned, principled, tough, dedicated. In alphabeticalorder, the old guard: attorney Miriam Benson, Jessie Bonn,Rabbi Helene Ferris, Shula Gehlfuss, Bonna Haberman,Anat Hoffman, Dr. Norma Joseph, Dr. Shulamith Magnus,Vanessa Ochs. The new guard: Chaia Beckerman, RabbiSharon Cohen-Anisfeld, Haviva Krassner-Davidson, BetsyCohen-Kallus, Rabbi Gail Labowitz, attorney FrancesRaday, attorney Stefanie Raker, Lilly Rivlin, attorney LauraShaw-Frank.Victory is more humdrum than dramatic. Victory isours when former slaves, or second-class citizens, engagein ordinary activities and take their right to do so forgranted. They live, not die. They attend school, find employment,vote, have an abortion, exercise their right toprayerfully greet their newborn, bury their dead, have aS u m m e r 1996 • O N THE ISSUESBat Mitzvah at the Kotel.Not every pioneer will personally benefit from the particularwrong righted, the right won. Not everyone whobegins a battle may be able to see it through to the end. Theoriginal grassroots activists and named plaintiffs have alreadybeen joined by second- and third-wave warriors. Perhapsothers, especially the coming generations, will be theones to most benefit from our struggle.On March 6, 1996, while all Israel reeled from the fourterrorist bomb attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, WOWwent to the Kotel to read the story of how Esther saved theJews of Persia. They dedicated their reading to Sara Duker,the young Jewish American woman who was killed in oneof the suicide bombings and who had been planning to joinWOW at the Kotel for this Purim reading. No one said:"Oh, it's the wrong time; there are more important thingsto worry about." No one wavered, hesitated, had theslightest doubt about the importance of what they weredoing or worried about what others might think. Forwomen, this is often the first and most important battle towin. It is an object lesson, a model, for all disenfranchised"others" about claiming ground—one that extends beyondJewish women, beyond the Kotel, to women of all faiths—or no faith.IAM NOT RELIGIOUS. I DO NOT PRAY THREE TIMES A DAY. YETbecause I am ill and often home I check my Kotel e-mail religiously: at least three times a day.I am not religious, but I love to study Torah. I light upwhen I pray. I have a really good time among religiousJews, among religious non-Jews too, though. I am as stronga revolutionary feminist as I ever was. But this year, for thefirst time, my very orthodox mother came to spendPassover with me.Inevitably, the action claims you, shapes you, hammersyou into a reckoning with origin and destiny. •Tax-exempt donations to this ongoing struggle can be made outto ICWOW and mailed to Rabbi Helene Ferris, 215 HessianHills Rd., Croton, NY 10520.25

medicalpoliticsWOMEN WHOTRUST TOO MUCHWhat AIDS commercials don't tell you.BY DEBORAH JOHNSONSHE'S 48 YEARS OLD WITH TIGHT RED CURLS AND BAGS BEneathher eyes. She slouches slightly in the orange officechair, stretching out her feet. From her eye shadowto her sneakers, everything she wears is blue. Marriedto one husband for 28 years, she has children and grandchildren.She also has AIDS. She never used drugs or hadmultiple sexual partners. She did have sex with her husbandwithout a condom.For some years now, I've been listening to women whoare HIV-positive tell their stories. In support group aftersupport group, I've heard about how they trusted theirpartners and how that trust was violated. The women livewith an angry welter of emotions they try to repress, if onlybecause they know the damage stress can do to their T-cellcounts.One 23-year-old had a boyfriend who had hemophilia;he never used condoms and never mentioned HIV, eventhough he knew he had already infected another woman. Adivorced man with two children didn't tell his 46-year-oldgirlfriend he had AIDS, not even when he was hospitalizedwith an AIDS-related infection. A seven-year live-in partnerof another woman denied infecting her, even though hetested positive for HIV; she didn't know he was having sexoutside their relationship.All of these women discovered their HIV status onlyafter they became seriously ill with infections they"shouldn't" have had. The numbers don't lie; heterosexualtransmission in the United States is rising dramatically.Today 40 percent of newly diagnosed women become HIVpositivethrough heterosexual sex. In Orange County, CA,where I live, it's almost 50 percent. The seldom mentionedDEBORAH JOHNSON, PH.D., is working on a book onchildren and AIDS. Her research has been partially funded by theCenter for Economic Policy Research and the Institute forResearch on Women and Gender at Stanford University and theHenry }. Kaiser Family Foundation in support of the StanfordHealth Promotion Resource Center.fact: A large percentage of these women are married or incommitted relationships.Public education efforts around AIDS almost never deliverthe message that these women needed to hear inorder to protect themselves. I have analyzed more than 300HIV/AIDS television public service announcements (PSAs)from three dozen countries as part of my doctoral dissertationresearch. For the most part, these educational "commercials"emphasize the risks that men—not women—run.They either ignore women entirely or offer them factual informationwithout offering any suggestions about how touse this information in the context of casual and committedrelationships.In almost half the PSAs I studied, there were no womenat all. This was true even in countries where women's infectionrates equal men's. When women did appear in thePSAs, it was usually in ways that reinforced our subordinatestatus. The PSAs featured twice as many male as femaleauthorities, three times as many male celebrities, anda whopping 10 times as many male narrators.THE NUMBER OF WOMEN DID OUTSTRIP MEN, HOWEVER,in self-effacing, care-giving roles as wives, mothers,and friends of people with AIDS. At first glance,putting women in positive roles may seem laudable. But inhealth education, putting a woman in any role is problematic.Being a wife or mother has never protected anywoman from HIV/AIDS. And sex workers (as women inprostitution are called in international health promotion literaturethese days) who use latex condoms properly all thetime are just as safe as anyone else. Showing women inthese roles denies our multifaceted individuality and reducesus to only what we represent to others: a wife to ahusband, a mother to a child. It strengthens long-standingnotions of "good" and "bad" women. It's an easy out forPSA creators, because it makes the message seem inclusive,when in fact it is most likely exclusive.When PSAs emphasize the risks that men, not women,26 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

un of HIV, they undercut the rights of women in relationshipsby positioning men as the sole sexual decision-makers.Even worse for HIV/AIDS prevention, they equatesafe behavior with staying away from sex workers andbeing faithful to your wife. We're already experiencingtheir backlash, as literally thousands of women whothought themselves "safe" are finding themselves infected.SOME PSAS TRIED TO SHAKE MIDDLE-CLASS WOMEN OUT OFthis complacency. But instead of striking at the heartof the problem, which is women's inclination to believeand trust men, the PSAs simply showed women incomfortable surroundings explaining how they became infected:GREAT BRITAINJosephine had only two boyfriends. Because"we were perfectly ordinary," they didn't usecondoms.AUSTRALIATwo pairs of feet--male and female--rub eachother in bed. A woman's husky voice asks,"You've got the condoms, haven't you?"The man breathlessly replies, "No, I forgot.""But we agreed to use one," she protests."I know, but I haven't got AIDS, have I?" heargues.Turning away, she says, "Sorry. No condom. Nosex."UNITED STATESAn African American woman with a baby didn'tknow "my man was shooting up drugs and sharingneedles." Not until he died.UNITED STATESA woman in bed tells her male partner, "Don'ttake this the wrong way."The man says, "What?"She asks, "Do you have protection?"Affronted, he demands, "Do you think I'mgay?""You don't have to be gay to get AIDS," sheexplains.He gets up to find a condom."5AUSTRALIATracy never dreamed her partner had used aneedle. When the doctor said she had AIDS,Tracy replied, "You've made a mistake. I can'thave AIDS. How could I have that?"PSAs like these keep women in their place. The womenaccept what their partners have done and, at most, regretfullyshake their heads. There's no attempt to model responsiblebehavior for HIV-infected men. And femaleviewers learn nothing from them about how to ask theright questions at the right time to assess their personalrisk.In a handful of PSAs, women in casual relationships dobroach the subject of condoms. But the scenarios are repetitiveand traditional:•HONG KONGA naked couple are making love. The womanSummer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES27

asks, "Do you have a condom?""Of course," he replies."Can I do it for you?" she offers.None of these scenarios face up to the real difficulties.It's one thing to ask a casual partner to slip on a condom;it's quite another to ask a man who has sworn fidelity toyou and been with you for years. And in both long- andshort-term relationships, gender-based power imbalancescan make suggesting condoms unthinkable.Consider a woman in Peru, known to health educators,who has struggled for decades with poor eyesight. Aftershe lost one pair of glasses, her husband refused to buy another.She was too "stupid," he said. Imagine her askinghim to use condoms.A nurse practitioner working with women on the EastCoast found it was easier to help them stay off drugs thanto get them to ask their partners to use condoms. If awoman did have the guts to bring up the subject, the manoften refused. Some even turned abusive. Studies in LosAngeles and San Francisco found that almost half the intravenousdrug-using women who are HIV-positive have experienceddomestic violence.In many cases, women fear that asking men to use condomswill lead to rejection or abandonment. If the womanis economically dependent, she and her children couldwind up on the street.Condoms also carry a stigma. Studies on every continentdemonstrate that both men and women perceive condomsfor use when having sex with "others/' not stable partners.Or for women "of the street, not the home." Even sexworkers who are scrupulous about using condoms withclients tend to avoid them with boyfriends and husbands.All too often, condom use has become a sign for the level oftrust in a relationship rather than simply a sensible meansof protection.I found only one PSA in which a woman refused to use acondom:FRANCEA young man explained to a male friend,"She told me that if I used condoms thatwould mean I didn't love her."TODAY MORE THAN A MILLION WOMEN AROUND THEworld are HIV-positive. With the percentage ofnew cases in women skyrocketing, it's time to acknowledgethat past approaches to HIV/AIDS preventionhaven't worked. We need to rethink how we portraywomen, how we deal with gender-related power imbalances,and how we avoid the simplistic idea that if womenonly knew how to protect themselves, they would.We could begin by creating HIV/AIDS PSAs specificallyfor women. These would build on the premise that womenare individuals, not appendages of men and children. SeparatingHIV/AIDS risk from roles, the PSAs would focus onhow women in any role communicate with partners. Viewersdon't need to know if a woman is a wife, mother, girlfriend,or sex worker. They only need to watch women expressand stand up for themselves in the best ways theycan.For some women, this will mean choosing the right momentto ask a partner what he knows about HIV/AIDS. Forothers it will begin with a conversation about bisexualityand drug use. For still others, it may mean telling a partnerthey've put condoms in the nightstand. Effective communication,not sexual behavior, is the point.PSAs can teach women to empower themselves by smallsteps...they don't have to jump to the big one right away.For example, educational messages could show how to usehumor to bring up touchy subjects, how to question men indirect rather than indirect ways about their health, andhow to be assertive in ways that enhance rather thanthreaten relationships.Some PSAs already do this:SWEDENA woman who wants to start using condomsplayfully snaps one on her partner's barebutt. They laugh and begin talking about it.GERMANYA woman who has had sex with someone elsethinks through how to tell her live-inpartner that they need to use condoms.Taking responsibility for their sex life is not easy formany women who think of sex as something that happensto them rather than something they choose. But that canchange. In U.S. high schools today, teenagers are learninghow to resist social pressure and stand up for what theywant through practicing refusal skills, or how to say "no"without destroying their relationships. Admittedly, this is along way from asking a husband of 28 years to start usingcondoms. But the underlying premise that an individualhas the right to take care of herself and to communicatethis to others is a new and significant shift.OF FOUR WOMEN I KNOW WITH AIDS, TWO FOUND OUTthey were HIV-positive when they became pregnant;another casually took a free test at a class; thefourth was tested after her husband died of AIDS in jail.Not one woman's sexual partner told her that he was—orcould be—HIV-positive. That has to change. •28 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

self-defenseWHEN STREETHARASSMENT GETS NASTY...Should you mouth off or bite your tongue?BY TERESA YUNKERH,-EY, BABEE! HOT-LOOKIN' CHICK, MAN! WHOA-EE!Why dontcha wear somethin' tight?""Fuck off!" I screamed, whirling around to face them.There was a blank pause. The group of guys lounging onthe street in the middle of the afternoon, dazed by the combinationof hot bright sun and beer, gaped at me a moment,then laughed a little."Damn," said the oldest, "can't say nothin' to women nomore."This guy: slack-shouldered, gut hanging out over hispants, straw cowboy hat on gray head. His friends: similarlyattired, passing around a bottle, their six-pack done.It turned out that my boyfriend, whose new place I wasvisiting that day, is acquainted with the guy in the cowboyhat."You are such an articulate person," my boyfriend reprimandedme after hearing my tale. "I don't understand whyyou have to be so instantly hostile, use such ugly language."Men like my boyfriend, who would never hoot andholler at a woman, just don't realize the continual mentalbracing women have to do when passing such a group. Asevery woman knows, the calls, whistles, whines, and aggressivepantomimes will begin no matter her manner orhow she is dressed (I was clad in baggy sweatpants).Through it all, women are supposed to pretend we are impervious.We walk past like princesses, head held high, asif not hearing the words at all—"cunt," "slash," "ass." Thefact that a scene like this can happen at least once a day toany woman who uses public transportation, or walks anywhere,is something, I tell myself, that some men justdon't know. They are not subjected to the same constant,TERESA YUNKER isaLos Angeles-based writer whose workhas appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Los AngelesMagazine, and the National NOW Times.Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUESexhausting barrage.Maybe that's why my boyfriend is taking me to task formy talking back to this guy he knows. Jim, he tells me, isquite nice about reminding everyone to move their carsfrom one side to the other during street cleaning—as if thatwould somehow mitigate the fact that while I trudged upmy boyfriend's driveway this afternoon, this same mansaw fit to comment on me like so much meat. Myboyfriend hates it whenever other men talk to me like that,but he's also very worried—"One day," he says, shaking his head, "you're going toget yourself in real trouble."I knew what he meant immediately, viscerally."You have to be more careful!" he had also warned mewhen I once told him this story:While visiting my parents, my sister and I went on a bikeride. The neighborhood was uncompromisingly suburban,the kind where, in our youth, we could wander late atnight without a thought of fear. This was five o'clock in theafternoon; we were taking a ride before supper. A car, drivenby a male teenager, came up behind us. While passingmy sister, it swerved dangerously close. I, my heart gulpingin dread, called out, "Watch it!" The car continued tosway close to my sister, who by now was hugging the curb,trying to get out of its way. I, pedaling fast with a suddenjolt of rage, yelled again, "Watch it, you jerk!"At this the car, some feet ahead, screeched to a halt. Theteenager, face purple, backed up the car with dizzyingspeed. In his armor of several tons of steel, he was nowright next to us on our bikes."You bitches!" he screamed in our faces, "you whores,you cunts! Don't you dare tell me anything!"There was a pause during which, stiff with fear, my sisterand I merely stared. Somehow, our sheer bafflementseemed to get through to this boy, reached him in a waythat spelled "beaten." After glaring in silence for a second,29

he spit out a few more expletivesand roared off, triumphant.We were left trembling. My sisterlooked at me. "Maybe," she said,"you shouldn't have said anythingto get him mad."The phrase had stuck, the incidenthad stuck, and now here I amlistening to my boyfriend say howI shouldn't have "said anything" toJim.WHAT HE MEANS, OFcourse, is that womenare supposed to beafraid in these situations and, thus,cowed. He means that if I yell"Fuck you!" at a group of guyscruising me in a car, they, affrontedby my audacity, could leap out anddrag me in, raping me one by one.He means that I, confronted bythese types of men, would be betteroff to be meek about it—or elseI could be harmed physically. Icould even be killed.At least he knows better than tosuggest that I am an overdefensivefemale taking umbrage at a littleinnocent whistling. Being exhorted,"Wear somethin' tight, baby," isnot the same as hearing, "It's abeautiful day for a beautiful lady."A gentleman said that to me once. Ismiled, said, "Thank you," andwent on about my day more cheerfulfor that small pleasantry.But being hollered at as you walkby a group of males is not a compliment;it's a threat. My boyfriendunderstands this, which is why he'sasking me to be more careful. Theproblem is, he sees my aggressiveness,my hostility toward hostility,as possibly "asking for" the actualenactment of that threat.I know that the words "fuckyou" are ugly words, I have no desireto fling them into anybody'sface, and I certainly have no desireto be physically attacked if I do.But since now Jim and his palsshut up when they see me, I havespared myself hearing thosewords, or their equivalent, from atleast one small male contingent. "Iguess she don't take no shit" iswhat Jim said later, somewhatshamefaced, when he ran into myboyfriend.And no—I don't. I just hope Iwon't get hurt because of it. •TALKING BACK ABOUTON THE ISSUES selected a few people to read anadvance copy of Teresa Yunker's story about streetharassment. Here's what they had to say.Farai Chideyaauthor of Don'tBelieve the Hype:Fighting CulturalMisinformationAbout African-Americans (Plume)and political analystfor CNNStreet harassmentof women is more about power thansex. The conundrum for women whoeven consider fighting is that the poweris real—the power of intimidation, escaLation,possible or actual force.I grew up in a residential neighborhoodin Baltimore two blocks from arun-down shopping strip. A trip to thedrugstore to buy shampoo or candy invariablygot the men who loitered allday whistling, at least by the time Iwas 13 and getting "womanly." Mymother's advice was to ignore them,and I generally still do but with increasingire. It's a burden for me to staysilent when I know I'm being taken advantageof; it twists a knot in my stomachto know I could retort but won'tbecause I'm afraid of repercussions.I remember going to a club in NewYork in 1990, a decent one, where awoman was shot in the cheek for refusinga dance. And yet street harassersoften use this as their tag when I forgegrimly ahead: "Smile, baby. Smile."Jackson Katzdirector of the Mentors in ViolencePrevention Projectat NortheasternUniversity's Centerfor the Study ofSport in Societyand cofounderof Real Men, ananti-sexist men'sorganizationOne thing thatstruck me was thefact that one of the men who harassedthe author was "acquainted" with herboyfriend; yet there was no discussionof what the boyfriend could say to theman. Women shouldn't have to remainpowerless in the face of men's abuse,waiting for a supportive man to intervene,but men can be doing much moreto fight sexism than giving women adviceon how to respond to harassers.One way to get men to recognize andthen take responsibility for their sexistbehavior is for other men to confrontthem—their brothers, friends, coworkers.There might be a fine line betweenmen confronting each other about sexism(good) and men chivaLrously defendingwomen (bad). But it's better formen to walk that fine line than to donothing.LindaFairsteinauthor of SexualViolence: OurWar AgainstRape (Morrow)and chief of theSex Crimes Unit,Manhattan DistrictAttorney'sOfficeI spend a great deal of my professionallife dealing with issues related to thisone. If—after 24 years doing this—Ihad any idea how to get men to stopabusive behavior, I'd be the first towant to put myself out of business.Can I understand why a woman wouldwant to talk back? Of course, but it'simpossible to judge the circumstanceswhen you're not a witness to theevent—the variables are enormous. I'vehad cases in which women shout a responseto someone driving by in acar—causing him to get out of the carand shoot at them. There's no adviceanyone can give that works in every situation.Some are more dangerous thanothers, and the most important thing is30 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 199 6

TALKING BACKfor the woman to be careful, to staysafe. Some guys back off when a womanresponds aggressively, while others becomemore violent.MaggieHadleigh-WestNew York-basedfilmmaker andwriterHenry Rollinsmusician/publisherThat really sucks.Guys who do thatare just bullies.But I really don'tknow what womenshould do. Talkback? Maybe, butbe careful.I think thesingle mostimportant thingthat a womancan do tocombat street abuse is to initiate adialogue, whether it's between herselfand the abuser (as long as it's safe) oramong the people in her life.We can boycott businesses becausethey empLoy men that treat womenbadly. Women can come to the aid ofother women on the street. We caneducate our children to understand thatthis is part of the continuum of maleviolence against women. We can stoptreating street abuse as if it has noramifications and discard the notionthat nice girls should ignore thisbehavior.The anger, fear, frustration, andhumiliation that women continuouslyexperience does not just dissipate. Itaffects the very core of our identities.Men can take responsibility for theirbehavior by recognizing the very realthreat of rape that women live with andtreating us with the same respect thatthey would want from a stranger.Together we can begin to create aclimate where women being vilified inpublic is no longer condoned.Tara RobertsContemporaryLiving editor,EssencemagazineI don't think Iever handlethat type ofsituation well.I always wantto saysomething smart and witty, but Iusually end up just ignoring people andwalking faster, or I'll make a face. Ithink that gives them power when wedon't call them on it. I wish someonewould compile a whole list of readymadeanswers to say back to these| guys, things that they'll really hear.f It really bothers me when I'm walking? down the street and a guy asks me whyI'm not smiling. Like a woman can't bethinking about something serious orimportant.Why don't I talk back to these guys?Because I can never think of what tosay. They totally catch you off guard.Then there's the fact, though it's ageneralization, that men speak in adifferent way, they're more aggressive,and if you're not ready to give thatback, then you're weak. And you wantto be nice to people. I don't want totell these guys off, especially becausethere's a real fear of retribution.A lot of times they don't even realizethat they're being offensive. I'mwearing a short skirt and a guy says,"Great legs." Now, aside from beingobjectified, I have to wonder if I'm theone doing something wrong, makingmyself a sex object, asking for it. Butthat's not the truth.And whenever there's a group of themand one of them says something to youand you ignore him, he'll come backwith "Bitch. I didn't want to talk to youanyway." It's a tough-guy thing; it's allabout "being the man."If you would like to join in theconversation, send your comments toON THE ISSUES (e-mail:onissues@echonyc.com) and check outthe ongoing discussion on OTI's Website (http://www.igc.apc.org/onissues).Joan JettmusicianDepending onmy mood,sometimes itjust strikes meas so absurdthat I justlaugh it off. But you have to think,What's being said to you? If it's somedisgusting thing, or if it's somethingminor, or if they're blatantly insultingyou, or they think they're complimentingyou.If it's an insult I'll usually respondwith the same. And a lot of times it willjust be some "minor" thing that reallypisses me off.I'm not saying that every woman inevery situation should say or do somethingback, but I don't think it's empoweringto do nothing. I'll usually respondif it's just one guy, but when it'sa shitload of guys and you're alone,that can be scary. But if there are a lotof other people around, I would usuallysay something, 'cause there's lesschance the guy's gonna do somethingviolent, and you would like to thinkthat if he did, people would defendyou, not that they probably would.Yeah, that's a sad thing—peopledon't want to get involved in otherpeople's situations. But you know, it'ssituations like this that make us all sisters.The same things happen to all ofus. And we don't talk about it. Youdon't have these conversations untilsomething tragic happens.It would be great if women felt theycould reach out to other women aboutthese things. Women should feel thatthey don't have to "grin and bear it."They can stand up for themselves. Guysare not used to women speaking forcefully.I've not taken self-defense classes,though it is something I want to getinto because I think women should beable to defend themselves and not beafraid. But what you can do is not let itgo, not grin and bear it, not let themthink they've gotten away with it, sothey can do it again, and then it escalatesinto something more. You canspeak in a loud voice, shout at them.Summer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES31

portfolio"Cow 13."From inside slaughterhousesand animal farms...AN ARTISTTAKESSTOCK"Butcher to the World." Opposite page,' Egg Machines.WHEN WE LOOK AT A COW'S FACE, ARE WE LOOKINGinto the face of God? A creature without an egoor a sense of self? When a calf is born, the mothernuzzles the wet calf, the calf is taken away. The mother'smilk, intended for the calf, goes to us.An egg factory is a long, bunker-type building. The henscan't stretch their wings, turn around, or lie down. Onslaughter day the hens are in total dread and terror. Theymake terrible screeching sounds. By the time the hens getto the slaughterhouse, 80 percent of their bones have beenbroken. The bones are very brittle, as all calcium goes tothe eggs.At the back of every stockyard is the dead pile, an enclosedarea where animals that died in transit are dumped.If left on the dead pile, an animal will go into our hamburgers,via the Tenderers.In the early 20th century, when Upton Sinclair wrote TheJungle, packing houses were very proud of their slaughteringtechniques and would offer guided tours for the publicto show off the new technology. By the end of the 20th century,that is no longer the case. The public is not welcome.Slaughterhouses, especially the larger ones, are guardedlike military compounds, and it is almost impossible togain access.T E X T & A R T W O R K B Y S U E C O EExcerpted from Dead Meat by Sue Coe Copyright © 1995 by Sue Coe. To order from the publisher (Four Walls Eight Windows), call 1-800-626-4848.32ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

#*}.'

\I usually got in by knowing someone, who knew someoneelse, who had a business relationship with the plant orslaughterhouse. There were times when I made an officialappointment months in advance, only to arrive and be deniedadmission. The use of a camera was usually forbidden,and video cameras were out of the question. A sketch-34book, however, was usually considered harmless.In one case the owner threatened to kill me if I ever publishedthe name of the slaughterhouse. There were a fewslaughterhouse bosses and producers of meat who wentout of their way to be helpful and paid me every courtesy.They understood the contradictions of what they wereON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

Six billion animals are killed eachyear in the United States for humanconsumption. The suffering of theseanimals is mute. For the defenseless,the gentle, the wounded, the oneswho cannot speak, life consists ofindescribable suffering.—SUE COE, IN DEAD MEAT"Entrance to Slaughterhouse.At left, "ModernMan Followed bythe Ghosts of HisMeat."doing and were willing to reveal the concealed industryand open up the debate.I asked one boss, "Are the workers upset by all thekilling?" The boss said, "These workers see so much animalblood, they don't care, but if one man cuts his little finger,they all go crazy." •SUE COE,at right, traveled forsix years fromfactory farm tofeedlot toslaughterhousekilling floor, hersketchbook in hand.Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 35

civilrightsATTACK OF THEMORALLY CHALLENGEDCongress goes after the disabled.BY FRED PELKAPSYCHOLOGIST CAROL GlLL KNOWS THE VALUE OF HAVINGfederal civil rights law on your side. "When I calledone of Chicago's major teaching hospitals to make anappointment at the women's health clinic, I was told that Icouldn't be seen unless I could get myself onto and off theexamining table." When Gill, who uses a wheelchair,protested, "there was a lot of wrangling back and forth andbeing transferred to different people and departments."Then Gill remembered the Americans with DisabilitiesAct (ADA). "I asked to talk to their ADA compliance person,and when I did, the response was just incredible: 'Of coursewe'll have someone there to assist you onto the examiningtable. That's your right.' I hung up the phone and felt likewiping off my sword. The ADA! The ADA did this."When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed sixyears ago, it was hailed as one of the most significant civilrights victories of this century. People with disabilities,often excluded from employment and public life, lockedinto poverty, and consigned to nursing homes, seemedpoised at last to dismantle the barriers that have held themback for so long.Now the ADA is under attack, not only in Congress, butfrom conservative think tanks, TV news programs, and opedpages. Critics charge the ADA is too soft-hearted andtoo expensive. They call it "a costly crutch" and "the Attorneys'Dream Act." Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich haslabeled the ADA "a dumb use of resources," while Housemajority leader Dick Armey blasts it as "a disaster" and "anabomination."Deborah Kaplan, vice president of the World Institute onDisability in Oakland, CA, believes that ADA-bashing is inpart an effort by conservative Republicans "to show howtough they are, that they're not afraid to attack the disabledContributing editor FRED PELKA 's work has appeared in theBoston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the Humanist,Mainstream, Mothering, and Poets and Writers. He iscurrently writing a book about the disability rights movement.lobby." But this display of political machismo also threatensevery other constituency that relies on the federal governmentfor civil rights protection. And women in particular,who make up a disproportionate number of thedisabled, will find themselves the losers if the ADA-bashershave their way."Our opponents are anti-civil rights lobbyists who don'tbelieve that the federal government should make civilrights laws," says Justin Dart, Jr., a principal architect of theADA. Dart believes the ADA-bashers have a larger agenda."They can't attack the laws protecting black people, orother civil rights laws they would like to repeal, becausethey know right now they can't get away with it politically."The ADA, recently passed and poorly understood, isseen as vulnerable, and its repeal or weakening would set adisturbing precedent. For the first time this century, Congresswould be revoking civil rights protection it had previouslyextended through law to an oppressed minority.From Aid to AccessThe ADA marks a radical change in the way our societyviews disability. Prior to the disability rights movement, effortsto "help" the disabled focused on their "rehabilitation"or cure. Disability rights activists realized that society'sreaction to disability was every bit as limiting, oftenmore so, than disability itself. Using a wheelchair does not,in and of itself, keep someone unemployed and in poverty.But the fact that transportation, workplaces, schools, stores,homes, and churches were all inaccessible meant that anyoneusing a wheelchair became a social outcast. Prejudicealso played a role in this oppression. People with disabilitieswere routinely kept out of restaurants, not allowedonto buses or planes, or removed from movie theaters, tokeep them from "disturbing" able-bodied customers. Similarly,employers often refused to hire disabled workers.The idea of an ADA goes back at least as far as 1983,when the National Council on Disability recommendedthat Congress include persons with disabilities under civil36 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

ights law. From then on, passage of the ADA became themain focus of the disability rights movement. After extensivelobbying and public demonstrations, including the occupationof the Capitol rotunda by the direct action groupADAPT, the bill was signed into law in July 1990.While largely modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964,the ADA also included provisions never before seen in acivil rights act. Because segregation against people withdisabilities is often enforced by physical barriers such asstairs (as opposed to "Whites Only" signs), the law includesthe concept of "reasonable accommodation." For example,it requires employers to modify the work environmentfor their disabled employees, unless suchmodification is an "undue hardship" requiring "significantdifficulty or expense." The disabled employee must, ofcourse, be "otherwise qualified," that is, capable of doingthe job despite their disability. The ADA exempts from itsprovisions businesses with fewer than 15 employees, religiousgroups, private clubs, and private homes. It also excludesfrom its protection people who are active drug or alcoholabusers, pedophiles, voyeurs, compulsive gamblers,kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, or anyone suffering from ahost of other "disorders."As with the backlash against feminism and multiculturalism,much of what is alleged by ADA opponents is misleading.Some of it is demonstrably false. A good case in point isthis comment by Julie C. Janofsky in the Wall Street Journal:The ADA "casts so wide a net that it includes even allergiesand learning problems. _ . , ... .And because disabilities Disabilities Actare self-identified by theemployee...that meansthat the accommodationsrequired of the employerare also defined by theemployee. Once an employeeidentifies himselfor herself as having a'disability,' there are virtuallyno limits to whataccommodations can bedemanded."To begin with, somepeople with allergies andlearning disabilities maybashing is part ofan effort by conservativeRepublicansto show they're so toughthey're not afraid toattack thedisabled lobby.be protected by the ADA, but only if their condition impedesa major life activity such as walking, talking, orbreathing. "Someone with asthma would not be coveredunless it was so severe that they couldn't, for example,breathe without [an] oxygen [tank]," says John Lancaster,executive director of the President's Committee on Employmentof People with Disabilities. "I think most peoplewould agree that that's a pretty serious disability."And yes, disabled employees are generally "self-identified."Few people outside the editorial offices of the WallStreet Journal would expect a civil rights law to ask employersto choose which of their employees should be protected.But if an employee asks for accommodation, she or heis required, upon request, to provide documentation of thedisability: medical records, or an evaluation by a rehabilitationexpert.Finally, while there may be no limits as to what accommodationscan be demanded, there are tight limits on whatcan be expected. The accommodation must be "reasonable";it can't impose "an undue hardship." Almost a third of allaccommodations cost nothing at all, while more than 80percent cost less than a thousand dollars, according to theJobs Accommodation Network, a federal information servicefor businesses with disabled employees. A typical accommodationmight be raising a desk up on blocks so thatsomeone in a wheelchair can use it, or purchasing a telephoneheadset for someone with limited use of theirhands—hardly the sort of measures likely to bankrupt abusiness or local government.In fact, Dart notes that, since its passage, "there hasn'tbeen a single business or town or county government that'sgone bankrupt because of the ADA."A; under the act. James Bovard, writing in the July 1995NOTHER FAVORITE DEMON OF ADA-BASHERS IS THE"barrage" of "frivolous" lawsuits they say are filedAmerican Spectator, complains that the ADA has "turned disabilitiesinto valuable legal assets, prizes to be cultivatedand flourished in courtrooms for financial windfalls." Hethen runs down a list of "lunatic claims" that includes"aging stewardesses" suing Delta Airlines over its employeeweight guidelines; a 360-pound woman who sued amovie theater for $1.5 million because its seats couldn't accommodateher; a professor who claimed "that she hadbeen denied tenure because she suffered from anillness that results in lethargy and decreased productivity,"and so on.But another ADA-basher, Brian Doherty, assistanteditor of Reason, acknowledges that "in mostof the most absurd ADA cases, the plaintiff doesn'twin. Even when the cases go farther than merited,the effects are often mitigated." Nevertheless, in anop-ed piece in the Miami Herald, Doherty arguedthat "any law that allows such suits even to be filedhas obvious conceptual difficulties [italics added]."But one could just as easily cite absurd actionsbrought under a variety of other laws. In a recentcase in Massachusetts, for example, a physicallyabusive husband contended that his arrest forthreatening to murder his wife (and violating a restrainingorder) was an infringement of his right tofree speech. Even though this argument was dismissed bythe court, shouldn't we conclude, using Doherty's reasoning,that the First Amendment to the Constitution has "obviousconceptual difficulties"?In any event, according to John Lancaster, as of June1995, "only 650 lawsuits have been filed under the ADA,"and the U.S. Justice Department reports that there has beenno marked increase in the rate of lawsuits filed since then.This hardly seems like "a barrage" of litigation, consideringthat there are an estimated 40 to 50 million Americans withdisabilities. The reason for this low number of cases is simple:The ADA doesn't offer many financial incentives forfiling lawsuits, "lunatic" or otherwise. "The remedies provided...areso reasonable that no lawyer or client wouldgive court action a second thought. You sue the local pizzashop for not having a ramp. You win. You get a ramp. NoSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 37

million-dollar judgment. Just a ramp," explains Justin Dart.Still, the charge that the ADA has resulted in a deluge offrivolous lawsuits has been repeated so often that it's takenon an aura of truth. In his bestseller, Restoring the Dream,Newt Gingrich offers an account of Dade County, FL, beingforced by "civil rights lawyers" to build a ramp and providehandicapped parking spaces "to a nude beach." Gingrichwrites: "We don't know if we should laugh or cry" atthe absurdity of this story. Perhaps we should just check itfor accuracy."In fact," says Dr. Diana Richardson, director ofthe Office of ADA Coordination for Metro DadeCounty, "there were no civil rights lawyers involved.There was no lawsuit at all. Our office receivedcomplaints from several people using wheelchairsthat they couldn't get to the beach, so welooked into it." Furthermore, it isn't a "nude beach,it's clothing optional," Richardson says. "The beachisn't in some out-of-the-way place. It is the mostpopular beach in our part of the state, a majortourist attraction, visited by thousands and thousandsof people. We felt it was important that it beaccessible. We also get a lot of elderly visitors andwe wanted the beach to be more accessible to themas well.""People don't understand that what we're talkingabout here is civil rights, and civil rights belong toeveryone. Imagine the outcry if we tried to keep black people,or Hispanics, or a particular gender, or any othergroup off the beach. But somehow, once we start talkingabout the disabled, people begin to think it's all right to excludethem."The Deserving DisabledAmong the most frequently bashed aspects of the ADA areits provisions to protect people labeled as mentally ill fromarbitrary dismissal from work or school. ADA-bashers repeatthe most dangerous canards about mental illness, reinforcingthe prejudice that the mentally ill are generallystrange and violent people. Take as an example this notefrom the Employee Relations Law Journal: "Many individualswho become violent toward customers or coworkers sufferfrom some form of mental disorder. Yet for an employer tobe too careful in screening potentially dangerous personsout of the work force is to invite liability for discriminationunder the ADA."Of course, many individuals who become violent towardcustomers or coworkers are also male gun owners. Accordingto Ron Hohnberg, director of legal affairs at the NationalAlliance for the Mentally 111, "People with mental illnesswho are employed are no more likely to be violent thananyone else." And though there may be a tiny minority ofmentally disabled people who are violent, Hohnberg pointsout that the ADA allows employers to discharge anyonewho is a "direct threat" to an employer, coworker, or customer.And yet, some critics of the ADA seem to be askingthat employers be given the right to fire preemptively otherwiseexemplary employees whom they identify as mentallyill.Newt Gingrich is not above pandering to fears aboutmental disabilities. Justin Dart notes that Restoring theDream lists "drug abusers, the obese, and the emotionallydisturbed" as covered by the ADA. In an open letter toGingrich, Dart refers to what he sees as "direct appeals tothe very prejudice that the ADA was designed to eliminate....Over a lifetime more than 42 million Americans experiencea psychiatric disorder. They suffer the most profoundprejudice and vicious discrimination. Your publicsuggestion that their civil rights should not be protected isfrightening."This distinction between "truly disabled" people, whouse wheelchairs, or aredeaf or blind, and the"faux disabled," allthose recovering alco-The chargethat the Americans withholics, drug addicts,people with back pain,fat people, and the dangerousmentally ill, is arecurring theme in attackson the ADA. Butthere is also the assumptionthat whilesome people with disabilitiesmay be moreworthy of our concernthan others, even thebest of them are simplynot worth the effort requiredunder the law. According to Kaplan, "What they'resaying is that any benefits that society realizes as a result ofdisabled people participating could never possibly outweighthe costs."In fact, ADA-bashers seem to have trouble believing thatdisabled people are in many cases no less competent thanthe temporarily able-bodied. Another "lunatic" outragecited by Bovard is how, in March 1993, "a federal judgeruled that the District of Columbia's practice of excludingblind people from jury service was a violation of the ADA."Apparently it is still necessary to point out that beingblind doesn't necessarily make someone unjust or incompetent.It is in response to just such prejudice that the ADADisabilities Act hasresulted in a deluge offrivolous lawsuits hflSbeen repeated soOften that it's taken onan aura of truth.was passed in the first place.Backlash or Bigotry?Although some have characterized these attacks on theADA as a backlash, it's important to note that hostility towardpeople with disabilities, like racism or misogyny, isnever far from the surface of American life. Lucy Gwin, theeditor of Mouth: The Voice of Disability Rights, believes that"whenever people with disabilities are visible, as we'vebeen since [passage of] the ADA, you will see more of thereaction that's always there. Backlash isn't a good word forit. Bigotry is more like it."Jo Davis, cofounder of the Access Now Coalition inBoston, sees people with disabilities being used as scapegoats.Some writers, for instance, blame the ADA for risingsubway fares, neglecting to mention the role of draconiancuts in federal aid to mass transit. And just as women andpeople of color are blamed for the decrease in secure jobsfor white men caused by economic restructuring, so childrenwith disabilities and their parents are attacked forusing up a "disproportionate" amount of education dollars,money that would be better spent on "normal" chil-38 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

dren. "Gifted students, in contrast to disabled children,"writes Philip K. Howard in The Death of Common Sense, "receivevirtually no support or attention from America'sschool systems...." It would seem that to Howard these twocategories are mutually exclusive: A disabled child couldnever, ever, be "gifted."Howard is particularly adept at pitting the civil rights ofdisabled people against the convenience of everyone else,often demonstrating a woeful ignorance of the realities oflife with a disability. For example, he faults disability advocatesfor wanting accessible mass transit, because they haveavailable to them "door to door paratransit facilities...whatmost would consider front of the bus" service. In fact, paratransitis generally inadequate and unreliable. I remembera disabled woman telling me how, out of 20 round trips shehad scheduled for chemotherapy, the local paratransit servicehad managed to deliver her to just two of her appointments.A friend of mine missed her chance for a last visit toa dying friend because the service would not honor her triprequest as a priority. Stories like these are legion. YetHoward cites the inconvenience of able-bodied riders, whohave to wait a few extra minutes so that a wheelchair usercan board a bus, as an affront to "common sense."There is much here that is similar to the way women'scalls for equality have been dismissed as absurd, unreasonable,selfish. After World War II, millions of women whowere employed in heavy industry were fired so that thesewell-paying jobs could revert to their "male-only" status.Kathi Wolfe, writing in the August 1995 issue ofMainstream, notes how the same situation prevailed for disabledworkers. Thousands of people with disabilities weregainfully employed during the "manpower shortage" of1942 to 1945, only to lose their jobs after the war ended.And bigotry against , #people with disabilitiesoften merges with bigotryagainst women. Itis no coincidence thatmany of the ADA casescited as frivolous involveobese women,whose concerns aboutdiscrimination can ofcourse be laughed off asabsurd.There are other commonalities.According toLucy Gwin, "Women,once disabled, are lesslikely to be employed,to have life partners, or"Disability is a sociopolitical phenomenon as much as itis medical," says Dr. Gill, a psychologist and the presidentof the Chicago Institute of Disability Research. "Our issuesare not caused by biology, any more than the issues ofwomen's oppression are caused by sex. We have that kindredsource of oppression, in a society that is all too quickto blame our second-class citizenship on our biology."The Disabled Are UsWomen are also more likely to be caretakers, professionalor otherwise, in a society that views caretaking as low-status(and low-paying) work. When a child or an aging parentneeds help, it is generally the mother or daughter whois enlisted to provide the care, with little or no supportfrom the community. Billions of tax and health-care dollars,presently absorbed by an often corrupt and dehumanizingnursing home industry, could be better spent providingPersonal Assistance Services (PAS) to people in their ownhomes, allowing them to retain their dignity and independence.The key is to recognize that most everyone will benefitby changing the way society deals with disability.In fact, some in the disability community believe theADA doesn't go nearly far enough. "It's incredibly difficultto prevail under any civil rights statute," says WendyParmet, professor of law at Northeastern University. "Theuntold story of the ADA is that people with meritoriousclaims are seeing their suits thrown out of court." And accordingto ADAPT organizer Stephanie Thomas, the Clintonadministration has already made an exception forGreyhound bus lines, granting them an extension on whenthey need to comply with the ADA. This means that sixyears after its passage, people using wheelchairs are stillunable to travel from city to city using the bus. Further extensionsof ADA deadlines are expected to follow.Latent hostility to the disabled notwithstanding,A recurring theme 111it may turn out that conservative ideologues havethe attacks: finally overestimated the intolerance of the Americanpeople. Despite all the bad press, there stillthe distinction between seems to be widespread support for the ADA, andsome of it from unexpected quarters. A Harris poll"truly disabled" people of corporate executives, commissioned by the NationalCouncil on Disability, found that more thanand the "faux disabled"— 90 percent of those surveyed supported the antidiscriminationprovisions of the ADA. And whenrecovering alcohoLics, the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relationsrecommended making compliance with thedrug addicts, people with ADA "voluntary," and that the law be revised totake away the ability of private citizens to sueback pain, fat people, and under its provisions, disability rights activiststo receive quality rehabilitationservices than disabled men. Women outnumbermen in nursing homes eight to one. Women whose childrenare disabled live in poverty, because they have to be poorto qualify for Medicaid, and because many of their husbandscut and run." And people with disabilities sharewith nondisabled women the burden of living in a culturethat places tremendous social, economic, and even moralvalue on physical "attractiveness." To be overweight, short,dark-skinned, facially scarred, or in a wheelchair can allplace a person on a lower level of the social pyramid.• it -i - .i • f i * l r - i T Mpulled together a series of high-profile demonstra-tions across the country to let their elected officialsknow that their civil rights were not expendable. InAustin, TX, ADAPT members occupied city council chambersto protest the fact that their mayor had signed on tothese recommendations. Other advisory council membersacross the country came in for similar actions."I think the conservative politicians are misreading theAmerican public on this issue," says Deborah Kaplan. "Iuse a power wheelchair, so my disability is obvious. I travelall over this country, and when I go out on the street, it's obviousthat most Americans are proud of what this countryhas done to open up society for people with disabilities." •the mentally ill.Summer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES 39

activismHow I set sail fromTahiti to stop the bomb.BY GILLIAN MURPHYGREENPEACEFrench commandos seize activistsTahiti, August 23,1995THE DECK HANDS ARE HAULING IN THE MOORING LINES.I'm standing on the Rainbow Warrior II wavinggoodbye to a crowd of well-wishers and press people.Small boats zip back and forth in the harbor, crammedwith photographers trying to get the best picture of this legendaryship before we leave for a three-day, 600-mile trip tothe Moruroa area where the French government has announcedit will "test" (read: explode) nine nuclear devices.On deck, someone blows a conch shell; the low moansounds reassuring, protective. The ship has been givenmany symbols of life in the South Pacific to protect her:spiny fronds of palm are lashed to the ship's railings; coconuts,bananas, and taro, nestled in baskets woven offresh fronds, are piled on deck.The 130 islands and atolls (a coral reef surrounding a lagoon),now French Polynesia, were called Te Ao Maohi beforethe French moved in the mid-1800s. Since 1966, theFrench have been testing nuclear weapons on the atolls ofMoruroa and Fangataufa. They used to test in Algeria, butthe Algerians kicked them out—they'd had enough ofFrench colonialism. Also, the French found that the falloutfrom atmospheric tests in the Sahara had a nasty habit ofdrifting across the Mediterranean towards the Motherland.Can't have that.I flew into Tahiti at two in the morning a couple of daysago. It's my first time below the equator, my first season oftravel abroad. It's winter here and almost chilly. When I arrivedat the airport, we were greeted by a band wearingmatching flowered shirts and playing miniature versions offamiliar instruments. Very South Pacific, with a little LoveBoat and Fantasy Island tossed in.And yet this tropical island paradise and its people willGILLIAN MURPHY, a radio operator for Greenpeace, willjoin the MV Arctic Sunrise in the North Sea in May.ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

suffer grave damage if the nuclear tests are allowed to proceed.A few years down the line, they will miscarry their babiesor feel sick themselves. These things are all too real tome. "If not me, then who?" I wrote my father, who wasfreaking out about the danger. I told him that I had thoughtabout Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about radiation burns anddeaths and kids being born with genetic defects. By myself Idon't feel like I can do a lot to prevent it from happeningagain. So I decided to help Greenpeace speak up loud andclear for all those people who would like to be out here andcan't be. He wrote back that he was proud of me, but still terriblyworried for his baby. Guess I'll always be that to him.August 24I'VE BEEN WORKING HARD SINCE ABOUT 15 MINUTES AFTERwe left the dock. We had a meeting with the 10 journalistson board, set out the ground rules for them: nopublishing our plans before they happen; wash your dishesafter dinner; here's your bunk; here's Gillie, the radio operator—she'llbe making all your phone calls for you. I wasimmediately besieged.I'm assisting Tim, the radio operator. We were on a missionon the Moby Dick in the Great Lakes together when he gotsent to Tahiti and requested me as his assistant. Now he's onthe radio with some boats arriving from New Zealand for theflotilla that'll be converging on Moruroa. About a dozen privateyachts have arrived, with people who want to help preventthe tests—or bear witness to them. There's also a Greenpeacecharter that's leaving from San Francisco and the MVGreenpeace, our big ship, is on her way carrying provisions tosustain the flotilla for a few months. She has a sailmaker onboard, food, water, fuel, Tiveety (our helicopter), and all kindsof gear for the campaign.I'm meeting the crew, one by one. We are 5 women and14 men, about half of us from New Zealand and Australia.All the women except me are from the South Pacific.This page: author GillianMurphy (front, right) andother Rainbow Warrior crewmembers, under arrest.Previous page (top) theRainbow Warrior en route tothe nuclear testing zone inMoruroa, French Polynesia;(center) crack in the coral atMoruroa caused by nucleartests; (bottom) Frenchcommandos seize Greenpeaceinflatable boats; Murphy is inthe boat on the right.Stephanie is the campaigner.She runs the whole show. Allday she has been runningaround and on the phone to reporters.She seems made out ofenergy; I know she was awakehalf the night and then up inthe morning before me.Sarah is the cook, and mybunkmate. We actually have acabin to ourselves on the maindeck. A big step up from Mobywhere everyone sleeps in oneroom in little cubbyholes.There's Claudia, who seemsto be half campaigner and half media rep; and Millie, theship's doctor; and Kate, second cook. I am pretty pleasedthat there are this many women on board, but Sarah istelling me that there are always so many more men thanwomen, and women are usually the cooks and deckhands,rarely officers or engineers. Since this is my first time at sea,I don't know if this is due to some fault of Greenpeace's orbecause there are so few women who have marine officer'sand engineer's licenses.On the Great Lakes tour we had tried to recruit an all-femalecrew, but until just before I left for here we were justtwo women—the captain and myself—and four men. Itwas great having people ask one of the men if he was thecaptain, and watching their expressions when we pointedout Margreet.August 25TODAY I WAS SITTING ON THE FLOOR OF THE RADIOroom, solder gun in one hand, phone in the other,when someone came in with a life jacket and toldme to hurry up and get in the boat. So I ran out, leavingpoor sleepless Tim with the journalists. I do love a boat ride.'Course, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Our five10-foot soft-shell inflatable boats tore around at full speedmaking tight inside and outside turns, practicing chasingand being chased, rehearsing slamming to a stop and lettingany chasing ships fly past.We put the boats back on board with the crane, flushedthe engines, and set about padding the sides of the boats sothat next time it wouldn't be so painful. Someone showedme how to glue padding to the floorboards and I put inhandles so I wouldn't fly out. I don't know what it'll be likein action, but I'm going to be ready.August 26WE ARRIVED AT THE 12-MILE ZONE OUTSIDE MORUROAtoday, and we have picked up a little friend: aFrench frigate that paces back and forth about amile away. It has called a couple of times to ask our intentionsand to tell us that we are in violation of French law ifwe get any closer than 12 miles to Moruroa.The flotilla is drawing nearer. Tim sends their positionsto someone via e-mail who is putting them on a map sothat people can track progress on the Internet.Bit by bit the action scenario is pulling together. Early inthe morning of the day we expect the first test, we willSummer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES41

launch our inflatables from the More than 1,500 peopleRainbow Warrior, which will then attemptto sail in herself. A few peo-French nuclear explosionsmarched to protest theple will go on the atoll and try to in Rarotonga, Cookhide; the rest of us will float within Island, Tahiti, June 1995.the lagoon in our inflatables, tryingto stay free as long as we can. We expect that the MV Greenpeacewill send in divers underneath the platform that drillsthe shaft for the bomb and loads it. Our hope is that theheart of French president Chirac retains a shred of humanityand he won't allow a test when the area is occupied bynonviolent activists.After dinner we had another meeting in the mess roomabout the health risks of being near a nuclear test site.Stan, the action coordinator, showed us diagrams of thetest site, the drilling rigs, and gave us reports on radioactivitylevels.For each underground test, of which there have beenabout 60 since the French stopped atmospheric testing in1974, they drill a shaft from 500 to 1,200 meters deep intothe coral. The bomb is then loaded into the shaft and detonated.After the bomb goes off, they drill a second shaftnearby to get radioactive samples so they can get a betteridea of the test's yield. There have been lots of accidents.Once a bomb got stuck halfway down the shaft and theyhad to explode it there. And the coral is riddled with holes.This time we expect there to be one big test of a 120-kilotonbomb and six to eight tests of 20-kiloton bombs, each alittle bigger than the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. Toplace the bombs, they drill through coral and soft rock. Theapproximately 13-mile-long coral has fractured in a fewplaces, and we think more tests could fracture it further,perhaps causing a tidal wave or some other major disaster.One documented fracture is about 2 feet wide and a milelong. Fractured coral or rock is not good for containing radioactivity.Some scientists say that it will only be held inplace for about 6 years. The area will remain radioactive forgenerations.Our group will wear badges and rings to measure ourexposure. We'll have to send them to a lab.The Polynesian workers used to clean up radioactivewaste with no protective gear. Lessons in morality, anyone?August 28THE MV GREENPEACE ARRIVED TODAY. SUCH A HUGEship. She's loaded to the gills with gear for theflotilla. Again, I'm getting that great feeling that wecan do anything.I've learned so much about activism, about people, aboutships, and about myself in the two years I've been workingfor Greenpeace. I feel like I have a purpose, that I'm in theright place, that I believe fully that we are doing the rightthing by being here. The issue is clear. There should be nonuclear bombs tested. By being here, we have a goodchance to stop them. The public outcry alone ought to beenough. If all this is not enough, what would be?September 2YESTERDAY WAS THE DAY. IT LOOKED LIKE THE FIRST TESTwould be September 1, so we went for it. At about4:30 A.M., two inflatables launched and headedstraight east. Afraid and excited, Tod and I left in a 10-footboat for 16 miles of open sea into a nuclear test site.We were with the last two inflatables to leave. The swellswere really high, at least 10 feet tall. We rode up the swells,then fell off the other side. It was painful to ride at fullspeed for two-and-a-half hours. Somehow Tod managed tokeep us on track, heading straight for the western side ofMoruroa. We arrived at the atoll as the sun rose, and circlednorth looking for an opening in the reef. We spotted awhale not 20 meters away from the boat and there found alow break in the coral, an entrance to the lagoon. I think thewhale was there just to help us. It was so close to the boat,in the right place at the right time.So we went into the lagoon and set off an orange smokebomb so Tiueety, our helicopter launched from the MV GP,could spot us and film us as proof that we were there. Thenwe took off toward the middle of the lagoon. The waterwas as clear and as blue as you could hope for. We couldsee coral. On land was a huge concrete bunker where theabove-ground tests used to happen. Now it has solar panelson the roof. That side of the lagoon is severely contaminated.The French slapped a coat of tar on it.We spotted an inflatable in the water but there was noone in it; it was hung up on the reef. We thought we mightbe able to take the boat and have another one zippingaround, but the pontoons were slashed, the enginesmashed, the gas lines cut, and the gas gone. I hoped hercrew was a little better off. I had one of those cold hard realizationsof what we were up against.We left the dead boat and headed toward a tower in themiddle of the lagoon, thinking it would be the drilling platform.And then I saw a boat coming at us very fast. Wetook off, but they were faster and kept swinging around us.A guy lying on the bow slashed at the pontoons with aknife attached to a pole. He just missed Tod's head withthat huge knife. Tod held his hands up in surrender andthey jumped in the boat, pinning us down and slashing the42 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

We spotted a whale not 20 meters away from the boat andthere found a low break in the coral, an entrance to the lagoon.gas lines and the pontoons. I tried calling the Warrior on theradio, shouting what was happening, but it was torn away.Tod and I talked to each other, making sure the other wasn'tgetting hurt as they hauled us into the metal boat andwe all took off for the other inflatable.The same thing was done to them. I was squirmingaround, with the goons holding on to me. We were reallyclose to the platform. The activists in the other boat weretrying to swim to it and the commandos trying to haulthem in. I jumped in the water and swam for it too. Noncooperation.I would not make this easy for them. Thelonger this took, the less likely there would be a test today.Our helicopter was hovering around the whole time, filmingthe commandos hauling us around, twisting arms andpulling hair. Those mercenaries used every dirty trick. Oneguy was dragged by his hair across coral, shredding theheavy sweater he was wearing until his back was bleeding.They took us to a tugboat anchored in the lagoon andheld us there for hours and hours, took all our gear. Therewere 10 or 12 of us on the tug, and we dried out our clothesand talked about what we should do. We figured that aslong as we were on the tug in the lagoon they couldn't test.We said we would not move until we talked to our captain.They laughed at us and stared at us and were assholesevery time we asked a question and wouldn't let thewomen use a toilet until we threatened to pee on the deck.Then they got us a bucket.~T ~VT THEN THEY WANTED TO MOVE US WE SAT IN A CIRCLE% /\ I and clamped on to each other. They pulledw Y everyone apart, kneeling on one guy's head, andtook half away in the patrol boat. They came back for therest of us an hour later. I was clamped onto Herman, a verybig guy, and they ripped us apart, peeling fingers back,pulling hair and twisting arms. They chained my arms tothe ceiling, which I could barely reach. It was a long boatride and we bounced around on sore arms and butts. Hermanheld up my legs to take some of my weight off mywrists. I was overwhelmed by the whole experience, andreally tired.They carried us off the boat, shoved us in a bus, and tookus to the base. They took our pictures; on the third one theyfinally pulled my head back and got an out-of-focus shot ofmy scowling mug; unidentifiable, really. Then took us oneby one into a little room. I went in with the woman. Sheput on rubber gloves. I refused to take my clothes off, butshe got everything out of my pockets, wouldn't give me myradiation badge back, and took my life jacket and outerclothing. They moved us again, in handcuffs. That timewhen they picked me up, my arms and wrists were screaming;I twisted and they dropped me on my damned wrists.I kept thinking about nonviolence and whether what wewere doing was nonviolent. We snatched our arms awaywhen they tried to cuff us, and held on to things so theyhad to pry us off to move us. We talked about passive andactive nonviolence. I figured being here in the first placewas pretty active and elected to keep up my resistance.At the next waiting place we were with everyone whoSummer 1996 • O N THE ISSUEShad left the Warrior and the Greenpeace. We traded storiesand heard that the ships were under tow and headed forthe atoll. Then we slept, and whenever I woke up therewere fewer people there. It got dark, and they brought usfood, but no one would eat it.SOMETIME AROUND 8:30 P.M. I WAS TAKEN TO BE QUEStioned.I gave my name, as we had been counseled todo for our safety, but wouldn't tell the soldier anythingelse until he said that I couldn't go back to my shipunless I told him which one I came from. He asked if Iwanted to return to the Warrior or be flown to Papeete.Turns out he asked everyone that, and since we all asked togo to the ship, they flew us to Papeete.We sat around for a while, and ate some food because wewere miserably hungry and couldn't remember any morewhy we had entertained the idea of refusing all their food.Personally, I think I can resist better when I have energy.They loaded us on a truck, again with our hands cuffed behindus, took us to the airstrip, and led us into the back of atroop transport plane, the kind with webbing benches in abare plane. Then they buckled everyone in with our handstied behind our backs for the two-and-a-half-hour flight. Ifound I could slide my hands under my bottom and pullthem up in front of me.Around midnight the reporters who had been on theWarrior joined us. They had their luggage from the shipand free hands. We told them about being handcuffed andthe soldiers reluctantly recuffed everyone in front.The plane was really loud and cold but most of us unbuckledand slept, sprawled over one another. When welanded in the airport in Papeete, they asked us to sign aform, and even though I could read the French, I refused. Tohell with them. We entered the airport, which was crammedwith reporters and cameras. I walked around in a daze.The sky got light, a dim, cloudy paling. We piled in a busand went to the Faa'a town hall, where I saw an exhibit ofthe horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Burned, mutilatedliving bodies. We destroyed them. I walked out crying.Still haven't slept and my body is burning from tirednessand salty chafing but there is a protest march, so we ridethere. It's a weekend morning and just about the entire islandis there. Everyone is glad to see us and congratulatesus. It's really hot. For hours we don't know if a test tookplace this morning; finally we get news that it didn't. Andmaybe there won't be any tests.September 5t I ^E FIRST TEST WAS TODAY. THE FRENCH SAID THEYI would test even if activists were present and theyJL did. Two men from Greenpeace were held in a sealevelbunker while everyone else fled to higher groundwhen they set off the test. Fury. Stunned. And depressed.We are starting to get news that the Tahitians are going toriot. There are about a thousand people at the airport andthey intend to burn it down, that French-induced pestilence,that home of the military.The Warrior and the Greenpeace have (continued on page 59)43

familyvaluesRAISING SONSAS ALLIESWhile race and gender wars rage, what can -parents do on the home front?BY PAUL KIVELFROM A VERY EARLY AGE BOYS ARE TOLD AND TRAINED TO"act like a man." To illustrate what that feels like, theOakland Men's Project devised the "Act Like a Man"box on the opposite page. We know it's a box becauseevery time a boy tries to step out of it, he's pushed back in.There are many variations on this training, but the commonalityacross cultures in the United States is striking.Boys have various strategies for trying to survive in thebox, or sneak out of it at times, but the scars from livingwithin its walls are long-lasting and painful.As parents we've been taught to pass on to our sons theimportance of being in the box. Even though we may ferventlywish they could escape it, we may reinforce theirtraining in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways.A major factor that keeps many of us from supportingour sons' stepping out of the box is homophobia. We fearthat our sons might become gay, or might appear to othersto be gay if they don't look, talk, and act straight. Underneaththis fear is the assumption that all our sons are indeedheterosexual.Some of our sons are homosexual or bisexual. Manymore are confused about their sexual feelings for other peopleand may not become clear until later in life. For stillothers, their sexual orientation may change over time.Buying into the "Act Like a Man" box in any form, andthe homophobia that keeps it in place, makes all boys unsafeand leads to violence. All boys are limited by its strictures.Any boy, at any time, can be put down and forced toPAUL KIVEL, a cofounder of the Oakland Men's Project andfather of two boys and a girl, is author of Men's Work: How toStop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart (Ballantine)and Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work forRacial Justice (New Society Press). Also coauthor of HelpingTeens Stop Violence (Hunter House), he has developed andconducted hundreds of workshops for teens and adults aboutracism, sexual assault, and alternatives to violence. He welcomescorrespondence at pkivel@netcom.com.fight to prove he's straight and in the box. Any leadership,any creativity, any imaginative acts can be immediatelychallenged and defeated by homophobic comments.The women's movement has produced much excellentcollective thinking about the raising of daughters, and awhole generation of girls has grown up the beneficiary oftheir mothers' actions and experiences. But with a few exceptions—notablyLetty Cottin Pogrebin's book Growing UpFree: Raising Your Child in the 80's—the same collective conversationhas not occurred about the raising of sons. Givenour concern about the violence they are vulnerable to, andour concern about the controlling and abusive male rolesthey may grow up to inhabit, how do we bring our progressivefeminist values to this challenge? How can all those ofus who are raising boys—including stepparents, partners,family friends, and grandparents—guide them to manhoodwith their strength, creativity, caring, and lives intact?In hopes that another generation does not grow to adulthoodbefore that much-needed crosstalk takes place, hereare some ideas about seven problematic issues that faceeveryone raising sons.RACEIf a boy is white...Demonstrating racial solidarity with other young males isoften part of the condition for being accepted by them as aman. This can mean, for a white boy, demonstrating he hasthe balls to put down and abuse people of color. White hategroups are only an extreme example of this dynamic; manywhite young men affirm their manhood through whiteracist solidarity in less dramatic ways.Children begin to notice racial difference—and the societaldifference it makes—between the ages of 2 and 5.Throughout childhood they are bombarded with stereotypes,misinformation, and lies about race, and, if they arewhite, pressure to become racist in their attitudes and behavior.44 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

si3 55 I10S 8It is crucial that we make teaching tolerance and the celebrationof difference a priority when children are young.As they grow older we also need to give them a social andhistorical awareness of institutionalized racism and racialinjustice. We need to assess the values they are learning inour home and family environment, and—as I explain inUprooting Racism—we need to teach our children, by example,how to become anti-racist activists. This is particularlyimportant for white boys, because it is they who are beingtrained to be the racist shock troops of the next generation.Some relevant questions to ask are "Does a boy live in amultiracial environment at school and in the neighborhood?Does his family have friends of different ethnicities?(If not, why not?) What information and messages do thebooks, music, videos, pictures, and other images in thehome convey about race?"If a boy is Native American, Asian American, ArabAmerican, Latino, African American...One of the most devastating impacts of racism on youngmen of color is the internalization of racism into patterns ofcompetition and violence toward other young men ofcolor; self-destructive violence such as suicide, drug use,and high-risk activity; and violence toward young womenof color. To counter this pattern we need to help our sonsdevelop pride in their cultural and racial identity and tobecome grounded in their cultural history. In addition, weneed to help them understand the dynamics of racism, andthe prejudice and discrimination they are vulnerable to, sothey do not blame themselves or others in their racialgroup for perceived failure. If they feel themselves part of alarger struggle to combat racism, they will see other youthof color as allies in that struggle rather than as competitors.Summer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES 45

It is better that a young man be rebellious against his parent's authoritythan floundering or in trouble for lack of guidance.SEXIf a young man is sleeping with,or about to sleep with, someone...The prevalence of sexual violence and harassment, and thehigh incidence of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitteddiseases including AIDS, makes us all wary of youngpeople's having sex. However, they do have sex, at earlierages than when we were young, and we need to rememberthat there can be much joy, loving, intimacy, and fun in sexualconnection with another. If a foundation has been laidin the family for respecting the bodies, feelings, and privacyof others, a young man will most likely carry that overinto his sexual relationships.Even before a son is about to have sex, a parent shouldbuy some condoms and give them to him. One should notassume a son is having sex with someone—nor should onewait until being sure he has before talking with him.I don't recommend Hillary Rodham Clinton's "don't ask,don't tell" policy, which she says she has used with herdaughter. Nevertheless, an adult planning to ask a sonabout his activities should have in mind a clear reason todo so—to offer him support, for instance, or to make onelast attempt to urge him to practice safe sex.Assuming the boy has been talked with years beforeabout safe sex and he is moderately well-informed, a relaxedtime can be picked, when parent and son are hangingout together, and he can be asked directly: "I see you andare spending a lot of time together. Are you havingsex, or are you thinking of having sex?"If he expresses embarrassment that the subject wasbrought up, that's OK; next time he'll be less embarrassedand perhaps more able to talk about it.If he seems angry or feels defensive and says it's not theparent's business, one can say something simple about caringabout him and about his relationships and leave it atthat.If he answers directly and describes what's going onwith him, one should listen and support him without offeringadvice unless he asks it.Even if he says nothing at all, we can offer him some condoms,say something about the joy of sex between two consentingpeople, and let him know that anytime he has anyquestions, we will be there for him and ready to talk.HOMOPHOBIAIf boys make homophobic remarks around the house...Boys bring home homophobic remarks in two (or sometimesthree) phases.The first phase is between the ages of 6 and 9 when theycome home saying words like "fag" and "queer." Theyoften don't know what the words mean, only that thewords hurt. Talking about the use of those words, what itmeans to be lesbian, gay, and bisexual, and why the wordsare hurtful usually ends the behavior, especially if there is ageneral practice of respect toward others within the family.If one is not lesbian, gay, or bisexual oneself—and if onedoesn't have close family members or friends who are(why not?)—this is the time to introduce the boy to somebooks (such as Heather Has Two Mommies, Jenny Lives WithEric and Martin, Daddy's Roommate, A Day With Alexis) andto talk more about the variety of ways adults love eachother and create families based on their love. A parent whohas any hesitation or questions about doing this might talkwith other adults first to get clear about what to say.Another phase generally comes when boys are in juniorhigh school and know somewhat more about homosexuality.They have picked up negative value judgments fromother adults, peers, and the media. They may also be experiencingtheir own sexual confusion, wanting to make surethey pass as straight. The pressure on teenage young mento be heterosexual, tough, in control, and unfeeling is sogreat that many wear a protective coat of homophobia tocover their insecurity.Ongoing discussion, information, videos, and books helpdefuse some of this kind of homophobia but are no substitutefor a parent's personally knowing and respecting a diversityof lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Discussions withina family about politics, justice, equality, and multiculturalismshould not leave out issues of homophobia. If a boyhas a social-justice foundation that includes issues of sexualorientation, this phase will pass quickly.Another phase occurs for some young men when theybecome so heavily involved in anti-gay subcultures—suchas sports, religious groups, gangs—that all one can do iscome to an uneasy truce about what is acceptable languageand behavior in the house. This phase is not necessarilypermanent but can be very painful because the main sourceof these boys' identity, plus the external adult support theyreceive for it, is based in part on a deeply rooted and constantlyjustified homophobia. It helps to be clear with a sonabout our values and expectations of his behavior withinour presence, but we shouldn't expect to have a major impacton his attitudes during this phase.SPORTSIf a boy is involved in a highly competitive sport...As parents we may want our sons to participate in organizedathletics to develop skills, teamwork, and self-confidence.At the same time we may have qualms about thecompetitive, anti-female, anti-gay, and semi-violent atmospherethat is still all too prevalent in the boys' locker roomand on the playing field.The challenge is to help our sons think critically aboutthe messages and training they are receiving. It helps topoint out and discuss specific incidents we notice, whetherit's on the Little League team or in the NBA. Our sons areoften very insightful in seeing and understanding the valuesthey are exposed to when asked to reflect on them. Thesorts of questions we ask can include "What did you thinkwhen the coach said, 'Anyone who loses is a wimp'? Howdo you feel when someone is carried off the football field ina stretcher? Why do you think girls' sports are not covered46 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

or supported as much as boys' sports are? How importantdo you think it is to win? What would help you learn moreand develop your skills in playing on this team? Whatwould make it more fun? Have you been noticing thatmany athletes have been involved in sexual-assault anddomestic-violence cases recently? Why do you think thatis? How healthy do you think it is to play when you're injuredas an athlete?"DISCIPLINEWhen a boy gets to be as big and strong as his parent...It can be intimidating to think about disciplining a son.Limit-setting may trigger his rebelliousness and his need toassert independence. We may think he doesn't listen to usor need our approval.It is easy to get into a battle of wills—or arguments thatdegenerate into name-calling, sarcasm, putdowns, and thetemptation to hit. But we know that such responses don'twork; they just breed defiance, fear, anger, and the beliefthat force solves problems. There are other forms of leveragewe have as adults, even over our teens. They want ourattention, trust, and approval. We control the money andaccess to family resources that young people depend on.We should not manipulate their needs, but we should notshy away from exerting our authority when their behavioris inappropriate, agreements have been broken, or familyrelationships have been violated.Regardless of young men's age or size or their contestingof parental authority, they need limits set and appropriatediscipline (from mothers and fathers) when they break therules. It is particularly important that we respond firmly,without a personal need to blame our sons for being maleand without any vested interest in breaking their wills orsubduing their rebelliousness.We need to involve our sons in family decision-making,expect them to take responsibility for their actions, and useour parental authority when we say, "I have decided to[demand that your homework be done before you canleave the house, work out an agreement about grades,lower your stay-out time, institute a mandatory check-incall every night you're out at P.M., ground you]." It isbetter that a young man be rebellious against his parent'sauthority than floundering or in trouble for lack of guidance.PORNOGRAPHYIf a boy is buying and/or using pornography...In part because schools and parents have so failed to provideour youth with realistic and respectful informationabout human sexuality, pornography today has become themajor form of sex education for young men. If a boy hasnot already been introduced to it by an older male relativeor his peers, he will almost certainly discover it on his own.The first thing a parent might do would be to talk withanother adult to get clear about one's feelings. One may beangry about pornography and about adult men who use it.Transferring this anger to one's son will not help him thinkabout what he's doing. Talking to another adult can alsohelp clarify whether this is a situation in which to say thatSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUESone categorically does not want it in the house or, perhapsinstead, to tell a son how one feels about pornography butto let him decide what to do with the magazines or videoshe has access to.In either case, it is important to find out what he feelsabout pornography. He may know little about the pornographyindustry, the exploitation of women in its production,or the effects of its consumption on women and men.It might be useful, if one has the stomach for it, to lookthrough some with him and talk about it together.A third option would be for all family members to have adiscussion about the issue and come to a family decisionabout the presence of pornography in the house. Thisprocess might raise other questions: What if the womenand girls in the household don't want it around but themen and boys think it's a question of free speech andthere's really no harm in it? What weight should thewomen's voices be given in this process? What responsibilitydo the men have to find out more about the effects ofpornography and respond to the issues of respect and safetythat the presence of pornography raises? What if there isdisagreement among adults in the household as to whetherit's a big deal? These questions are important to workthrough. Although one's first impulse might be to say,"Throw the stuff out and never bring it in here again!" thatresponse only conveys to the son that the adults have authorityto make house rules. He will continue to usepornography, try to hide it better, and probably be thinking,"Just wait till I have a place of my own."It is easy for young men to hear anti-pornography statementsas anti-masturbation because boys often masturbateto pornographic images. I agree with Dr. M. Jocelyn Elders,the surgeon general dismissed by President Clinton, thatmasturbation should be included in our nation's sex-educationcurricula. We need to reassure our sons that masturbationin and of itself is a perfectly normal part of humansexuality. We also need to help them think critically aboutthe images they are being sold and how those images areproduced so that our sons do not become part of the consumeraudience of the pornography industry.RITES OF PASSAGEIf a parent wants a son to participatein an initiation ritual...Many religious, ethnic, tribal, fraternal, and spiritual traditionsand organizations conduct ceremonial initiations tomark a boy's transition to manhood. Some people are tryingto revive or create new such rituals. To the extent thatthese observances help prepare him for participation in theadult community, they can be useful. However, almost always,they perpetuate gender inequality and traditionalgender roles unless they are carefully rethought and reconstructed.Relying on male archetypes or male-only leadership—orusing language that stresses male roles or masculineidentity rather than human archetypes androles—promotes the patriarchal values we desperatelyneed to move beyond. The best way to ensure that rites ofpassage or other ceremonies are progressive is to have feministwomen involved in designing and implementingthem. •47

ooks& filmsRepublican renegade •Women are stilt blamed for acquaintance rape •Jonathan Kozol on life below the poverty line •An Oscar to feminism •ELECTION '96:DON'T STAY HOMELL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ARE IMPORliant,but some stand out as turningAipoints, historic markers when the nationmade a clear choice to take one path andnot another. Think back to Franklin Roosevelt'sNew Deal victory in 1932,Kennedy's in 1960, Nixon's in '68, Reagan'sin 1980. This fall is another such moment,and to understand what's at stake ON THEISSUES talked to Tanya Melich, author of TheRepublican War Against Women: An Insider'sReport from Behind the Lines, a powerful indictmentof the party she served so long. Acofounder of the pro-choice New York StateRepublican Family Committee andBY JULIA KAGAN its executive director for 10 years,Melich was on the campaign staffs ofGovernor Nelson A. Rockefeller and Senator JacobJavits, and was a key player in the election of NewYork City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. She was a delegateor an alternate to every Republican conventionfrom 1952 to 1992, except 1984.In chilling detail that makes this book a must-readfor anyone seeking to understand this summer'spresidential conventions and platform fights, Melich,who was born into a politically active Republicanfamily (her father was a Utah state senator), describeshow New Right and religious right conservativescarefully and methodically captured the partyof Lincoln.The war against women is actually a relatively recentdevelopment, born of a calculated decision to exploitthe backlash against women's growing powerand influence, she explains. It began with the "southernstrategy" that helped win former "Dixiecrat"states for losing candidate GOP candidate BarryGoldwater in 1964 and—extended to exploit anti-busingsentiments in northern states—won the presidencyfor Nixon in '68. Four years later, this New Majoritarianstrategy, having built a Republican majoritywith conservative Democrats and independentsangry at the sixties' social and civil rights changes,won the election for Nixon again in '72.Women's issues became an integral part of thisAn Interview with Tanya Melichstrategy in 1980, the year the Republican party abandonedits support for the ERA, a platform plank since1940. The party's new misogynist approach helpedelect Reagan by expanding its conservative pitch toinclude both the anti-ERA and anti-women's-movementsentiments fanned by activists like PhyllisSchlafly and the anti-choice reaction to the 1973 Roe v.Wade decision legalizing abortion.Not that long ago, as Melich reminds us, RichardNixon, Bob Dole, and George Bush all supportedboth the ERA and women's control over reproductivechoice. The world looks very different in 1996. "Thereis no moderate voice for women" among the leadingRepublican presidential candidates, she writes in thelast chapter of her book, which was published in January."On women's issues they agree. They acceptthat the government should dictate reproductivechoice, that it should not help with child care save ina token way, and that current affirmative action programs,even when they are couched in goals andtimetables, should be reformed to the point that theyare essentially useless."OTI interviewed Melich in early April, after Dole'sstring of primary victories made him the certain Republicannominee. Patrick Buchanan, his only remainingchallenger, had declared he would fight on untilthe party's convention in San Diego in mid-August.| U LIA K A C A N is a New York-based writer and editor and special projects advisor for ON THE ISSUES.48O N T H E I S S U E S • S u m m e r 1 9 9 6

OTI: What are emerging as definingissues for '96?MELICH: If one can assume thatBosnia, China, Russia, or the Middle Eastdon't become the issue, then the issuesare going to be domestic. I see three. Thefirst is the tax issue, which for the Republicanside is defined as less federal government,power transferred to the stategovernments, and less governmentspending on domestic programs—exceptdefense. The subsets of the tax issue arewelfare reform, education, environment,and the living wage, the idea that it isn'tenough to have a job if your wage is sosmall you can't live on it.The next issue is abortion. I think itwill be as big as it was in '92 because ifDole is elected, legal abortion except tosave the life of the mother will be lost.You're not going to have Bob Dole wakeup the day after he's nominated and say,"I am now supporting Roe v. Wade."Meantime, the House and the Senate areat the present time anti-choice. (TheHouse (with 2 vacancies) is 218 antichoice,142 pro-choice, and 73 mixed;and the Senate 45 anti, 38 pro, and 17mixed.) You also have the potential oftwo or three justices of the SupremeCourt resigning during the next presidentialterm.Third is the issue of intolerance, whichof course choice is part of. The issue ofone group claiming moral superiorityover others will be a dominant undercurrentin the campaign. It can alreadybe sensed in Dole's statements promisingto appoint only conservative judges.Dole won his nomination because the religiousright moved its support to himfrom Buchanan. Dole owes them andwill have to back most of their agenda.OTI: Agree with it or not, one couldargue that the Republican war againstwomen that you describe has been a successfulstrategy. It kept Republicans inpower for the 12 Reagan-Bush years beforeClinton won, and they won againin '94.MELICH: The strategy fell apart in1992 when Republican and independentwomen deserted Bush for Clinton andPerot. The question now is whether 1994was a significant trend or an aberration.Remember that '94 was an off-yearelection. The out party from the WhiteHouse generally does well in an off-yearelection. In 1994, women didn't turn outto vote in the numbers they usually do.Generally more women than men vote,but in '94 women represented only 51percent of the electorate, compared with53.5 percent in 1992. Women still votedmore Democratic overall, 53 percent to47 percent, but their backing was lukewarm.On the other hand, the men wereenthusiastically for the Republican agendaof less taxes, smaller government, nogun control, and less regulation.In the South, white women overwhelminglyvoted Republican, but whitewomen in the rest of the country didn'tgive the Republicans strong backing.Nonwhite women,though, were stronglyDemocratic. These figuresalone point towardri€a defeat for Dole in Novemberif women turnout and vote like theydid in 1992.OTI: But Dole couldalso win with his strategy,especially if men arestrongly for the Republicansand women areonly lukewarm for theDemocrats.MELICH: That dependson how the campaignplays out. Someissues could makewomen more stronglyDemocrat. Many wo-REPUBLICANWARAGAINSTWOMENTANY\MEUCHTHE REPUBLICAN WARAGAINST WOMEN:An Insider's Reportfrom Behind the Linesby Tanya Melich(Bantam, New York,$23.95 hardcover)men who see the Republican party supportingthe Christian right's medievalidea of women say, "Even though I likethe Republican tax policies, I can't supportthem because of their intolerance."Add on top of that the mean-spiritednessof the Gingrich revolution—and thedata that show that women are moresympathetic to poor people, to thehealth, education, environment, andwelfare issues—and you have two thingsthat should make a difference in favor ofthe Democrats. In mid-April, a Los AngelesTimes poll showed Clinton winningthe women by 27 percent and the menby 8 percent over Dole.In fact, Clinton has moved in the lastyear to co-opt the thrust of the ContractWith America issues—welfare reform,tax issues, less government spending.The thing that kept moderates voting forRepublicans was the economic issues. IfClinton can hold onto those issues, theMELICH: That's the argument that gotthe United States Richard Nixon in 1968.That's the old Marxist argument that "Idon't like these two and if I don't votethen eventually it will get so bad thatwe'll have a revolution." That isn't theway it works in our country. What happensis that whenever those in the centerdon't vote, the right does well. As for liberals,the exit polls for '92 and '94 indicatevery few seem to be voting; thenumber of voters whoidentify themselves as liberalsis comparativelysmall.In this year's primariesand caucuses, many Republicanwomen showedlittle interest in voting.The exceptions were GOPparty stalwarts and the religiousright women whoform the backbone ofthe Christian Coalition'sgrassroots workers. Butafter Buchanan won NewHampshire, some ofthe alienated Republicanwomen who felt none ofthe GOP candidates representedthem turned out tovote in order to stopBuchanan. In most cases, they voted forDole not because they were enthusiasticbut because he seemed the most likelycandidate to stop Buchanan, who hadscared them. This alienation was worst inNew York, which is a strongly pro-choicestate: 59 percent of those who voted weremen, and 41 percent were women.OTI: So they say that angry white menwere the tilting factor in '94. Couldwomen make the difference in '96?MELICH: Yes, they could. Both theDole and Clinton campaigns are targetinghigh-school educated men andwomen, particularly women. Conventionalwisdom is that these high-schooleducated women, many of them singleparents, will vote for Clinton if they canbe convinced to vote. The Dole campaignhopes to win them over with itslower tax message as well as its promiseto stop the nation's moral decline. Sonow the Republican women's backlashonly thing the Republicans have going message used since 1980 will be used tofor them is the intolerance issue, and it win over not ' only ' angry men but ambivalentand unhappy women. It will bemay not be enough.OTI: There are people who say that Clinton's challenge to show that his programsand concern for working womenwomen stayed home from the polls in'94 because the Republicans and Democratsdidn't seem different enough to be nities, affirmative action, and reproduc-through child care, educational opportu-worth the trouble of finding a babysitter. tive freedom will not only bring moreSummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES49

economic security but a better moral climatefor these women's children.The wild card is Ross Perot. If he getsinto the race, the angry men—the onesBuchanan is talking to—may go to Perotrather than Dole. And if Dole loses toomany of these men, he will be in trouble.Recent polls show that Perot is popularamong young men and women. It is tooearly to tell where they will go.OTI: What do you say to strong feministswho are turned off by both parties?MELICH: Radical feminists have to dowhat radical people always do, which ispush the envelope. They have to do thesame kind of things that Buchanan isdoing with what he believes in. However,they have to be very careful in thecontext of the next six or nine months. Ifthey push too hard they will end upwith a right-wing President and Congress,and then they will lose badly—themost immediate being the right tochoose. So this is not the time to be experimenting.The time to be doing this isafter '96, planning for the year 2000.OTI: There's been talk about awomen's party.MELICH: I think a women's party isstupid. What you will do is pull the feministsaway from helping the Democraticparty win elections at all. Feministsdon't need to organize a women's partyto gain power. They need to run primariesagainst those who oppose theiragenda in the same way the Right tookpower away from the moderates in theRepublican party. They should refuse tocontribute to candidates who do notback their agendas but should vote inelections and help nominate candidates.If feminists spend their time and energyat this crucial juncture trying to organizea women's party, they will become isolated.Elections are won with issue coalitionswithin the parties.The thing that's so impressive about,say, Emily's List, is that there's a hell of alot of money there. If the Democraticparty wants to win the House back, theyneed the money of Emily's List. If theEmily's List women and some of the radicalwomen were to go off and form athird party, they are going to be overthere with their 1 or 2 percent and theyare not going to be relevant to the politicaldynamic of the moment. In addition,a women's party sets up a kind of divisivenessthat isn't useful because youhave many men who would probably behelpful otherwise, but might not on thebasis of just gender. There are manyways to push agendas and going off andtrying to form a political party in a systemlike ours is crazy. That kind of approachwill work in a parliamentary system,and it will work in systems whereyou divide the vote up. But in a systemwhere you have winner-take-all, it's awaste of energy.OTI: How is the election shaping up?MELICH: I think the election is goingto be very close. It looks like Ross Perotis getting into it and Buchanan is still amajor factor. And we don't know whatwill happen in Congress between nowand August. Remember, we still don'thave a budget. And the right-to-life peopleare going to push for all of the rest ofthe anti-choice agenda they didn't getbefore Christmas and they're going toget it. This is a campaign season that isno holds barred. I haven't seen an electionlike this since '68, when Nixon won43.4 percent of the vote to Humphrey's42.7 percent.OTI: So can we expect a big women'sissue push in the fall?MELICH: Not necessarily. Clinton andDole would prefer not to talk aboutwomen's issues directly because in bothparties these issues create tensions theydon't want. There are people in the Democraticparty who believe that Clintonhasn't been concerned enough aboutpoor women and takes for granted theDemocratic party's electoral advantageamong women in general. Meanwhile,among the ambivalent women votersClinton is trying to attract, women's-issuesrhetoric is seen as anti-family. TheClinton campaign continually stressesfamilies when talking about women inan effort to co-opt the Republican "familyvalues" offensive.On their side, the Republicans limittheir talk about women's issues, arguingthat there is no such thing, since womenmake up their minds based on theirmarital status, class, educational level,and ideology. They also don't like to talkabout women's issues because inevitablyabortion must be discussed andthe party's position on abortion is soalien to its traditional position of opposinggovernment interference. Campaignstrategists looking to unite Republicanstry to play down the issue, even as theparty's religious right flank continuallyflogs it.OTI: Where will Dole come down?MELICH: Dole will not budge in hisopposition to a woman's right to anabortion. He will seek other ways to attractwomen voters but not so that itangers his base of angry white men.Dole will try to unite the Republicansaround an economic agenda, promisinga better economy through less taxes thatwill bring more jobs for all. He will emphasizereturning America to the "traditionalvalues" of the '50s even as he willtalk about equality for all women. But hewill offer nothing that truly brings equalopportunity: He will oppose affirmativeaction programs including those with noquotas. He will oppose choice and comparableworth and raising the minimumwage. He will go along with the religiousright's interpretation of women'srole being to remain in the home and followthe natural law of God, whichmeans obeying your husband or malerelative or minister.One of the rhetorical traps thatwomen voters must not accept is the argumentthat the Republican issue agendais friendly to all women because theparty has impressive women as U.S. senators,House members, and staff people.Both Clinton and Dole have professionalwives and women on their staffs in positionsof power. One of the positive accomplishmentsof the women's politicalmovement is that both parties are nowaware that running women candidatesand having women staff in positions ofauthority is a plus, and both nominateand recruit them—maybe not enough tosuit me, but it certainly is better than 25years ago. The issue now is, what policieswill they back?OTI: So feminists who don't really likeClinton's conservative drift on welfareand other issues should vote for himanyway?MELICH: Where else can feministwomen go? Clinton is not about to appointSupreme Court justices who aregoing to vote to throw out Roe v. Wade. ItDole, who will owe his victory to theright wing, is agreeing to an agenda thatsays that women are not able to be equalto men, that permeates through everything,not just choice. If you're lookingover the long-term, half a loaf is betterthan none. At least then you can begin tobuild on the half a loaf. A system likeours is too diverse. You only get part ofwhat you want.THE REPUBLICAN WAR AGAINST WOMEN"began when some ambitious ideologuesdiscovered that backlash politicsbrought them power. It will end whenRepublican leaders discover it loses thempower," Melich concludes at the end ofher book. Whether they'll learn that inNovember is an open question. •50 ON THE ISSUES • Spring 1996

DOUBLEJEOPARDYA WOMAN SCORNED:Acquaintance Rape on Trialby Peggy Reeves Sanday (Doubleday,New York, $23.95 hardcover)BY LORRAINE DUSKYTHE STORY IS FAMILIAR. KRISTA ABSAlon,a 23-year-old divorced motherof two, drank too many beers and toomany shots one night in October 1991 atthe Casablanca, a joint near the Canadianborder in her home town of Gouverneur,NY. At some point, she passedout in the bathroom. Later, after theplace had closed, five men, all of themacquaintances of hers, carried Absalonfrom the ladies' room to a booth,stripped her, and raped her while sheslipped in and out of consciousness. Shelearned what had happened two weekslater because the men had been braggingabout it.Absalon filed a complaint, the D.A.brought misdemeanor charges (rape is afelony, but it was a first offense after all,and the young men's lives might be ruined,etc.—you know the drill), and thetown justice, Wallace Sibley, fined themeach $840.When Absalon and women's groupscried foul, the case was reopened by thestate. One of the alleged rapists, MichaelCurcio, said on national television, "Idon't think we should have gotten anything,"and described the rape as just a"gang bang." No big deal.No big deal either to the jury of six menand six women in nearby Canton who, atthe end of March, found the first of thefive men to come to trial, Mark Hartle, 29,not guilty. In return for probation, one ofthe men, Greg Streeter, testified againstLORRAINE DUSKY is the author ofthe forthcoming Still Unequal: TheShameful Truth About Women andJustice in America.Hartle; all of them admitted having sexualintercourse with Absalon when she wasdead drunk. The complainant, in otherwords, had corroborating evidence. It wasnot enough. She got drunk, she passedout, what was she doing there late atnight—what did she expect?Absalon has since moved to Syracuse.In Gouverneur, folks blame her for thebad press their town got since shebrought this unwanted notoriety to it. InGouverneur, Absalon will always be awoman scorned.Peggy Reeves Sanday, an anthropologistat the University of Pennsylvania,knows this terrain. She has visited it beforein Fraternity Gang Rape and FemalePower and Male Dominance and she is anexpert on "rape prone" and "rape free"societies. In A Woman Scorned: AcquaintanceRape on Trial, Sanday convincinglymakes the argument that violent sex betweenwomen and men is a cultural abnormality,not a biological inevitability.In societies where sex roles are betterbalanced and there is very little violence,rape is rare. This is a book you wanteveryone who will ever serve on a rapetrial to read.Her incisive examination of acquaintancerape through the centuries showsthat historically it is cultural attitudes,not the law, not justice, and certainly nota sense of right, that prevail in rape trials.Pop sociology and pop psychologydominate, she says, because popularstereotypes of sex roles allow men tokeep ornery women in their place. Oneparticularly fascinating passage revealsthat when rape trials declined in Puritantimes, witch trials replaced them—societyhad to find some way to keep uppitywomen in their place. The Puritans didbelieve women when they brought rapecharges, however; it was assumed theyhad no reason to lie. It was not untillater, when Blackstones's Commentarieson the Law became a best-seller in thiscountry in the 1760s, that one of the mostinsidious comments on rape—the misguidedvenom of a jurist a century earlier—cameinto popular usage in thecourts: "Rape is...an accusation easy tobe made, hard to be proved, but harderto be defended by the party accused,though innocent." In most states thisstatement was read to the jury in rapetrials as part of their instructions up untilthe 1970s.Not all jurists were unsympathetic towomen's experiences in the courts. In1868, a Justice Johnson held that awoman's past "lascivious" conductTheMITOriginal in PaperbackINSIDE THE VISIBLEAn Elliptical Traverse ofTwentieth Century Art in, of,and from the Feminineedited by M. Catherine de ZegherConsiders more than thirty women artists,highlighting the work of previously"invisible" figures alongside the work ofestablished artists to create a retheorizedinterpretation of this century's art.500 pp., 200 illus., 50 color $35 paperOUT OF ORDER,OUT OF SIGHTVolume I: Selected Writings inMeta-Art 1968-1992Volume II: Selected Writings in ArtCriticism 1967-1992Adrian Piper"Adrian Piper is one of the mostprovocative, insightful, and articulate ofcontemporary American voices."— Joyce Carol OatesVolume I: 320 pp., 42 illus. $35Volume II: 320 pp., 42 illus. $35GOOD LOOKINGEssays on the Virtue of ImagesBarbara Maria StaffordThis affirmative manifesto illuminates theconstructive work that images haveperformed and continue to perform as weshift from a lens to a digital culture.320 pp., 98 illus. $30Wow in PaperbackARTFUL SCIENCEEnlightenment Entertainment andthe Eclipse of Visual EducationBarbara Maria Stafford"A scholarly and lucid analysis of thereplacement of an oral-visual culture infavor of a text-centered one. Highlyreadable...a fascinating 'side-look' at theworld of art." — Art Times384 pp., 197 illus. $20 paperto order call toll-free 800-356-0343(US & Canada) or 617-625-8569.http://www-mitpress.mit.eduSummer 1996 • O N THE ISSUES51

could not be taken to mean that she wasat the sexual disposal of anyone againsther will. If such evidence was allowed,he argued, then so should evidenceabout whether or not the man was "inthe habit of assaulting other femaleswith intent to ravish... All men wouldsee its injustice at once and exclaimagainst it." The judge's argument, it isworth noting, came in a dissenting opinion.The rapist got off. Too bad JudgeJohnson was not officiating at theWilliam Kennedy Smith trial instead ofJudge Mary Lupo, who handed over thetrial to the defense the minute she ruledagainst disclosing Smith's prior bad actswith other women.Sanday makes a strong case for tellingone's partner whether or not sexual advancesare desirable. You have to let themknow every step of the way. Although Iwondered about how Antioch College'sfamous and much-maligned sex policy(ask first) could actually work, she convincedme that it should be taught to allschool children over the age of...wheneverit is they become sexually active in ourviolent, "rape prone" society.Most of us who know someone whohas been raped (do any of us not?) willappreciate her skewering of anti-femi-Goddess jewelrybmrize goldP.O. Be* 3*9-U Wmficld MA O1O1OCata : lp York.pressed voices. Children receive particularattention, since Kozol is concernedwith what it means to grow up deprivedof material comforts and despised by society."You don't have to be in jail to bein prison," a teenager named Malcolm Xquips, and statistics bear this out.Although Kozol is judicious in his useof numbers, those he includes pack asolid punch. He writes, for example, thatthe area's median income is $7,600; thatonly seven of the 800 children attendingthe local elementary school are over-incomefor free school lunches; that onequarterof the women who are tested forHIV in obstetrics wards are positive.Indeed, the illnesses most readily associatedwith poverty—among themAIDS, asthma, and anxiety—are rampantin Mott Haven. While the overallrate of hospital admission for asthma is2.5 per 1,000 city wide, in Mott Haven theratio is 6 per 1,000. One overcrowdedpublic hospital serves the area, and privatedoctors are few and far between.Making matters worse, local health problemsare exacerbated by the presence ofa medical waste incinerator that spewsnoxious fumes into the air from "red bagproducts," the amputated limbs, bandages,bedding, fetal tissue, and syringesthat are dumped in the South Bronx by14 New York City hospitals."If you weave enough bad things into thefibers of a person's life: sickness and filth, oldmattresses and other junk thrown in thestreets, and ruined people, a prison here,sewage there, drug dealers here, the homelesspeople over there, then give us the very worstschools anyone could think of, hospitals thatkeep you waiting for 10 hours, police thatdon't show up when someone's dying, youcan guess that life will not be very nice andchildren will not have much sense of beingglad of who they are."So says 16-year-old Maria, who, likeMalcolm X and other school-aged children,speaks to Kozol with an eloquence,righteousness, and passion that underscoresthe dichotomy between the havesand have-nots.The few who transcend their birthright—factoryworker-cum-poet JuanBautista Castro and his 13-year-old studentAnthony; David, just accepted intothe City University of New York; Charlayne,finishing her associate's degree ata community college; and Mrs. Washington,a community "mother" whose kindnessand wit provide balm for many adispirited resident—are presented as theanomalies they are, small miracles in aworld of abomination and tragedy.52 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 199 6

Other miracles, the community agenciesthat provide advocacy and aid toarea residents, and the many churchesthat offer material and spiritual comfort,are presented as oases of relief, part ofthe "life force" that sustains optimismand hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.Yet for all the positive values thatKozol presents—the human strength,fortitude, resilience, and pluck of manyin Mott Haven—he also depicts the ragingdrug use, alcoholism, depression,and despair that run rife in the community.Death—from drug overdoses, AIDS,arson, physical violence, illness, and alcoholabuse—is presented as a commonplacereality, and Kozol rails at the frequencywith which loss of life enters hisconversations."Nothing works here in my neighborhood,"shrugs a lifelong resident, Elizabeth."Everything breaks down in aplace like this. The pipes break down.The phone breaks down. The electricityand heat break down. The spirit breaksdown. The body breaks down."While Amazing Grace would have beenstronger if Kozol had told us more aboutwhy he chose Mott Haven and how hemade his first forays into the communityas a white, Jewish, educated, economicallystable male outsider, the booknonetheless vibrates with understatedrage at the intentional neglect, racism,and indifference that allow poverty tofester."How does a nation deal with thosewhom it has cursed?" he asks. How dowe allow one Wall Street money managerto earn $1 billion a year, a sum that"was just about five times the total incomeof the 18,000 households of MottHaven.... An extra 20 percent tax on hisearnings, if redistributed in the SouthBronx, would have lifted 48,000 humanbeings—every child and every parent inevery family of Mott Haven—out ofpoverty, with enough left over to buymany safe new elevator doors and hireseveral good physicians for the publicschools that serve the neighborhood."Such talk about the redistribution ofwealth, once routine, has become rare.Like The Other America that Michael Harringtondepicted 30 years ago, AmazingGrace is heartbreaking and enraging, aplea to take off our blinders and enterthe fray. A button from the late 1970sconveyed the right spirit: // the peoplelead, the leaders will follow. Closing AmazingGrace, one can only wonder: If notnow, when? •BOOKSBRIEF• Before there was Roev. Wade there was"|ane," a group ofcommitted activistswho helped womenwith unwanted pregnancies.Their story is told in THE STORYOF JANE: THE LEGENDARY UNDERGROUND FEMINIST ABORTION SERVICE by Laura Kaplan. Using pseudonymsto give anonymity to a project that "anywoman"could have done, as much as toprotect those involved, the author detailshow "Jane" was part of the heady movementof the early 70s, and its relation to themedical establishment. An inspiring portraitof women united by the common cause ofproviding abortions for women who weredesperate. (Pantheon, $24.95)• In YELLOW WOMAN AND A BEAUTY OF THE SPIRIT, Leslie Marmon Silko,author of Ceremony and Almanac of theDead turns her sharp, clear vision on abroad range of concerns from the role rocksplay in Native American culture to the injusticesNative Americans face when confrontingthe Anglo-American legal system.These essays are powerful and brilliant.(Simon & Schuster, $23)• A valuable addition to any feminist's libraryis FEMINIST FOREMOTHERS INWOMEN'S STUDIES, PSYCHOLOGY,AND MENTAL HEALTH, edited by PhyllisChesler, Esther D. Rothblum, and Ellen Cole.The 48 contributors include AndreaDworkin, Carol Cilligan, Judith Herman,Shere Hite, bell hooks, Kate Millett, and GloriaSteinem. Each tells the story of how shecame to feminism and how her life was consequentlychanged. We owe a debt of gratitudeto the editors for ensuring their stories aplace in our history. (Harrington Park Press,$29.95)• Read GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBALPILLAGE: ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION FROM THE BOTTOM UP by JeremyBrecher and Tim Costello. Despite itstitle, this is an accessible documentation ofthe economic, political, social, and environmentaleffects of the New World Economy,and how activists around the world havestarted challenging them. Read it, really.(South End Press, $14)—SALLY OWENHow WouldYouShapeThe World?That's the question every student tries to answer during their years at Antioch. Forthemselves. For the world at large.Antioch's contemporary liberal arts program was designed to enable you to realizeyour potential, and to empower you to shape the world around you for the better. AtAntioch, our diverse students and faculty and our small classes allow you to explorewho you are, where you want to go and how you're going to get there. Our innovativemajors, our intentionally chosen work programs and our community service componentallow you to integrate your knowledge, experience and involvement. We give youthe opportunity and the responsibility to function as a partner in your educational program- the kind of responsibility that will shape you as a leader, not just a graduate.Antioch's not for everyone, but if you wantto make a difference in the world - and inANTIOCHyour life - it may be for you. Take the firststep:JL -XTc O L L E G ECall US toll-free today at 1 - 800-543-9436. 795 Livermore Street, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387Summer199 6 • O N THE ISSUES53

F I L MANTONIA,ANNE... ANDOSCARBY KATHI MAIOIT'S A SICK CULTURAL RITUAL, THE OSCARS.But like a great many Americans, I'mglued to the TV during the AcademyAwards. Most years, with women's rolesas bad as they are, there's nothing muchto root for. But this last Oscar night wasmore exciting than usual for me. Thistime out, I was actually crossing my fingersin a few categories, and my mostfervent boosterism was reserved for twomovies most Americans hadn't seen.Both commemorate the lives of strong-KATHI MAIO is film editor ofSojourner: The Women's Forumand author of Feminist in the Dark andPopcorn and Sexual Politics.100 Acres • PoolHot Tub • TrailsIF I v j. ;THOUSAND/TEARS OFPATRIARCHAL]HIERARCHIES /BLACK TYPE & YELLOW SPIRALON WHITE COTTON T-SHIRTSIZES: M, L, XL, XXLTo ORDER SEND $15 CHECK PLUS J2.50S4H TO: 8DECLARATIONS OF EMANCIPATION,22 PRINCE ST. #205 N.Y. NY lOOtS**"^(212)691-0999 FREE CATALOGUE ^20 Charming RoomsPeace & PrivacyA Lesbian ParadiseP.O. Box 118-OTBethlehem, NH 03574(603) 869-3978willed women. Neither was made inHollywood.When ANTONIA'S LINE, the Netherlands'sofficial entry, was nominated forbest foreign-language film, I wasshocked and thrilled. And when it won,mirabile dictu!—didn't those folks knowwhat they were doing? They bestowedan Oscar upon an overtly feminist film!Many people will probably watch Antonia'sLine, screenwriter-director MarleenGorris's fourth film, and have noidea how very political it is. A familysaga about five generations of villagersin the south of Holland, it can seem aswholesome and homey as the big oldfarmhouse that is its centrallocale. But appearancescan be deceiving,for this is a film about amodern matriarchy. Itchronicles a gloriousclan of women whorefuse to be controlledby patriarchal custom ormale violence.Foremost among themis Antonia (played bythe magnificent Willekevan Ammelrooy), whoreturns to her native villageat the close of WorldWar II to bury her stillvenomous,dying motherand take over the familyfarm. With the help ofAntonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy)her teenage daughter, Danielle (Els Dottermans),she harvests more than crops.A "prodigal daughter," Antonia gathersto her table a community of rebels, outcasts,and life's walking-wounded—allthe "others" in her one-tavern town. Shemakes a new life—and lives it, honorably,by her own rules.But Antonia's rules don't always jibewith those of other villagers. Everyoneassumed, for example, that a widowwould want a new husband. Farmer Bas(Jan Decleir), himself a widower, is especiallyhopeful on this score. He proposesa practical merger of local farm families.His five sons, he tells her, need a mother."Yes," Antonia agrees, "but I don't needyour sons." Neither does she need a husband,she informs him. What she can useis a good neighbor and friend. In one ofthe film's acknowledgements that thereare good men in this world, Bas acceptsa relationship with this calm, broadshoulderedamazon on her terms.There are abusive and controllingmen, too, in this hamlet. Antonia andDanielle must do battle with rapist thugsand hypocritical priests, but theirweapons of choice are wits and will. Violenceis a male game—one Antonia'smale compatriots, luckily, don't mindplaying, when necessary. The women resortto it only in a crisis—and then neverin a cold-blooded manner.Since this is a feminist fable, the victorin these clashes with misogyny is neverreally in doubt. Nor is there ever anyquestion of Antonia's unconditional lovefor and support of Danielle and the otherwomen in her extended family.When Danielle decides she wants ababy but not a husband, her motherhelps her get what she wants. (Of course,she has a daughter.) Andwhen Danielle later decidesthat she loves heryoung daughter's gradeschoolteacher, Antoniamakes room at the familyhearth for Danielle'slesbian partner, Lara(Elsie de Brauw).Antonia's world is oneof acceptance—of differencesand choices. Except,by implication,when it come to reproduction.Although Antonia'sLine comes mightyclose to being the perfectfeminist feature film, thewomen in it seem obligedto bear offspring. Onecharacter, Letta (Wimie Wilhelm) is soenamored of pregnancy and childbirththat she pops out a new infant annually—untilunlucky number 13 kills her.So, OK, some women want to have babies—lotsof them. But not all of us wantto be parents, and Antonia's Line presentsjust such a woman. Danielle's daughter,Therese (played as an adult by Veerle VanOverloop), is an emotionally withdrawnintellectual and a genius at mathematicsand music. When she accidentally becomespregnant (circa the late '70s), shebecomes a mom, even though she has absolutelyno interest in playing nurturer.Her attitude toward her child—a daughter,of course—borders on benign neglect.It's a disappointing mystery why MarleenGorris forced the character ofTherese into motherhood. In her ownlife, Gorris made a conscious decisionnot to have children. She has told interviewersthat her own attitude is similarto that of the film's reclusive philosopher,Crooked Finger (Mil Seghers), whoadvises Therese, his beloved protegee, toabort, to save her child from the misery54 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 199 6

of a "rotten world."Antonia's Line is framed as a matrilinealsaga, in which daughter passes on todaughter a wealth of womanly pride,and the "line" goes well past the limitsof blood relationships, beyond formalmarriage and direct progeny. Antonia'swhole family is a chosen one. Yet clearlyTherese is a woman who does not wantto parent a child, so why does she givebirth? And why did this feminist filmhave to maintain its maternal imperativeeven unto a generation that has had accessto safe, state-funded abortion?Only Marleen Gorris can answer that.But given the chance, I don't think I'dgrill her too severely on the point. I'd betoo busy thanking her for the most energizing,uplifting, woman-positive filmI've ever seen.ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED, WINNER INthe best documentary feature category,recalls the author of Diary of a Young Girl,a document of youthful intensity andhope. Generations of young girls, worldwide,have identified with Anne's impassioned,sometimes petulant diarymusings and wept for her loss.During the opening sequences, shotsof train wheels and ovens and modernsynagogues, set to the strains of violins,seemed too obvious. And the oh-so-politenarration of Kenneth Branagh left mecold. (Even Glenn Close's brief readingsfrom the Diary seemed artificially sweet.)I feared that director Jon Blair wouldnever get past Anne the icon: virgin martyr,victim-saint, poster child of theHolocaust.But soon Blair abandons the pious approachand delves more deeply into thepersonality of the young woman weknow from the diary (now available ina new edition that restoresseveral bowdlerizedpassages about herchanging body, sexuality,and mother-angst).This Anne is an energetic,opinionated soul,eager to embrace lifeand make her mark onthe world. A childhoodchum in Amsterdam,Hanneli Goslar, recallsher own mother's characterizationof Annewith the tart observationthat "God knows everything,but Anne knowseverything better."Blairsearches outHOMEVIDEOSThe young girl Anne Frank• MURIEL'SWEDDING(Miramax) Plump,gawky, eager-topleaseMuriel is aloser. (Or so herfather has informed her every day of herlife.) To comfort herself, she listens to herold ABBA tapes and dreams of attaining atleast one shining moment of joyous beautyand feminine success—as a bride. Murielgets her flower-strewn white wedding, butthat's not, she eventually realizes, whereher true happiness lies.P.). Hogan's quirky screenplay and directionevoke the tragedy of patriarchal—whatwe euphemistically term "dysfunctional"—family life. But his film is also an often hilariouscomedy. Thanks to a brilliant performanceby Toni Collette in the title role, thefilm works on all levels. This Australianimport is not to be missed.• PERSUASION (Tri-Star Home Video)Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning adaptationof jane Austen's Sense and Sensibilitygot the kudos (and most of the box office),but this screen rendering of Austen's lastcompleted novel is just as impressive. Evenmore impressive, if you distrust the prettyprettyimpulse in period movies.Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot,people who actually knew Anne, and hegives them the opportunity to share theirremembrances of her. Through these witnesses,most of them women, we reliveAnne's brief life and the heartbreak ofher death from typhus, starvation, andexposure in a hellhole called Bergen-Belsen in the late winter of 1945.Anne is a hero who died. But AnneFrank Remembered also tells us aboutwomen heroes who survived—each deservingof her own biographicaldocumentary.There is Hanneli Goslar,who was also sent toBergen-Belsen. Here, too,is Dutch resistance fighterJanny Brandes-Brilleslijper,another camp survivor.She had the sadduty of informing Anne'sfather, Otto Frank (solesurvivor of the attic) thatboth his daughters weredead.And then there is MiepGies.Mrs. Gies, a ViennabornChristian, was oneof the handful of Dutchthe dutiful and wise daughter in a family ofoppish fools. Years earlier, Anne had been'persuaded against marriage to a man wholacked wealth or position. Now, if she'slucky, she may have another shot at happiness.Amanda Root makes a wonderfultransition from faded flower into a vital,self-asserting woman during the course ofthe film. (And keep an eye out for FionaShaw as Anne's new role model, anadmiral's wife who's sailed the seven seas.)Romantic? Yes. But there's a sombernessto Persuasion that makes the happily-everafterseven more satisfying.• MOONLIGHT AND VALENTINO(Polygram) This blatant "chick flick" wasderided by male critics and bombed at thebox office. But, funny thing, since it playsrather like a good TV movie, it actuallygains from the transition to home video.The autobiographical screenplay by Ellen(Neil's daughter) Simon chronicles the healingprocess of a young woman, suddenlywidowed. Rebecca (Elizabeth Perkins) eventuallyinterests a hunky house-painter (rockerjon Bon jovi). But what pulls her through hergrief is not romance; it's the love andsupport of women—her best friend (WhoopiGoldberg), sister (Cwenyth Paltrow), andformer stepmother (Kathleen Turner).No wonder the boy critics hated it. —K.M.citizens who supplied the inmates of thesecret annex with food, sundries, andnews during their two years of hiding. Itis she who, in defiance of Nazi orders,re-entered the attic and gathered up thescattered remnants of Anne's diary afterthe Franks were captured. Miep preservedthose pages, and the privacy ofher young friend, through the war'sfinal days. She hoped to return the diaryto its author. Instead she could only presentthem, unread, to a grieving father.And so to posterity.The memory of Anne Frank haunts us50 years after her death. But it is the simplehumanity (and unassuming bravery)of Miep Gies that makes Anne Frank Remembereda truly unforgettable experience.Watching Antonia's Line, and listeningto Miep Gies's recollections in AnneFrank Remembered, you almost wonderwhat they put in the water over in Hollandthat produces women this unpretentiouslyheroic. And then you realizethat women are no different in theNetherlands—it's the film portrayals of usthat vary so widely.Hollywood just doesn't get us. Butthis year, at least they were willing tohonor two films that did. •Summer1996 • O N THE ISSUES55

CAN WE TALK? (from me n>phone call, we sent out a release regardingMr. Sullivan's alleged activity, wesent out a release regarding the discussionwith ABC. Did any of that moveanywhere? No, it didn't. It moved in theAspen newspaper, which is where Mr.Sullivan lives and where the activity happened.[Five days after this conversation,Danny Sullivan was acquitted.—Ed.] ButI can say the words "O.J. Simpson" andthe world is at my door.JM: And you have chosen to use thatas a ticket to ride.TB: Julianne, it's not a ticket to ride. Iam answerable to women at risk in thiscountry. I want to educate and maintaina national dialogue on domestic violence.Can I do it using the alleged actionsof Danny Sullivan or even the actorMickey Rourke, who has never beenconvicted in a court for battery? In discussionson the behavior of the entertainmentindustry on sexual harassment,we're there. In order to maintain a nationaldialogue on domestic violence, Iwould be a fool not to use a symbol thathas gotten America's attention, that willgenerate domestic-violence stories. Ifyou want to point fingers about whopicked O.J. Simpson, O.J. Simpsonpicked himself when he decided thatbeating up women was the solution tohis problems.It's the same reason we will not let goof Mark Fuhrman—not that MarkFuhrman is the only racist in the country,or that there aren't other racists on theLAPD, but he is the one that Americanknows, and we will use him to changethat entity just like we will use O.J.Simpson to change women's lives for thebetter. We won't let go of either one ofthem.JM: Well, I would suggest that youmight try a little racial sensitivity whileyou're talking about women coming together.You turn me off with that stuff.TB: Explain to me, what does? Whatare you talking about?JM: "I will use O.J. Simpson, I will notlet go of that." Not only has this causedheightened racial tension, but also thecomments about those jurors, mostlyblack women, were so ridiculous—TB: Which comments are you talkingabout?JM: "They were not bright, how couldthey make the decision?"TB: I never said those things.JM: No, I didn't say you did. I saidthat they're comments that are out there.TB: Sure.JM: I would suggest that some sensitivityin this matter is called for. Nobodycosigns O.J. Simpson's admitted batteryof Nicole Brown Simpson—certainly Idon't. Battery is absolutely wrong andought to be punished. The 1989 questionis relevant. The police let him go. Thishappens all the time with a wink and anod, from the top of our society to thebottom. The Brown family I find fascinating:Why are you entertaining yourdaughter's batterer, whyare you still maintainingdialogue with him? If youwant to do some action,you might want to educatethat family. And whydon't you use them as anexample, of what familiescan do?TB: Julianne, I have suggested thatwhen people ask families why they didnothing, or why they maintained dialoguesor embraced someone: Talk to theSimpson family. There is a family ofwomen there that also, when we talkabout winks and nods, we're dealingwith a man and their family—yes, theprimary breadwinner, a man who is famous.Celebrity and class is the issuehere, my friend, as opposed to race. Becausehe's famous and rich. It is thatsimple.JM: I agree with you on that, but Ithink that race played a role in this aswell. I think the rush to judgment had todo with race. I think you're in denial ifyou think that race has nothing to dowith this.TB: Race has something very seriousto do with this trial, and certainly LAPDgave Johnny Cochran someplace to hanghis hat. But if O.J. Simpson was going tobe arrested because of the color of hisskin, it would have happened years ago.I've been the one person in the L.A. marketwho has not said that this jury madea racist decision. I believe this jury. Andwhen they said domestic violence hadnothing to do with this murder, they didnot understand the cycle of violence.There are juries throughout this country—whitejuries, black juries, men andwomen—who let batterers walk everydaybecause they don't understand thecycle of violence. That's what that jurydidn't understand.JM: You've got your head in the sandif you think that the use of this blackman does not cause problems in the imageryof African American men, in theway that the African American communityis demonized. O.J. Simpson is not ahero or a saint. But the fact is thatAfrican American images are constantlyused to make our social points, andsomeone who claims to be conscious—TB: Then complain to O.J. Simpson.JM: No—someone who claims to beconscious, who says that she is progressive,that she cares about these issues,wants all these women to work together,might show some more sensitivity.TB: With O.J. Simpson we're dealingTAMMY BRUCE: Domestic violence does notdiscriminate. White men do it, black mendo it—and black women and white women andHispanic women and Asian women all die.They die the same. They hurt the same.with one of the most-watched, most passionateissues in America's court history,and you can get 5,000 people out in twodays. That happened. It's in my backyard.Can I get 5,000 people out in twodays on, say, Danny Sullivan? No, itdoesn't happen. The passion isn't there,because people did not have it in theirliving rooms five days a week. The passionisn't there because these are peoplewho they did not know as well or care asmuch about as they did O.J. Simpson. If Iwas in Aspen maybe I would see that thepassion is there. I'm not in Aspen. Forme this was my town. And it was somethingas a chapter activity, somethinglocal, that could happen. Clearly nothinghas been like it before, and nothing willbe like it again. The passion that peoplefelt about this is not ever going to be repeated.I understand that there is a reasonwhy you think I am going after O.J.Simpson because he's black, or becausethat is something short-sighted in me. Ican't dismiss the fact that there's a reasonwhy you think that. And that issomething we absolutely have to dealwith. And the only thing I can do is sayto you, and know that for various andsundry reasons you may not even believeme, but I can say to you face to facelike I would anyone else, why I do thethings I do and what's behind them.|M: Well, you have said you want tobe clear; let me be clear. I think you contributeto a climate of the demonizationof African American men. The O.J. caseis of course complicated, unique; you'reright, we probably will never see anythinglike it. It's a kaleidoscope, andevery time you switch it you can seesomething else—in terms of race, or gen-56 O N T H E I S S U E S • S u m m e r 199 6

der, or domestic violence, or class, orcelebrity, or mystery. There are lots oframifications. But I think lots of peoplewho call themselves conscious progressives—whocare about black images—have fallen into this trap of let us beatAfrican America with yet another blackman in trouble that we're going to use asa symbol. Domestic violence, Tammy, iscompelling enough.TB: It's not. I have been working onthat issue for years. I can tell you, it canbe costing women their lives and peopledon't care, it's not sexy enough. Do Iwish that it was someone other than O.J.Simpson? I sure as hell do. Because I amin a situation now where I have to diffusethe impression I am contributing tothat.Domestic violence does not discriminate.We know that white men do it,black men do it—and that black womenand white women and Hispanic womenand Asian women all die. They die thesame. They hurt the same. A man's fist ispretty much the same when it's aimingat your face. Those are the messageswhen I talk about domestic violence.When I talk about it with O.J. Simpson,am I looking always for another image,another symbol, to maintain the dialogue?I sure am.JM: Well, I wish that some of theseconversations that you're having includedthat paragraph about domestic violencenot discriminating—and made itclear that it wasn't just African Americanmen. Because I think that we don't hearenough of that.TB: Julianne, I can give you so manyJULIANNE MALVEAUX: You want to savewomen's lives—I want to save women's livestoo.But when you use O.J. as a symbol—whenanyone uses O.J. as a symbol of domesticviolence—you imperil other black men.interviews and articles—verbatim interviews,whether it be in the gay press orin the feminist press or Time or The NewYork Times—where that is exactly whatthat message was. I have said that repeatedly,because that is my message. Ihave an interest—it behooves me forpeople not to see this as a problem withjust the rich and famous or with theblack man, because then my points arelost and all women lose.JM: But I think that if you thoughtabout it there are some ways to generalizethis message. I don't think you needO.J. Simpson as a symbol. You had themarch. You've ridden that horse. I thinkit's time for you to get off that horse andget on another one. And I think that ifyou choose not to do that, if you choosenot to do that, you're saying that youdon't care.At the beginning of our conversationyou talked about the ways that we canwork together, but what you're saying tome now is, Well, we can work togetherbut I'm still going to do this, andwhether you like it or not, that's wherewe're going—TB: What I care about—JM: When you say that to me, you'resaying that all that other stuff you saidabout cooperation was crap.TB: Julianne, I believe that we canhave cooperation about issues that affectwomen's lives without having a doublestandard, or treating certain men differently,and while still dealing, as I am onthis issue, and why I will not stop, is becausethis is the kind of discussion thathas to happen—and why we must dealwith O.J. Simpson, as we would dealwith any other batterer, as aggressively ifit was any other man who was pipedinto our house for a year and half as wewatched the most-watched thing inAmerican history. This dialogue is important.For us to continue the work, forme there is nothing else right now that Ican maintain this national dialogue with,and that's why I will not stop, and whileI won't stop doing that, I will also havethese discussions—)M: This doesn't mitigate what you'redoing. You cannot put your head in societalsand and say that you're not awareof the way that the AfricanAmerican man and theAfrican American communityhas been demonized—TB: Julianne—JM: No, just a minute,Tammy. You can't do that.You can't say that you don't pick upthese newspapers, you're not consciousof here in L.A. the white women whocross the street when they see a group ofyoung black men hanging out, or otherwomen as well, you can't say that you'renot aware of the way the African Americancommunity especially in this conservativetime has been demonized by pundits,by politicians, by everyone else.TB: I do talk about the importance andsymbology of men who beat up women,and they do come in all colors. 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REVOLUTIONVT-SHIRT IS BLACK DESIGN ON WHITE COTTON, M-XXLCAP IS BLACK DESIGN ON NATURAL W/BLACK BILLTO ORDER SEND $12/T-SHIRT, $15/CAP + $2.50 S&HCHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:KJERSTI GRAPHICSPO BOX 3924, SAN DIEGO, CA 92163619-982-6124ON THE ISSUESComing Soon: The GlobalMobilization Against ChoiceON THE ISSUESSUBSCRIBER SERVICEP.O. Box 3000Denville, NJ 07834-9838LJ Change of Address: Please allowthree weeks. Attach label with your oldaddress and write your new address below.LJ New Subscriber: Fill in your name andaddress in the new address space. Check termprice of your subscription below.*LJRenewal: Attach label if available. Checkterm price of your subscription below.*• One year $ 14.95 • Two years $24.95OLD ADDRESS:NAME (PRINT)ADDRESSCITY/STATE/ZIPNEWADDRE'SS"NAME (PRINT)ADDRESSCITY/STATE/ZIPQ Three years $34.95LI Payment Enclosed • Bill Me*Canadian subscriptions add $4 per year; other foreign add 14(surface mail) or $20 per year Airmail. Institutional rate: AddSI 0 first year; $5 each additional. Payable in U.S. funds only.Mail to our Subscriber Service address above. 465SSother ones. That would be exactly whatyou're accusing me of doing now. Andbecause I refuse to do that is why I willcontinue to talk about O.J. Simpson, andwhether we want to move on from thisnow or not, this is I think one of the importantissues.When you talk about the demonizationof the black man—I wake up and Iworry about the three women who dieevery day at the hands of a male intimate;I worry about the nature of the relationshipbetween men and women; asa lesbian, as an out lesbian in this city, Iworry about the way people are treatedthrough discrimination and through hatecrimes and everything else. That is aneveryday part of my life.I am not, as an advocate for women,going to think that I can't touch thatissue because I'm going to contribute tosomething like the demonization ofblack men. To be honest with you, I dohave an agenda, and that is to savewomen's lives. And as a matter of fact,despite the finger-pointing, being able toinclude in the agenda how this is colorblindis key to that.JM: We disagree. Clearly we're at animpasse here. We are at a point where,quite frankly, nothing that can be saidcan change my mind and I don't thinkanything that can be said can changeyours.TB: You're suggesting that I am wrongand I am doing something negative tohurt people. I can say that we do have adifference of opinion and it is just that.Because you disagree perhaps with mystyle or strategy, you're presuming thatI'm careless and I don't care and I wantto contribute to this other problem.JM: You want to save women's lives—I want to save women's lives too. I don'twant a single woman to die at the handsof any batterer. But in contributing to thedemonization of black men, you putblack men's lives at risk.TB: Talk about demonization! There Iam putting black men in danger.JM: Again, you want to brush off whatI have to say—TB: You haven't seen any of the backgroundof what it is we're doing, haveyou?JM: I find it offensive when I'm tryingto be serious for someone to laugh in myface—TB: When I'm accused of puttingblack men in danger—?JM: I'm glad you're so amused.TB: It's—there's just no response tothat. I'm quite taken aback.JM: Well—good.TB: I will dismiss accusations againstme that are that serious. I sure as hellwill dismiss them, my friend. And I'lldismiss the one making them—JM: Let's be clear: We're not friends.TB: Unfortunately, I think that's apparent.I think that I could have dialogue,and possibly be different withyou, on a whole host of things, and thinkthat together, even if it's defining ourown positions, we could do remarkablethings. It's that kind of approach andprocess that—when we talk aboutwhat's wrong perhaps even in the feministmovement—that this could be an exampleof. And I'm not going to leavehere with that frame of mind. I do thinkwe can have differences. Talk radio, forme at least, has shown me that, that youcan have differences and not—JM: I think you can have differences. Istill feel real strongly about what youdid cutting off my point. You find itridiculous but you didn't want to evenlisten.TB: I'm not going to listen to insultsand accusations.JM: It was not an insult, Tammy. Whydon't you listen?TB: I'm "putting black men in danger"—whatis that?JM: Let me say what I have to sayabout this.TB: Go ahead.JM: Thank you—so much. When youlook at some of these young brotherswho are picked up by police officers becauseof the images they have of blackmen—the number of people who the O.J.trial, and the use of O.J., put in danger—I'm not saying you personally—butwhen you use O.J. as a symbol—whenanyone uses O.J. as a symbol of domesticviolence—by using that black man as asymbol, you imperil other black men.And you have to be very clear aboutthat.I understand why you're doing whatyou're doing. I understand where you'recoming from on that. You think that thisis an opportunity to raise awarenessabout domestic violence. What I'm sayingis that none of these issues happensin a vacuum. Domestic violence is an importantissue. Economic violence is animportant issue. The demonization ofAfrican American men is an importantissue. They're connected. And when youchoose to say, "I don't care how they'reconnected, I'm just going to do this,"you're ignoring a lot of other people.TB: Thaf s also not something I said. •58 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

GREENPEACE (continued from page 43)been towed to Hao, another atoll. We'vegotten news that they are in terribleshape. I'm so tired, and angry at the waywe were treated, and heartbroken thatthey hurt the Warrior. They boarded withgas-powered saws and sledgehammers,cutting through the bulkheads, throughthe doors, into the radio room. Theysmashed all the equipment. The news isthat Jon, the captain, was in the crow'snest on the Warrior for 36 hours. Theycouldn't find him.Things are rough for the crew on theGreenpeace. They are being watchedevery second, even in the toilet, whichhas been unholy hell for the women,who have had these hateful men standingover them.I'm ready to do it again—sail rightback into the test sites, again and againuntil the last bomb is exploded or theyannounce to the world that they won'ttest more. But it doesn't look like we'llbe getting the ships back very soon. I'llprobably be sent home in a few days.March, 1996I'M IN COSTA RICA, BACK ON THE MOBYDick. Tomorrow a crew is flying toMoruroa from New Zealand to assessthe damage to our ships, which havebeen held for six months although nocharges were brought against us. TheFrench have declined to participate in aWorld Court hearing, and have been lessthan cooperative in cases broughtagainst them.After I left the South Pacific, the Frenchcontinued testing. Neither the activists inthe atoll nor overwhelming world opinioncould stop them. Six tests. Six morenuclear weapons. So much more radioactivity.So much more damage to the coral,to the region, to the planet.In February, when it was over, theFrench said they wouldn't do it again.They're ready to sign another bullshittreaty. Sure, why not?Nuclear testing used to be an abstractionfor me. Now it has faces—the peopleof Te Ao Mahoi, my friends on thecrews. It also has the faces of the commandosand Chirac, for whom I feel agreat anger and shame. Each and everytest is an act aginst each of us. They aremessing with their futures and ours.I feel it is very important to have doneeverything we possibly could do to stopthe test. We all have the free will to dooutrageous things and we sure as hellcan try to do what is right. •OT/STRAI&HTySBN-Black on grey or whiteCelebrate Your Sexuality.Proudly. Joyously.At Eve's Garden, an Elegant SexualityBoutique Created by Women for Womenand Their Partners.Our 32-page illustrated catalog is recommended by sexeducators, therapists and counselors. Send $3.00 (deductiblefrom your first order) or visit with this ad for a free copy.s# gardenWe grow pleasurable^- 7 things for women1 1 9 W. 57th St., Ste 420oi, New York, NY 1001 9-2383212-757-8651 800-848-3837 Fax 212-977-4306Open Mon. to Sat. Noon 'till 7:00 PM "Confidentiality Guaranteed"T. G. I. F.(Thank Goddess I'm Female)TGIF-Purple on greyTHE WISE WOMAN2441 Cordova StreetOakland, CA94602(510)536-3174So- Sufote *7ee4, ....euut nuvteDep't. I, P.O.B. 410, Lincolndale, NY., 10540718/998-2305 Fax # 718/292-5643PONT.Wtt THE HAW THAT/KM YOU.NOT ANOTHERIATTEKPWOMANDB-Whlte on purple100% cotton tees - S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL $13. Add$3 ea. for P&H. NY residents add sales tax . We havesweatshirts, buttons, magnets and bumperstickers.Please send for catalog. Thank you.fry*..THE WISE WOMAN, a national journal, focuses on feministissues, Goddess lore, feminist spirituality, and Feminist Witchcraft.Published quarterly since 1980 by Ann Forfreedom.Includes: women's history, news, analysis, reviews, art, photos,poetry, cartoons by BOIbul, exclusive interviews, and originalresearch about witch-hunts, women's heritage, and women today.Subscription: $15 yr./$27 for 2 yrs./ $38 for 3 yrs. (U.S. funds).Sample copy or back Issue: $4 (U.S. funds).Microfilm: available in the Alternative Press Collection of UniversityMicrofilms International. Contact: UMI, University Microfilms, Inc.,300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346.The Wise Woman - Timely, Yet Timeless.THE WISE WOMAN, 2441 Cordova SI., Oakland, CA 94602.\ {i Subscribe now to The Wise Woman, and send In a copy of this ad,and you will be sent a free gift of matriarchal significance ISummer 1996 • ON THE ISSUES59

ackpageSMILE, BABY, SMILEAt 16 I read my first feminist book, Sisterhood Is Powerful,an anthology edited by Robin Morgan, and incollege heard lectures by Gloria Steinem and FloKennedy. Naively, I expected that the men in mycrowd would embrace feminism as ardently as I did.After all, it was simply justice and common sense.Still attached to male approval, I was particularlydisappointed by the reactions of my so-called intellectualand left-wing boyfriends.Male conservatives were clear: "No way I'mgoing to share. I'm the boss. Women should stayhome and be seen, not heard. Sex roles are ordainedby (choose one) God/nature/the Founding Fathers."There's some honor in being so open.But I discovered that liberal—and I use that termliberally—menfolk were more subtle. They werewilling to engage theoretically but declined to exploretheir real-life gender relations. They were usuallyresistant to reading, listening to, or learningfrom expert women. Interestingly, quite a few feltthey knew a lot more about feminist topics thanwomen who studied them! But they were very liberalwith the advice they gave us "sisters" about howwe could be "heard" more effectively: "Smile.Don't be so defensive. Lighten up. Don'twhine," they coached. "You're too emotional.You're too angry. You come offI like you hate men. You take everythingpersonally. You're too sensi-» l tive. You have no sense of humor."BSo I did contortions to take liberalmen's advice. I was light and funny, adnauseam, ever fearful that my messagewould be lost in the attention paid to thestyle of the messenger."You're not delivering feminism effectively...."What a perfect ruse for youngwomen raised to desire and collect maleapproval as the basis for our self-esteem.Ironically, we were never encouraged to befunny before. But it made sense. I liked humor,too, especially when learning something newand scary.The advice, however, turned out to be a scam.Even when we were light, funny, and loving, our advisersdidn't like what we had to say. No matterhow we delivered feminist ideology, they simplydidn't want to hear anything that might threatentheir unearned positions and privilege, their hollowone-upmanship, and their valuing of women solelyfor their bodies. I began to understand that talk isone thing but trading an older wife in for a newermodel, for example, is a perk that many liberal elitemen are reluctant to examine as gender politics. Understandablemaybe, if not forgivable. But I hatedthat they wouldn't cop to it.Just think how powerfully some liberal men couldadvocate feminism if they weren't involved in reapingthe benefits of sexism. Where are the FrederickDouglasses and John Stuart Mills of our generation—menwho are willing to stand with us, and,horrors, even declare themselves as feminists? Whereare the indignant letters and commentaries from liberalmen when feminists are so viciously attacked,year after year? The silence has been deafening.Turnabout is fair play. Girls grew up listening tonothing but male jokes, criticism, and rigid rules.Men could and did tell us the qualities that the idealgirl and woman should have, as precisely as theyorder options and specifications on an automobile.However, when women started making comments,examining men's behavior, writing analysis,speaking up, joking, breaking "good girl" molds, demandingnew standards of behavior and relating,did these critics look in the mirror and rememberwhat they said to us libbers? Did they take theirown advice to be good sports and alter their own behaviorto address our criticisms? Hardly. Apparently,what's good for the geese is not good for ganders.Ironically, I think that I've become a better personby listening to the ganders. The advice that was intendedto shut me up has only served to make mestronger. I am a better advocate for my point of viewwhen I joke and remember to not take things so personally.However, I've also been critiqued as beingtoo funny and at risk of trivializing serious matters.Go figure.It's useful to remember, when hit with a dose ofliberal-male criticism, resistance, or a gender-relatedtantrum, that we just hit too close to home. Kindlygive back the advice so generously dispensed whenthe boot was on the other foot. "Smile. Lighten up.You take everything personally. You're too emotional.You come off like you hate women." Oh, and ifyou want to really test a man's sense of humor trythis one: "You're so cute when you're mad!" •Southern California writer ELLEN SNORTLAND has a regular column in the Pasadena Weekly. Her bookabout the socio-political aspects of full-contact self-defense for women, Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the WarriorWithin Women and Girls, will be published by Trilogy Books.60 ON THE ISSUES • Summer 1996

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