<^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 157 ... June 21, 1997......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... istuber@direclynx.net is solely responsible for its content Archives are found at http://www.imageworld.com/istuber.html <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> "I never expect men to GIVE us liberty. No, women, we are not WORTH it, until we TAKE it." --Voltaraine de Cleyre (1866-1912). . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . I sometimes think it is the water we drink that is Prozacing us to the growing horrors we are exposed to. And then I realized that it is simply overload. We are raised as children to brainwash ourselves with sweetness and light, to evade reality. To believe that life will always be dancing in Maryjanes in the loving arms of our own true loves. Then we grow up and are exposed to what is *really* going on and we just can't handle it. We want to return to "those innocent days of yesterday" even knowing that the good old days were only good because of our ignorance. Or, barring that, get into bed, pull the covers up over our heads and hope the monsters under the bed are content with eating the dust motes and aren't after human flesh. Even I get overloaded, thus the absence of Catt's Claws for these past many weeks. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . At http://www.villagevoice.com/ there is an article by Jennifer Gould about the actions of UN peacekeeping troops that you MUST read, but do it while sitting on the toilet ... Seems that a couple of Belgium's crack troops roasted a Somalia child alive over a fire ... she survived, but! There are photographs along with the Belgiums doing some other repugnant things ... Ms. Gould goes on ... "Shocking as it is, the UN scandal in Somalia is no anomaly. A Village Voice analysis of documents and reports relating to recent UN peacekeeping operations has uncovered incidents ranging from murder and torture to sexual exploitation, harassment of and discrimination against local women and children. UN representatives have also sexually harassed their female colleagues, and have been accused of smuggling drugs and arms.... prostitutes were ... even shipped on UN planes to fornicate with a UN staff member in hotels paid for by the UN." Any wonder our Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opposed the UN Director under whose watch such things occurred? Or that Butrous-Butrous after making grand speeches about women's rights did ABSOLUTELY NADA about equalizing women's roles in the UN in a world where 53% are women? Now, the former WOMAN president of Ireland has now been appointed to a high ranking post with the UN under the new leadership forced on the international organization by President Bill Clinton and Secretary Albright. Hey, don't anyone tell me that Secretary Albright isn't an important addition to our freedom. It's just that the newspapers aren't covering her activities ... now isn't that strange. Remember how Kissinger and Christopher were ALWAYS on the evening news??? How many times have you seen Albright??? It gives the impression that she isn't doing anything, which of course is a lie. A pox on your TV and religious right controlled Associated Press and woman-hating Reuters ... . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Raise your right hand and repeat after me ... " ... to defend the laws of my city and honor its citizens ... " Hey watch those right hands of the police officers - those with the bruised knuckles from punching out their wives ... Yeah, the wives who have NO place to turn when their "men" are so stressed out from their police work jobs that they are excused for turning their wrath, i.e., fists and boots and teeth and baseball bats on those who are smaller and weaker than they are, their wives and children. Who do you call when the cops are beating the shit out of you? Some have the courage to complain. Some have the unbelievable bravery to swear out warrants and charge their monstrous husbands with battery - a crime that if it were directed at a dog would be a felony, but since it's only against a wife, only a misdemeanor. But those wife-beating convictions are enough under the new federal law to prevent those monsters, those bungheads from carrying guns. Ah, so what to do, the good 'ole boyz ask while damning President Clinton for demanding such a law? Simple. They get one of their buddy judges - usually another wife beater - to set aside the conviction. Expunge the record - and the monster can strap on his gun and go on beating his family to his heart's content. Check your own police department and find out what's really going on. If at least 10% of the police department men haven't been charged with spousal abuse, you KNOW your police brass has set up a method for hiding the truth. If they hide wife abuse, what else are they hiding? And find out if the convictions are being set aside so that they can go on with their lives as armed, convicted abusers. You know, if the cops hit a black man the way they do their wives, all hell would break loose ... If a black cop hits a black wife nothing happens either ... ever notice? . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Talking about the difference between abusing a woman and abusing a black MAN, look at that basketball sports announcer who wasn't pulled off the air after being accused of beating and biting a woman in his hotel room. He's claiming innocence. Yeah, those teeth marks were just misdirected while chewing olives, or something. By the way, the teeth marks of Ted Bundy are what finally convicted him and sent him to the electric chair. Bundy, like many, many rapists, bit women viciously when raping. So there is proof in the teeth marks. But how about equality? Seems like a couple of sports announcers got fired for making rude and uncalled-for remarks about black MEN ... WHY are men who do bad things to women and say filthy things on the air allowed to continue in their jobs? . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . While waiting to pay for cat food at Wal-Mart I saw a tabloid saying that Regis what's his face "saved" the Gifford marriage. WHY? The SOB screws a woman in a hotel room where he went of his own free will and he's claiming he was set up? Gimme a break! Yeah, he was dragged in. Kathy Gifford can *maybe* be excused for not knowing about the sweat shops that produce her clothing, but, hey, the picture of her husband with another woman in a hotel room window (exhibitionism, Frank that an old man like you can still do it?) is right on the front page ... Sorry, we cannot feel sorry for Kathy and have to suggest that she see a psychiatrist to find out what's the matter with her. She did marry a man old enough to be her father. How come the Southern Baptists don't criticize the adulterers who spread the offal of contempt on their marriages and, instead, picked on poor VIRGIN (on TV) Ellen? Is something wrong with this picture and their bible? Yes, gentlemen, Ellen is EXACTLY what you hypocrites say is OK - a frustrated lesbian who doesn't have a loving relationship - a lesbian virgin ... You say you love gays and lesbians who don't consummate, those who live frustrtated and unhappy lives. And then you condemn Ellen. Have y'all Southern Baptists got a few things screwed up? Fewer than 15,000 who attended the national convention are deciding what THEY think the 15 MILLION Southern Baptists should DO ... Most will do as President Clinton - a Southern Baptist - is doing. Just say NO! to that asinine resolution. Boycott Disney! Really? All that publicity for the gay-bashers and virtually nothing for the Presbyterians who are amending their constitution to support "fidelity ... in all relationships of life," which MAY begin to lift the ban on homosexual ministers and opens the door a crack to same-sex marriages. What is wrong with a caring, monogamist relationship between two people regardless of the disparity of their genitalia (or similarity)? In other words, the Presbyterians are *almost* saying that if you are a lesbian or gay and marry a same-sex partner, you are expected to stay faithful to each other and treat each other with honor and dignity - and love. WOW! What a concept! . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . We lost track of the appeal of a 15-year old high school girl who challenged the decision by school officials in Thermal, CA to withdraw her winning science fair project - an experiment that tested the reliability of condoms. The religious right said that it offended their abstinence, not safe sex policy. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . One of our friends in Washington wrote: "Fem outrage of the day (so far, the day's not over)..." and sent us a news article about the new marriage contract being proposed in Louisiana: "Lawmakers are on the verge of making Louisiana the first state to offer `covenant marriage' an optional marriage contract that requires premarital counseling and all but eliminates the possibility of an easy, no-fault divorce." It is being pushed by Rep. Tony Perkins religious right leader in the LA legislature so from get-go you know it isn't good for women. The "new covenant" marriage would prevent couples from divorcing except for really bad circumstances. However, in reality, the "covenant" would allow the man to do just about whatever he wanted - as in the grand days of yesteryear - and the wife very little. I know, that isn't what it says, but that's what's going to happen. By the way, one of the problems seen in the high modern divorce rate is that many of the divorces are not wanted by the male but the woman gets it because she can earn enough money to decide for herself what to do. As a friend of mine said recently to explain her divorce, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life watching him sleep in front of the TV. I still have living to do!" In the old days when the male held all the purse strings, most women didn't have a chance to get rid of the slimeballs - or the ambition/living deprived. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . "Fundamentalists have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain." A fine quote forwarded by John Gillanders, a New Zealand reader of Catt's Claws. And our favorite retired Air Force Captain wrote: "Fer crissake now the women have to phight the phuckin pharmacists!!" in commenting about the growing movement of pharmacists deciding who should get what drugs, especially birth control. PLEASE - PLEASE check your birth control packets ... those seals are a joke. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Vinson Champ, 35, has been tied by DNA to the rape of a woman at Kenosha's Carthage College and is the chief suspect in a string of at least six rapes at colleges in Iowa and the Midwest. He is a traveling comedian. Councilman Anthony V. Stassi, 49, a Wood River, Illinois, was FINALLY denied bond after being arrested for raping a teen-ager he'd hired to clean his house while he was out on bond on a 1996 rape charge. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Well deserved: The musical "Cats" gave its record-breaking 6,138th presentation earlier this month. We've seen several road versions and look forward to seeing it again - and again. It is truly a wonderful musical. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . A recent survey shows less than 30% of women are intimidated by technology and are, instead, embracing it ... Remember, more than 40% of all users of Internet are WOMEN although you'd never know it as the boyz play with the boyz in the ads, etc. Someday the guyz will wake up and realize women aren't buying their shit anymore. Literally. They are buying - spending their money - on things that are advertised in a way that appeals to them - and ignoring the WWW boyz treehouse. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . The nation's headlines and attention were grabbed by the story of a 12-year-old girl sexually abusing a nine-year-old boy. The police expressed horror. And it was only a one-day story when Jeremy Strohmeyer, 18, was arrested for raping and strangled Sherrice Iverson, 7, in a restroom at a Nevada gambling casino ... . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . The headline read: "Quirky Demands of Stars Hidden in Fine Print" and the AP story underneath was a perfect example of the way prejudice against women is institutionalized. Who was featured as having outlandish requests? Women, of course, from Janet Jackson (ignoring Michael), to Claudette Colbert. Well, they did quote one guy: "I have a girlfriend," who happened to have been the ACADEMY AWARD winner Katherine Hepburn. Foibles of Mary Pickford, Mae West, Joan Crawford, even Shirley Temple were emphasize and then the author (unnamed) then threw in a couple of really nasty remarks about some unnamed women, just using a broad brush to slur any and ALL women newscasters. AP has become a disgusting anti-woman propagandizing organization without any redeeming value. No wonder they don't have their reporters sign their names. In days gone by when newspapers had pride in their product and weren't just advertising rags, no decent editor would have allowed such tripe to be published. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Talk about gross - this beats the teenage boyz burping and farting they think is so cute. In England, they've started GUT WRESTLING matches, actually beer gut bouncing where the guyz bounce at each other with their beer guts trying to knock the other guy down. What happened to gentlemen? . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Talk about passing gas, a nurse in England was FIRED from her job because she allegedly passed gas intentionally. When Mozart did it, everyone laughed. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . I received this email - and I will post it without attribution because I haven't asked permission: "Anyhow, the real reason I'm writing is to just say maybe it's time to give up on NOW. You know, I've studied the issues of dysfunctional people and the dysfunctional organizations they create a bit, and the truth is that once an organization goes dysfunctional (and NOW is severely dysfunctional), it's pretty much all over, because all newcomers just get sucked into the morass. "The *system* corrupts. There's an old saying about the futility of going back again and again for what you never got the first time (or, more accurately in this case, to recapture what we once had in NOW). NOW is never going to get better than it is now. Never. Its former glory is all it's got left, and that ain't enough. Hopes for the future are zilch. It's an anachronism. They haven't a clue how to get themselves together, nor the moral or political will to do so. You and I and others who feel as we do are simply going to have to get used to it: NOW is dead, and hardly worth any more of our time or energy *wishing* it were otherwise, because the sum total of ALL our efforts are unlikely to rouse it. We'll have to take our hopes and expectations elsewhere: on our own shoulders first, as you do, and then to people and prosper other organizations. It sorrows me greatly because ALL the tremendous advances women now enjoy are a direct result of NOW's efforts in the 1960s and 70s. That was the old NOW, though, not this one. "All this is not to say that I don't think you shouldn't continue to expose their corruption and incompetence if it moves you to do so -- just that it seems such a waste of YOUR energy for you to keep hoping you can prod them into some semblance of competence and vigor. You can't, my dear, and I just wanted to gently and in sisterhood point out the futility of your efforts, no matter how incredibly valiant and sincere they are, or even how much I wish along with you that things were -- and could be -- different." Yes, Ma'am, I hear you - and hear all the others who have written about the foolishness of trying to revive a dead movement. But one passing shot and then maybe nothing forever. In a move of great hypocrisy, National NOW has started a campaign to expose the low pay of women in various corporations. Let them start in their own offices ... the underlings there who actually do the work get really low, low salaries ... disgraceful. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . Recently we were reminded that part of the women's movement controlled by Alice Paul (after suffrage was won in 1920) which became ineffectual and threw the women's rights movement into miasma after her brains - Lucy Burns - and her money and backbone - Alva Belmont - left her. But even in the face of continued ineffectiveness, Paul would not relinquish her position at the head of the table and the women's movement was mired for more than 30 years. Recently I attended a national conference and found that the forward- looking active women are EXACTLY where they should be - working WITHIN the political parties grabbing REAL power. Older women are scouting out and training young vigorous women to take and hold political power - mentoring by example how to change things where it counts. All this while NATIONAL NOW is victimizing young, idealistic women by turning them into poster-carrying chanters who will forever stand outside the halls of power to beg for crumbs. The REAL women of today are inside the halls, nose to nose with the power brokers and TAKING power, not begging for it. My good readers, tear up your NOW cards and get busy in your local Democratic party - organize a Democratic Women's Club. If you need help, write me. I'll forward your request to your state's WOMEN's democratic club. While NOW stands outside chanting, the Democratic women (yeah, and Republican - there are some very, very good Republican women such as Olympia Snowe) are inside writing the laws, voting on them, and changing the world. They are women using power to crack the glass ceiling not moaning and begging: "Oh, please, mister, please , please, gimme something." Without power, what you get is the finger. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . 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. . . . . . . . ^c^l^a^w^s^ . . . . . . . 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@direclynx.net 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 *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting Catt's Claws and archiving them. Copyright 1997, 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. And a BIG thanks to Sam McMillan for doing our Web site: http://www.imageworld.com/istuber.html