!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! ! ! ! Catt's Claws ... A Feminist Newsletter #53 ... July 26, 1995 ! ! ! !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! Since Catt's Claws was started by me as a communications method between NOW chapter officials (when National NOW was dragging its feet on implementing *my* resolution that was passed at the 1994 San Antonio conference to get NOW online), please excuse me for the following comments: SCREAM ! Total, absolute frustration! NOW held a conference in Columbus, Ohio, over the weekend. (I did not attend because of my recently completed trip around the West.) On instructions from the 1994 conference, the 1995 conference was to consider and pass a resolution concerning the Equal Rights Amendment. I received an phone call to activists from NOW headquarters Tuesday evening about what was going on in Congress and as long as I had someone on the line, inquired as to the wording of the adopted ERA amendment. The intern didn't know but promised me a phone call. Lo and behold, I ACTUALLY did get a call back this morning! (Only NOW activists really know how amazing that is!) Well, the woman who called couldn't give me the exact wording of the resolution passed last Sunday because of the changes in the draft resolution, the discussions etc., etc ... But it would be available in the October (THREE MONTHS AWAY) *National NOW Times.* Women marched, sweated, spent long hours debating and searching their hearts over the verbiage and philosophies, emptied their wallets going to and from NOW conferences regarding the ERA, and now National NOW tells us that the NOW conferees PASSED AN ERA RESOLUTION BUT THAT NO ONE KNOWS THE EXACT 100 WORDS OR LESS OF IT !!! May I say it? BULL ! (COW ?) What did the membership vote on? I've been at those conferences ... the presiding officer reads the resolution, defines the changes ... (Roberts Rules ????) Who was conducting that meeting? Surely Patricia Ireland. Who was directing the operation of that projector and computer that throws the resolutions up on a large screen visible to all the delegated conferees. Surely Kim Gandy. How difficult was it to keep track of those few words? Who called for a vote on what ? I will be criticized for airing this "dirty linen" in public, but the stuttering, stumbling of National NOW needs to be discussed. One of the original purposes of Catt's Claws was to facilitate communication between NOW chapters ... something, that even now, National NOW online does not allow since it is only a web page of limited scope. I will, by request, forward your comments to our NOW chapter mailing list (write me personally if you want to be added to the NOW list or confirmed that you are on the special list; please give your chapter affiliation). I will withhold the comments (if requested) from the general Claw's list since a lot of this has to do with internal stuff: "If youse pays your due$, you may complain." NOW has so many capable, devoted and hard working women (and men) who are being handcuffed by National NOW's procrastination and tight buns. Something has got to be done to remove National NOW from the shelf and move it back into the mainstream of the women's rights movement. Maybe it's time NOW got a professional executive director and reduced the officers to advisory capacities on limited stipends instead of depending on the "troika, plus one" confusion as each elected officer directs her own queendom ... and personal ambitions. ....................... * ........................ Catt's Claws, for one, is sick and tired of reading surveys giving white and black opinions about affirmative action as if black males were the only ones who benefited by it. Print this in BIG PINK LETTERS on your forehead: WOMEN were the greatest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action since women are 53% of the population. Black men constitute (about) 8% of the population. Many don't remember what it was before - you're too young - but I remember. I remember quotas at colleges that allowed only a limited number of women students (or didn't allow at all). Colleges like Harvard and Columbia had their doors locked to undergraduate women. I remember quotas at graduate schools where only a few women were allowed into advanced programs - by few I mean two or three in classes of hundreds of men. I remember when women were segregated as to jobs so that their earning capacities would be so low they couldn't support themselves and had to say yes to men's marriage (and legal ownership) proposals whether she loved, liked, or wanted him or not. I remember employers refusing to hire a woman with full credentials and hiring instead a younger, untrained man. And being really up front about it. "We don't want women." I remember when jobs were segregated to sex with the higher paid jobs going to those who looked like the boss behind the desk - at least from the waist down. Women, not black men, are the targets of the Republican Religious Supremacist Directed Congress ... Allowing Jesse Jackson and the NAACP to be the spokespeople against the destruction of Affirmative Action in the media is to drown out women's voices ... those who benefited the most from government directed bull-dozers who made the playing field a bit more level. Which might be the purpose of the media always calling on Jackson, etc. Remember, women never asked for any breaks. We asked for an equal chance. Isn't it time we had a summit of women's feminist organizations and started some concerted public relations on what the Reps and religious supremacists are trying to do to women? The future you save is your own. ....................... * ........................ I admire Molly Ivins for her wit, her intelligence, her ability to use her education to continue learning. She is unusually well read and is a clear, concise thinker - and she's a damned good writer. I *KNOW* Molly Ivins does *NOT* read Catt's Claws. Molly Ivins doesn't even know it exists. So it gave me a satisfaction to see her using a phrase that I also used to describe the witch hunting the Reps are conducting regarding Whitewater and the tragic, despairing death of Vince Foster. In her 07-26-95 column, Molly wrote: "As Joseph Welch once said in another congressional hearing, `Have you no sense of decency, sir...'" In the 06-04-95 Catt's Claws I wrote: "Back in the McCarthy days (1952), playwright Lillian Hellman also resisted the dragnet efforts with her famous remark, `I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.' Her refusal to implicate others certainly cost her Pulitzer Prizes, her home, and years of personal agony. "Her book _Scoundrel Time_ draws a blueprint of what (the federal prosecutor) is doing 43 years later (with Whitewater) and when she quotes attorney Joseph Welch, she is giving us the words we need today: "`Have you no sense of decency, sir?'" May we all send that question to Senator Alfonse D'Amato, the latest of a long line of irresponsible Republicans who is ghoulishly trying to turn terrible tragedies into self-serving political headlines. But Molly is one up on me ... she quotes Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor, as once defining his greatest ambition: "I want to be solicitor general under President Quayle." No one can top *that* line. ....................... * ....................... If you have emailed Catt's Claws and not received a reply or feel I'm ignoring you, please either be understanding, be patient or write me again to get on top of the list ... I downloaded more than 3.5 million bytes of email from my vacation and since I had discontinued ALL of my listservs, they were all direct notes to me. ....................... * ........................ The war to again make men the controllers of a woman's body and her murderer from too many pregnancies is alive and well in Germany. East Germany had abortion on demand (as a communist country). Free enterprise West Germany, which retained many Nazi members in leadership positions, outlawed abortion except in VERY rare cases and in fact West German women were prosecuted for having abortions in Holland. In attempting to reconcile the problem, there is a new draft law being proposed that acknowledges a "right to life" clause in the German constitution, but states that abortion will not be punishable during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Women will be required to undergo counseling, but will not be required to [provide their names or] explain their reasons for wanting an abortion. The draft law is being touted by some in the media as the probable answer to the abortion debate that rages in almost every nation where the right-wing, pseudo-Nazi religious supremacists have gained a voice. Warning: although it may appear to be reconciliatory on the surface, that "right to life" clause as well as counseling are time bombs. As far as secrecy is concerned, see the Detroit story below. ....................... * ........................ What good is a Bill of Rights if religious fanatics think they can ignore it? A White Plains, NY, prosecutor FORCED a woman to deny sexual abuse of her 14-year-old son on a bible in a Roman Catholic church with her family and TWO priests witnessing as a way of avoiding prosecution of the obviously false charges brought by the divorcing father. They had been denied by the boy and found untrue by social and mental health professionals. The woman is suing Assistant District Attorney Gerald D. D'Amelia. ....................... * ........................ We doubt there are any rooms left, but just in case: For the August 26th march in Washington, D.C., celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote, LWV Prince George's County, Maryland, is offering bed and breakfast spaces for only $30.00/night per person or $50.00 for two to a room. Prince George's County borders Washington, D.C. on the east and north. Please contact Joan Schmidt, 301-262-4661, by August 1 to request a space. ....................... * ........................ Shaula Evans, INTERNET:sevans@AWINC.COM, wrote on another list: "I am on the local Women's Resource Centre's organizing committee for "Take Back The Night" in September .... Traditionally, a large, LOUD march takes place in the evening as the main feature of the event. We have found that the public is becoming desensitized to the march, and it is becoming less effective. "Does anyone have experience with planning and carrying out this type of event? Does anyone have suggestions for an alternative to the march?" Please reply to Shaula personally. Hopefully she will let us know what she found out. ....................... * ........................ Those who believe in social responsibility are beginning to fight back against those who would take away women's freedoms. Two young women whose names were stolen out of an abortion clinic's trash and written on posters carried by a protesting nun can sue for invasion of privacy, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled. The appeals court found Friday that Lynn Mills and Sister Lois Mitoraj did what many find "outrageous" when they put the names on large posters that said, "Don't kill your baby" and displayed the signs during a protest outside an abortion clinic in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit. While a lower court had thrown out the case holding that there was no invasion of privacy rights because the names were found in the garbage, the appeals court disagreed saying that the two women did not put their names in the garbage and did not consent to the information being made public. The women were 14 and 18 years old at the time. Arthur Miller, professor of law at Harvard Law School and a pro-life privacy expert, said he expected the high court to deny the suit and the attorneys for the nun who publicized the women's names say the women should sue the doctor for allowing their names to be put in the trash. ....................... * ........................ From the *Flush Rush* Quarterly: A quote from Limbaugh on his May 4, 1995, show: "Now go figure, how does that work. If (Newt Gingrich) is part of the 10% of the population that doesn't masturbate. Yet all he thinks about is himself. It's curious, is it not ..." And the Quarterly quotes from the *San Francisco Weekly:* "Q. What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and Barney? "A. One is a dinosaur with simplistic answers and the other is purple." And a writer from Jacksonville, FL, sent a letter: "Q. What is the difference between Rush Limbaugh and J. Edgar Hoover? "A. Dress size." One wonder if on January 5, 1994 Limbaugh was joking when he asked his dittohead radio audience: "Someday explain to me what vaginal sex has to do with AIDS." Can anyone be that ignorant? The Flush Rush Quarterly is $13.95 for one year; write PO Box 270525, San Diego, CA 92198. My subscription is a gift from an anonymous donor. Thanks. ....................... * ........................ 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 irenestuber@delphi.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will usually 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. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting Catt's Claws. Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902.<<<<