To subscribe or unsubscribe: irenestuber@delphi.com !^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^! ! Catt's Claws ... a feminist newsletter #23 ... March 26, 1995 ! !^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^!^! "It is only a matter of time before one or both political parties put a woman on the national ticket. Every major newspaper features advice column for women by women. Female TV commentators appear in increasing numbers, making their presence felt daily. Women's caucuses are as much a part of the Washington scene as cocktail parties. Men who get divorced continue to get screwed. "Securing a constitutional amendment that would permit Congress to enact fair divorce and alimony laws is a route the men of this country must take..." -- an article by Sidney Siller in the September 1984 issue of Penthouse magazine. And you thought Penthouse was all pictures aimed at sexually exciting hairy, fat bellied losers. The Men's Rights Association is now in existence with attorneys on retainer to go anywhere to help men fight for custody (as a way of forcing the woman to withdraw all requests for child support). One of the Men's Rights Association's most successful masquerades is setting up branches in every state masquerading as children's advocacy groups so that they can go into court as the attorney for the man and then argue men's rights (to the children) as a "friend of the court." Which brings us to an email sent Catt's Claws by Diane Mathews: "I found this little "gem" in one of the newsgroups. I think it may be worth publicizing this book's existence so that it can be trounced as thoroughly as possible as soon as possible. ---------------included message------------------ From: WNGA83A@prodigy.com (Harry Bachstein) Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh Subject: Guerilla Divorce: Tactics for Men "Just released, this book is going to spark much controversy. Written by a retired lawyer with 25 years experience in trial law and divorce, it covers everything from "Do I Need A Lawyer?" through "How to Find A Lawyer, How to Save Attorney's Fees, Dealing with Opposing Counsel, What to Wear, What to Say in Court, Getting a Change of Judge, Restricting Your Wife's Ability to Get Counsel, Limiting the Wife's Choice of Lawyers, Adoption, Children, Stepchildren, Abortion, How and When to Fire Your Lawyer, Some Dirty Tricks," and much more. ....................... * ........................ To continue this depressing discussion about men seeking custody of children by using ditry tactics that hurt the childre in order to limit financial responsibility, there is Margaret Carlson's article in the March 20, 1995, _Time_ magazine: "It's always something:" is the unofficial anthem of mothers who work. If it's not a sick child or a snow day or a workplace that has hardly flexed despite the fact that 68% of women with children younger than 18 works, it's an ex-husband using your career to try to take the kids away. Mothers with high-powered jobs like Marcia Clark...may have the most to worry about. In a flurry of recent custody battles, women who don't conform to the Donna Reed notion of motherhood have lost custody to men who slightly exceed Homer Simpson's idea of fatherhood." Carlson's article is worth reading by EVERY mother who works outside the home to provide food for her children - the more successful the mother is in her quest for money and a better life for her children and herself, the more courts penalize her --- and yet these same men don't want poor women to stay home with the children and get welfare. They want poor women to work ... Carlson finishes off her column: "Even in the Simpson trial there is a double standard. No one seems concerned that Robert Shapiro, who has young children, is out many nights at the Eclipse, the Beverly Hills restaurant of the moment, and no one dwells on Johnnie Cochran's troubled record as a husband. The double standard means a working mother not only has to worry that someone else will see her children take (their) first step while she is reading a brief, but also that if she achieves success in a man's world, her child won't be there when she gets home." ....................... * ........................ Pocket-size alarms that can summon police at the press of a button are being handed out free to certain women in about 29 cities who are at high risk of being beaten by husbands or boyfriends. However, the alarms are limited to the home. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes asked to have the technology tried out in his borough. "My mother was battered constantly when I was a kid," Hynes said, explaining that every night when he was 14, he and his mother and grandfather "would barricade the three entrances to our home because of the enormous fear we had that my father would break in and hurt my mother." The personal alarms, about the size of a silver dollar, are activated by pressing a button and can be mounted on a wall panel or worn on a necklace. It sends a silent signal to a private security company whose dispatchers call police. The alarms are being provided to the city at no cost by the manufacturer, ADT Security Systems. ADT has started similar domestic violence alarm programs over the past three years. ....................... * ........................ The Church of England's third-ranking bishop says his sexuality is "ambiguous." Another bishop announced he is gay. Such statements may be cracking the Anglican Communion's official disapproval of homosexuality. The coming out was as a result of the radical "Outrage!" a militant male gay group dedicated to "outing" prominent people as homosexuals headed by Peter Tatchell, which picketed a meeting of the church's governing General Synod, carrying placards naming 10 alleged gay bishops. He has written letters to prominent men throughout England threatening exposure ... and admits he is not sure if the men in question are sexually active. He started his "outing" campaign after being rejected by voters when he sought a parliament seat. He blamed his loss on being a homosexual. Stonewall, a gay-rights group headed by the actor Sir Ian McKellen, said outing "alienates possible supporters of equality." --> Modern scholars report Saul, aka St. Paul to have been a homosexual which might go far in explaining his intense dislike/fear of women. ....................... * ........................ Not content with buying people's opinions with the use of high- powered, high-priced public relations firms, the tax-exempt Roman Catholic church is buying out hospitals or forcing mergers. And then they ban all forms of birth control, abortion, sterilization and euthanasia - the beginnings and ends of life that do not conform to the church teachings. A lawsuit filed in December by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy on behalf of Family Planning Advocates of New York and two chapters of Planned Parenthood is apparently the first of its kind in the nation. The suit filed says the state should have refused to allow the merger of Leonard and St. Mary's Hospitals in Troy, NY, on the grounds that it would limit patients' access to contraception, abortion referrals, and counseling they had formerly received at the hospitals' outpatient clinics. The Roman Catholic Church is the nation's largest private health provider, with 580 hospitals and about 15 percent of the hospital beds. And last year, according to the Catholic Health Association, there were more than 100 mergers, affiliations and joint ventures between Catholic and non- Catholic hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and managed-care networks. In each merger the parties must agree to church guidelines that forbid, among them, abortion, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, and artificial insemination. But Catholic doctrine also raises more subtle questions: If a family wants to stop life support or take out feeding tubes for a terminally ill patient, should that request be honored? If pregnancy would accelerate a dangerous illness diagnosed in a woman, should her doctor raise the issue of contraception? Some advocacy groups representing the elderly are becoming increasingly active in challenging such affiliations, especially the elderly who see the church doctrines as forced extending of life by machines. "But what they're calling abortion is almost anything people use to prevent pregnancy. And what they call euthanasia includes many practices that are not illegal and go on every day," said Susan Fogel, a lawyer with the Women's Law Center in Los Angeles. For example, the directives say that "a female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault" - but ONLY WHERE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT CONCEPTION HAS OCCURRED. So as a practical matter, the availability of the morning-after pill may depend on how quickly the woman seeks it, and whether she was ovulating at the time of the rape. ....................... * ........................ "Some of these (custody) suits seem to be more about money and revenge than about the children. Gordon Clark did not sue for custody until Marcia Clark asked for more child support. The willingness of the courts to let young children be used a poker chips may be one more bow to the Angry White Male. But the signals from the new majority are mixed: work is bad when it takes the professional mother away from her kids, but good for the welfare mother who must leave her children for a job at a minimum wages that she will then owe to whoever watches them." -- Margaret Carlson, 1994 ....................... * ........................ "If Geoge Bush reminds many women of their first husbands, Pat Buchanan reminds women why an increasing number of them are staying single." -- Judy Pearson, professor, Ohio University, 1992 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Send your ideas, comments, and news to irenestuber@delphi.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed three times a week: Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information and is NOT sponsored by any organization. <<<