If you see some strange shadow streaking across on your computer monitor it is probably me running down the cybersuperhighway searching the zipping packets for my mail. TWO, not one, but TWO online systems let me down this month! With all the confusion of changing email addresses, I've received exactly one day of email in a week ... So - for reasons too wild to be believed (would you believe Bill Gates' empire is inadvertently part of the problem????) ignore all of my email addresses except One, the CSW will cease in a few days, the other imageworld.com is too fragile. <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 135 ... December 2, 1996......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... send comments to istuber@direclnx.net who is solely responsible for its content <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> While only a handful of women CEOs run Fortune 500 corporations, women-owned businesses employ more persons than the Fortune 500 combined. So writes Diane Francis, columnist of McLean's magazine, in its Dec. 6, 1996 issue about a recent study by the Bank of Montreal which verified that the same trends of women taking over the business holds true to our neighbors to the north. The report, Diane said, found that women-led businesses employ 1.7 million Canadians, or more than the country's 100 largest corporations do. The study also found that businesses run by women are creating jobs at four times the rate of the average firm...It also estimates there are 700,000 businesses run by women in Canada, almost one-third of the Canadian totals." "Looking to the future," concludes the Bank of Montreal's report, "it is projected that there will be about 760,000 women-led firms in Canada by the year 2000." Because breaking the glass ceiling in large, standard corporation has proved almost impossible, women are leaving the boyz to their toyz and building their own businesses whose only glass is in the washroom mirrors that reflect self-confident successful women. Have you heard the story about the merger and acquisition executive who had 45 minutes between planes and went to the airport bar for a bit of white wine? This macho man saw the pretty chick and went over to her with a swagger. "You look like you could use some company." "Yes," she answered brightly, "you have some for sale?" . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . The men who test reactions are saying that Japanese women will not use the birth control pill that may be legalized sometimes next spring. These menz say that condoms are the most popular form of birth control (male controlled), followed by withdrawal (male controlled) - and cited that abortions are easily obtained. Sure guyz, women prefer abortions to taking a pill. Get real. Who teaches these guyz this nonsense? The mis-information has been spread to the U.S. by the noted, wonderful, anti-woman U.S. government agency called the Centers for Disease Control. The newspapers have been fascinating these last few days. Cartoon after cartoon has featured children being welcomed to the death wagon of air bags and not a single - not a single WOMAN has been depicted. Not a single WOMAN ! Air bags in cars have MURDERED 15 smaller-to-average women (4"8" to 5'5") and at least 28 children. Children can (and should) be put in the back seat but when a woman is driving she is driving with a loaded .22 cal bullet aimed to kill her. And the figures may be way too low. More are coming in every day and it may turn out to be staggering. I again wonder what would happen if 15 men had their testicles amputated by some automobile defect and ALL men were in danger of it happening to them ... . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Where is NOW in this situation? This vaunted National Organization FOR Women? The silence is deafening. OF COURSE the car manufacturers, congressmen and senators, etc., aren't paying any attention to women because the self-proclaimed premier WOMEN's organization isn't bothering to react on this or most other issues... or react with any leverage or effective PR. Oh my - $125,000+ salary and she can't be bothered to fight for the women and children who pay her way to a higher tax bracket. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . And just so you don't think the file I carry to sharpen Catt's Claws is a bit too big, note that about 411,400 wooden bunk beds are/and have being recalled by order of the U.S. Consumer Safety Commission because a child's head could get caught in the frame. At least 32 children, most under the age of 3, have died since 1990 after becoming caught in bunk beds with similar spaces in the top bunk. One wonders if the designers and the bean crunchers who ordered corners cut in manufacturing are being held responsible? Let's see, so far at least 28 children and 15 women have been killed by too-powerful air bags ... that adds up to a total of 43 lives and the U.S. Consumer Safety Commission has failed to act as they have done with BUNK BEDS which cost 32 lives. We are not belittling the dangers of a bunk bed death, although one might wonder why warnings aren't sent out: Don't put a little kid in the top bunk. But warning won't do any good with driver-side air bags for women drivers. Ladies, if you are less than 5'9" and slim, that steering wheel air bag is a loaded gun aimed to your neck. Better go to your auto dealer and ask what can be done. How many of you husbands think enough of your wives and older daughters who might drive a car to do the same? To hell with a diamond for Christmas to show how much you love her - go to your auto dealer and demand that something be done ... and then the diamond. Let's be practical ;-) . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Wonder why it isn't OK for women to boycott things that harm or denigrate them but it's OK for Jesse Jackson to ask for a boycott for a oil company on racial matters when that same company has been discriminating against women for decades? As an opera buff, the Texaco boycott really pains but I do no longer buy Texaco gasoline. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . See all those wonderful stories about new AIDS treatments in Sunday's newspapers? Did you notice that the ONLY reference to AIDS and women was about a homeless woman who was mentally ill as an example of why AIDS medication won't work? All the tear-jerker, drug-saving-lives stories were about men. There's a reason. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . The primary thrust of AID/HIV research continues to be towards the male. The drugs being tested, the drugs being researched, the drugs being USED have all been developed around the male. The Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (10/96) Vol. 2, No. 10, P. 28: "Amid the promising news of powerful new HIV drugs presented at this year's International AIDS Conference, little data was released about how the new treatments work for women. However, among the issues pertaining to women that were discussed was the link between human papilloma virus (HPV) and HIV ... showed that women infected with HIV were four to five times more likely than uninfected women to have persistent HPV infection. A higher incidence of cervical precancer and invasive cervical cancer (ICC) was also found in HIV-positive women, though no research was presented on how to treat HIV-positive women with the condition." Want a translation? No new treatments for women and the powerful new HIV drugs haven't been tested on women. Women with HIV/AIDS are prone to infections of the reproductive system but not enough real research seems to be going on about how to treat this ... The education, the literature, the care, and the research for HIV/AIDS continues to be centered around the MALE even though the largest growing segment of the population being infected by HIV/AIDS is WOMEN. Even Ann Landers fell for the male propaganda that denies the growing danger to women. (Ever think, Ann, that it is to men's advantage to keep women in ignorance and thus give them no reason to refuse sex to a philandering jackass?) Anyway, we have sent a letter to Ann asking her to look into the matter more carefully. Married women being infected by their husbands is VERY, VERY common. Women are not being taught the dangers. If your husband (or your SO or your regular) travels, if you have ANY doubts about him sharing his sexual "favors" - male or female - you'd better insist on a condom or make sure you use a female condom. Refuse if he won't. He complains because he feels like he's got an overcoat on? Hey, buddy - body bags are better? So sheath those sex organs or model for a body bag in your size. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . And now, for the ULTIMATE in ignoring women's needs in HIV/AIDS treatment. A great deal of money and effort is being made by the MALE community to resurrect THALIDOMIDE. Any of you old enough to remember Thalidomide and the horribly deformed babies it produced ... and the thousands of fetuses that died before or after birth because they were so horribly deformed they could not live. A recent news article reads, "Forbidden in the United States from the start and banned in Europe after wreaking devastation on a generation of children born with hands sprouting from shoulders, feet protruding from hips, cleft palates, and other abnormalities because their mothers took the tranquilizer to relieve morning sickness, (NOTICE HOW THE WOMAN IS BLAMED for taking the drug, not the doctors who prescribed the pills, not the Drug companies that didn't test the damned stuff) thalidomide is making a comeback -- as an agent of promise rather than of doom. "In preliminary studies, the drug has shown such potency and potential as a treatment for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, took an extraordinary step late last year, allowing `expanded-access' clinical trials -- open to unlimited numbers of patients -- of thalidomide for the severe weight loss known as cachexia, or wasting, associated with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, AIDS." The tests, of course, are limited to MEN who will not bear deformed children and so AGAIN, major bucks are being spent on a drug that CANNOT be used on any women of child bearing age. Ain't modern medical science wonderful. And women's tax dollars are being spent to support this research of modern medicines' monster making machine. Women hold up half the sky and get all the hail and slush. Brazil has allowed Thalidomide for years and has the deformed children to show for it. Listen up, the author of Catt's Claws marched in the first AIDS demonstration way back in 1981 when the Reagan administration refused to do anything, back in those days when few people had even heard of the disease. I was living in the French Quarter of New Orleans at the time. And at the time of the demonstration neighbor after neighbor was getting sick - and there wasn't even a name for it. But it was real and everyone knew it. (I have censored out what I wrote here - but suffice it to say that I have little to NO respect for anyone who would attempt to save a few years of their life to unleash a drug that would make monsters of future children.) Listen to the apologists: "With proper precautions, the risk of a woman on the drug giving birth could be kept down to an estimated one in 10,000,' said J. David Erickson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta." Thalidomide produces teratogeny, which translates literally to "monster-formation." One in 10,000 ... of course, none of those mealy-mouthed medical MEN will be the mother - nor will they ever be one of those deformed child with never a chance for a decent, normal life. A significant number of men (and some women) spread AIDS intentionally. Do you not think that they will intentionally spread thalidomide? And what makes anyone think that a woman who is desperate to live as these men are won't take black market thalidomide that is supposedly helping men. And why shouldn't she since our research money - her research money - is being spent on men-only drugs. Medical controls? Hell, did you see _60 Minutes_ Sunday where the national security system in our nation allowed at least SIX Cobra killing machine helicopters to fall into private hands - as well as rocket launchers, etc? And they are going to guard pills that will NOT harm men? And go down any street in America and you can buy illegal drugs. Sure they're going to control Thalidomide. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . A lot of our subscribers have edu accounts: The State of Maryland agreed to pay $550,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Susan A. Stepakoff, a Ph.D. candidate, who was awarded a $600,000 in court for being expelled from the University of Maryland because she had alleged sexism and racism on the part of four professors. Ladies, this PROVES you don't HAVE to take it anymore. You can fight back if you make a solid case of having witnesses, recording dates, etc. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Sandra sent us a news report from the Calgary Herald about how the anti-rights for women forces are trying to prevent the drug induced abortions that use the combination of Methotrexate - a widely used cancer drug - and another inexpensive drug Misoprostol, an ulcer medicine, that showed a 96% effectiveness in aborting fetuses while the much touted and much more expensive RU486 only has a 95% clinical effectiveness. According to the article RU486 is not available in Canada although it has been legal in England for many years and would have been approved in the U.S. except a so-called pro- choice group messed up the ownership of the drug! The two drugs Methotrexate and Misoprostol, however, *are* approved for use by U.S. physicians and therefore may be used for abortions TODAY!. Methotrexate destabliizes the uterine lining and misoprostol triggers contractions that expel the embryo. The publicizing of the two drug combination has been a project of Catt's Claws for more than a year and finally, FINALLY, family planning groups are making it available. By the way, have a little chat with your family doctor about the use of Methotrexate and Misoprostol ... you might be VERY, pleasantly surprised. From what we can gather, there are a LOT of family doctors who are using the procedure very quietly and very professionally. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . One in eight women in our country will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, compared to one in 20 a generation ago. And 46,000 American women will die of breast cancer this year. Time for your monthly breast exam - remember, the breast you examine is the one you want to keep. ....................... * ........................ Women's rights are young and tender and we must protect them from the plagues of holy hypocrisy and newts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Send your ideas, comments, and news to istuber@cswnet.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed up to three times a week. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information. Catt's Claws is NOT sponsored by any organization. We are accepting to help offset the online costs of posting and archiving Catt's Claws. Copyright 1996, Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902, email istuber@direclynx.net<<<< To receive Catt's Claws by email, write and in the body of the note We thank Jennifer Gagliardi for handling the madding subscription list through her listserv.