!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! ! ! ! Catt's Claws ... A Feminist Newsletter 61 ... September 7, 1995 ! ! ! !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! The great new media for our brave new world really showed its tail in its "coverage" of the U.N. Women's Conference(s) in Beijing (and vicinity). Instead of writing about the conference, it published all the bad things that go on in China as if their reporters were teenage boys just discovering sex... hey guys, all those things were happening last year ... were you just trying to bury the real news of the conference? They wrote about the anti-freedom-for-women, patriarchal religions, as if they constitute the moral high ground instead of being the prime advocates of women's subservience to the male master's comfort. They wrote about bus schedules and visas, etc. The media even dutifully repeated rumors that Non-Governmental women would march naked. What they weren't writing about (or the editors are not allowing it to be printed) was what was actually going on at the conferences. What the platform was attempting to do: find ways to solve the myriad social and legal ills that have reduced and kept most women of the world in a state of poverty, sexual and reproductive slavery, and in such general wretchedness that it cannot be discussed on "family" television or printed in "family" newspapers, church bulletins, and magazines. These great analysts are also missing what may well be the greatest boon of the conferences. Hey, guys, the BIG story in Beijing (and vicinity) wasn't what happened inside a bus and it isn't going to be in any document ... it's the networking that has developed among the thousands of STRONG women who met and saw the same gleam in each other's eyes and have the same commitment to the betterment of their sisters ... they are women leaders from grassroots level to heads-of-state to U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton getting to know each other ... Can you imagine the absolute power surge that hit every woman delegate when she saw that she was part of a POWERFUL GROUP OF WOMEN from every continent, of every nationality, of every race, of every hue and size and age? Do you honestly think that she is not coming home to spread the word that regardless of what the patriarchal media and the patriarchal-sanctioned governments and religions say, the fact is, boys, "The Sisterhood is alive and well and strong and getting stronger!" Yet, what may well be the most lasting result of this conference won't be the platform - although it is the glue that holds ideas in one place - the most lasting result will be that most of these powerful women are (or will soon be) In-computerized (Internet-computerized). After the last learned analysis of the conference is chewed over by the guys in the suits on TV and their pronouncements resemble the balloons of a party that have softened and collapsed, the strong, powerful women and friends will still be communicating ... and planning ... and plotting ... and remembering how the patriarchal- controlled United Nations with the full approval of then U.S. President George Bush assigned a Woman's Conference to one of the most oppressive nations on earth with a traditional history of murdering BILLIONS of babies whose only crime was to be born female. The patriarchy has long recognized the male-gawd-awful danger/power of women's being able to communicate with each other away from under the ever-vigilant eye of their masters. That is why men/and men-controlled-women fight any attempts by women to network on cyberspace - look at the way every women's net is invaded by male venom. (Those with weak stomachs shouldn't even think about reading MY mail!) But In-women (Internet-women) stubbornly work around these hate messages and keep networking, growing stronger and exchanging more and more vital information. We regularly In-talk to women (and great, strong men) in Australia, Russia, South Africa, Germany, England, Canada as well as every corner and niche of the U.S. of A. Yes, the lasting result of the Women's Conference in China is that millions of women will be networked. It is ironical that China should be the scene of the largest birth in history: the baby being _effective_, world-wide feminist communication. ....................... * ........................ P.S. The balance of power on the Soc.Feminism news/usenet group appears to be back in the hands of women. The Alt.Feminism, as usual, is in the hands of teenage boys. ....................... * ........................ Doctors are still agog over the procedure that gave birth to a healthy baby and removed cancerous tissues from the mother's ovaries. But our question is why it took doctors until Fiona Day was seven-months pregnant to discover the cancer? And we wonder if the medical journals that were so fascinated with the surgical technique will mention that Fiona Day, 35, died four months later of the cancer her doctors failed to diagnose in time. ....................... * ........................ Seventeen-year-old Michael Ann Koontz of Williamson, West Virginia - homecoming queen and set to go to college this fall - has been found murdered. Her body, reportedly full clothed, was found in a wooded area. She had been missing for several days. ....................... * ........................ Internet is a grown-up toy. Parents who allow their children to roam the net without supervision are asking for lots and lots of trouble. That said, as a parent (and as once a child) we know there is NO WAY anyone can control another person, young or old. The stuff of decency, self-preservation, and self-esteem are the only defenses against the dangers facing the young (and old) on street corners, in shopping malls, and on-line. The print media is really going hog-wild over anything bad that comes up on the net. One wonders, however, are they seeing the dangers of unsupervised net surfing or do they see the danger of increased low cost online communications to their pocketbooks? The nation's print media is being concentrated into a few corporations who are generally headed by big-time fiscal conservatives with their own agenda of cake for themselves and dried bread for you (AKA Republicans). ....................... * ........................ What goes around comes around ... Newt Gingrich, who cuts more political corners than most politicians who aren't already in jail, may have a bit more trouble getting elected after the Georgia legislature gets through redefining his congressional-seat boundaries as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The new district may include "others" besides white, affluent Republicans. We imagine there will be a LOT of screaming, but isn't Newtsie a prime advocate of STATE's RIGHTS - or does that only apply when it comes to the rights of poor women and children? ....................... * ........................ Well, well, well - those thousands of "grassroots" letters and telegrams that deluge Congress whenever hot-key issues come up may not be legitimate. Seems like some hired PR companies may be using cemetery populations to sign their telegrams ... The shenanigans came to light during the lobbying fight over the rewrite of the telecommunications law. According to ITN, most of the fraudulent messages were generated by the firm Beckel Cowan, which in turn subcontracted with an unnamed Virginia telemarketing company. The ITN story goes on to say that the "grassroots" campaigns are a growing PR business. The story meticulously avoided saying what viewpoint was being expressed by the fraudulent messages. ....................... * ........................ President Bill Clinton has drawn a line in the sand: "Parental responsibility does not end at the state line." He has instructed the Justice Department to go to court in Arizona to save the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 that makes it a crime to withhold support from a child living in another state. About 75 cases have been filed by the Federal government with another 500 under scrutiny. If convicted, dead-beat parents (mostly dads) face up to six months in prison for the first offense and up to two years for EACH subsequent conviction. Clinton asked for the law to be strengthened, but dear, dear Senator Dole whose heart bleeds for anyone with a vote and a checkbook (which poor children don't have) is sitting on it. Clinton's full statement: "A child should be able to expect the most basic support from those who chose to bring that child into the world. Parental responsibility does not end at the state line. The taxpayers of America should be able to expect that the burden of caring for these children will be placed on the shoulders of the parents -- where it rightfully belongs." Newtsie Gingrich was a deadbeat dad ... ....................... * ........................ The Abstract of an article in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1994, Vol. 62, #3, pp. 636-639, "The Experience of 'Forgetting' Childhood Abuse: A National Survey of Psychologists" by Shirley Feldman-Summers and Kenneth S. Pope reads: "A national sample of psychologists were asked whether they had been abused as children and, if so, whether they had ever forgotten some or all of the abuse. Almost a quarter of the sample (23.9%) reported childhood abuse, and of those, approximately 40% reported a period of forgetting some or all of the abuse. The major findings were that (a) both sexual and nonsexual abuse were subject to periods of forgetting; (b) the most frequently reported factor related to recall was being in therapy; (c) approximately one half of those who reported forgetting also reported corroboration of the abuse; and (d) reported forgetting was not related to gender or age of the respondent but was related to severity of the abuse." Childhood abuse (either sexual or nonsexual) was reported by 28.6% of the female participants and by 17.9% of the male participants in the survey. A false-memory-syndrome movement financed by ultra-right money and their PR expertise was started a few years back to brand recalled-childhood abuse memories as false. Yes, a founder of the false memory movement was accused of abuse and he and his wife are now claiming that no child can supress bad memories...only male veterans of battle can. How the hell do they think battered women live from day to day? Most learned how as children ... 28.6% of women and 17.9% of men were abused as children IN FAMILIES THAT WERE WELL-TO-DO ENOUGH TO EDUCATE THOSE CHILDREN AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL! In other words, we ain't talkin' 'bout no poor folk who have terrible day-to-day pressures just getting food on the table where one could expect child abuse. ....................... * ........................ Seems like that rowdy racist event at an annual campout in Tennessee may have been a hoax by a Ft. Lauderdale policeman. He had been forbidden to distribute pro David Duke (of KKK fame) literature at the roundup. The Justice Department indicates he may have faked the tape, then turned it over to the National Rifle Association, which then released it to the Washington *Times.* The author of Catt's Claws deplores racism and will put her record as an activist in the civil rights movement against just about anyone's ... to the point that I risked my job (and I was sole support of my children) to stand up for racial justice. That said, let me point out that a similar video tape could be made at least 100,000 times per day in the U.S. using women-hate instead of racial - hate as its center. What, sirs, is the difference? Is not hate and bigotry the same? Where the argument used to be violence against the race, we have found out that a similar if not worse violence occurs against women daily - at least four a day murdered for being women. Again, we ask, what, sirs is the difference? ....................... * ........................ Jennifer Gagliardi who handles the listserv of Catt's Claws is in Beijing. One of those strong women representing all of us back home who couldn't get there. We're so proud of her! We'll be posting digests of what happened at the conference for months to come. We are holding a LOT of information expecting big-time publicity in our news media on the conference. News reports gave Rodham-Clinton and the conference less than a minute and the OJ trial almost seven on the national news at 5:30 CDT. ....................... * ........................ The URLs to the most current week's worth of Catt's Claws set up on the Web by Laurie D. T. Mann, the Feminist Webitor, are: http://worcester.lm.com/lmann/feminist/cattsclaws.html The FTPs for the archived Catt's Claws are (By William Affleck-Asch) = ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/f/feminist/ (or NCFTP open ftp.eskimo.com cd /u/f/feminist/) (By Dorothy Dean) = FTP.execpc.com ....................... * ........................ 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 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.<<<<