<^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 95 ... January 4, 1996......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... ....................................................... Warning: the following item regarding the 19-day-old girl raped by her father is strong to take, so read at your own risk. From Sharon Bryant: "Last night's nightly newscast covered the jury hearing for William Darrow. According to testimony from a police officer who took a report at Huntsville Hospital, Kimberly suffered specifically from a torn rectum, swollen labia, bruises to the head, and scratches on her back. It was also reported that Huntsville Hospital did not do a rape examination on the child, but the hospital she was sent to in Birmingham is awaiting the results of a rape examination they conducted. The justice system here in Huntsville will subpoena those records as soon as they are available. "As of last night's broadcast, William Darrow has admitted to three counts of abusing the child. He also admitted to holding his hand over her mouth to smother her screams while he raped her. "There was no word on her current condition. "Yesterday's hearing resulted in William Darrow being bound over for a hearing in front of a grand jury. I'm not sure when that will happen, but I will have that information when it happens. The local news stations have jumped on this story and I think there will be plenty of information to come. I will let you know as it is published." CC -->> There has got to be a special place in hell for people like William Darrow and those in society who allowed him to develop into the monster that he is. Regardless of what medical science can do to heal little Kimberly's body, can you *imagine* growing up knowing that YOUR FATHER raped you as an infant? Kimberly is probably 17-20" long. The refusal of "family" newspapers and magazines, television and radio, churches and schools to publicize and seek answers to incest and sex crimes against children is a BLANKET APPROVAL OF THE RAPE OF CHILDREN. It can't be looked at any other way. Until this horrendous behavior is examined publicly, openly, and with all the ramifications laid bare, until the reason that SOME men sexually abuse an estimated 18% of all women when they are girls (about 6% of boys), we won't be able to do anything about it. WHY ARE THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHURCHES BLOCKING ANY ATTEMPT TO TEACH GIRLS HOW TO RESIST AND REPORT INCEST ???? WHY DADDY ???? WHY ???? ....................... * ...................... To the Republicans in Congress (and Gov. George Bush of Texas whose family "realized" millions in the Silverado S&L failure) have suggested that families be *required* to take care of their elderly to save taxpayers money, and their care should not be part of medicare/medicaid. It sounds pretty easy because the Bushes have servants and millions of dollars from sweetheart oil deals and silver spoons and Silverado S&L, but the idea of taking care of one's elderly parents at home - families taking care of themselves - or being responsible for their care in a nursing home (average $36,000 a year) is devastating for most ordinary folk. And women are the ones who will suffer the most because they are the one who are made to be the caretakers by society and forced to balance working outside the home to $upport the family, taking care of the kids, the house, and the elderly - becoming slaves to everyone else, even if the elderly are the parents of the husband. What heartless beasts these rich Republicans are. ....................... * ........................ Politicians in Germany, Italy, and France have banned advanced-age birth because they think the idea of 18-year-olds with 80-year-old mothers is unconscionable. The doctor who makes such things possible, Dr. Severino Antinori, has moved his work from Rome to England where he says, people are more intellectual and accepting of his work. Hey, doc, some to the U.S. where we enshrine old men who abandon their older children without funds when they marry trophy wives - oh, sorry. That's OK for men, not women ... Gingrich, Gifford, et al. Rosanna Della Corte had a baby July, 1994 at age 62 as a result of lots of hormones, medical stuff, and the donated egg of an anonymous woman and the sperm of her husband. Anther baby is planned for when she's 64 so her son won't grow up alone after she's dead .... Antinori is up on ethics charges before the Italian medical board. He says, "Men can be 100 and have children. This is why the entire male world is against me." Our only concern is that some husbands may PRESSURE older women into having more and more children. Menopause used to be a safeguard against church-supported murder by penis and sperm. ....................... * ........................ The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) which is made up of close to 1,000 leaders representing more than 90 percent of the U.S. Catholic religious sisters in the U.S., had designated December 15 as a day of prayer and fasting to address the recent proclamation by the Pope, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "definitively" banning the ordination of women. The call came in a statement by the LCWR president, Nancy Schreck, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque, IA; LCWR vice president Anne Munley, Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, PA; and LCWR past president Andree Fries, of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, O'Fallon, MO. LCWR said it released the statement because it fears serious pastoral implications of the Vatican's action, "We are troubled about the credibility of the church and alienation of women, given the gap between Pope John Paul II's teachings on respect for women and the lack of women actually involved in decision making in the church.... We fear that the direction from the Congregation, rather than engendering a higher degree of faithfulness in communion within the church, will instead cause division and disillusionment,' the statement said. In addition to calling for a day of prayer and fasting, the LCWR presidency called for church reform: "We urge the church to move quickly and decisively to include women in all levels of decision making and responsibility available without priestly ordination." Referring to Pope John Paul II's letter on women of last July, the statement said "lt is critical that the teachings of the church on the equality and 'genius' of women be witnessed in action." This protest and day of fasting was not publicized by our daily press. SURPRISE! Catt's Claws will furnish the complete statement of the nun's protest and a copy of the pope's July letter "saluting" women and telling them to be good little wives and breed. Email istuber@cswnet.com and ask for it. Both have been furnished to CC by Barbara Cooper who also furnished us with the copy of the pope's "Responsum ad Dubium" we published in the last issue of Catt's Claws. ....................... * ........................ Made at least two bad blunders in the last Catt's Claws: wrote it's instead of its (and was caught by the Its Police - a very funny post!) and wrote none instead of non-ruling. Sorry. ....................... * ........................ Would you please report any web locations you know of that are linked to Women of Achievement and Herstory and to Catt's Claws? Believe it or not, we are putting up a home page ... Sam McMillan of my local BBS, ImageWorld, is doing it ....................... * ........................ Our sincerest thanks to all the readers of Catt's Claws and Women of Achievement who wrote Karen Wickre, Editor, "24 Hours in Cyberspace" to support our inclusion in cyberspace recognition project. Karen phoned and said you can stop now. Catt's Claws and Women of Achievement have been selected. We're pretty proud of it and we thank you. It's the work that counts, not me. To give recognition to the women who have been written out of our histories; to give a voice to women today who have been silenced by the bloated disregard of our leaders ... that's the important thing. Their news release said, "24 Hours in Cyberspace" is looking for the best examples about how Cyberspace is changing peoples lives all over the world. " and if they like your story they may send one of the world's top photographers to shoot pictures of you on Thursday, February 8, 1996. On that day over 1000 photographers, many of them armed with digital cameras, will be dispatched around the globe to show how Cyberspace is beginning to reach out and affect peoples lives." I am most honored by the support of the readers of WOA and CC showed me. And I'm not speaking from false modesty. I have a pretty very healthy ego. I am truly honored by your support. ....................... * ........................ Our email buddy Liz from Florida, wrote: "Yesterday, IRS Commissioner Margaret Milner Richardson announced that the IRS would proceed to implement some of the taxpayer "Bill of Rights" provisions on its own. "One provision deals with an issue that has been a bugaboo of mine for a long time. The IRS traditionally has sent out notices to taxpayers only to the first-named person on a joint return (i.e. the "Mr.") When a joint return is filed during the year or years in which a divorce is pending, when shenanigans are pulled in reporting items (usually the husband in his business) or taxes are not paid, the IRS would send out delinquency notices that the wife/ex-wife often was unaware of. Then, when it came time to *collect,* the IRS would more often go first after the wife because she more often remained in the marital home or because she was with the children, she was easier to find. This created a horrible injustice for many women. "On Thursday, Commissioner Richardson announced that commencing in March, the IRS will notify divorced and separated spouses when it takes action to collect jointly-owed taxes from the other spouse. "All is not perfect, but Richardson does deserve some recognition for proceeding with this taxpayer protection." ....................... * ........................ "Irene -- "Now you've done it -- I've become one of those annoying people who do things to make political statements ;-) "I went down to the bank recently to cash a check and almost cleaned the teller out of Susan B. Anthony dollars.... They've given me an excellent opening into a discussion about women, the role they've played in our nation's history, and their exclusion from the political scene. I'm going to call the vault teller at Bank One's main branch here in Austin and STOCK UP. "Oh -- regarding the Pope and the recent Catt's Claw -- please feel free to tell your readers that the Episcopal Church gladly ordains women and we are more than happy to take all the Catholics that Rome has to send us." (signed John F. Haugh II). John and I had a bit of an email discussion about the difficulty of using the Susan B. dollars because the size is so close to a quarter than many times it is used instead of a quarter. I've hit on the idea of using colored paint to mark the Susan B. coins and with that safeguard, I intend to start using them. You know, just smear enough on each coin to make it stand out. (It's not illegal - remember how the house coins were/are marked with red paint to separate them from the customer coins in juke boxes, pool tables, etc?) I've bought a can of YELLOW paint and will mark the coins. Yellow was the suffrage color. How about it? Let's start using them - Make Wal-Mart widen their cash drawers !!! Let's all start showing that women are taking charge of their lives! Show the men who designed such an impractical size (and have been laughing about it ever since) that women can outsmart the misogynists if we try. ....................... * ........................ Linda Grant De Pauw of the Minerva Center of Women in the Military reported on her listserv: "Currently, `to date (01-03)', there are the following number of women deployed at these locations in direct support of Operation Joint Endeavor - Bosnia - 132; Croatia - 138; Hungary - 672. These numbers do not include those women enroute, or deploying from Germany." ....................... * ........................ A British study of 25 children who were raised by lesbian mothers found that they aren't any more likely to become gay than those raised by an unmarried female with a male companion. The 25 children grew up with their mothers, most of whom had a female partner in the home. The unmarried females were supposed to be the control group, BUT how many of the lesbian couples were, in fact, "married" while NONE of the heterosexuals were. Also, the study had a built in laugh or "locked room" puzzle: The researcher noted that four of the adult/children from lesbian families reported a same-sex relationship when young but considered themselves heterosexual as adults and NONE of the adults from heterosexual families reported having had a same-sex relationship and were, of course, 100% heterosexual. OK, the straights didn't produce gays and the lesbians didn't either, so where did the lesbians come from in the first place? We've always loved this one: "The Bible contains 6 admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." --Lynn Lavner Oh these studies! ....................... * ........................ Irish President Mary Robinson will be the first Irish head of state to make an official visit to Britain. The visit is expected in June. In May of 1993, President Robinson and Queen Elizabeth met informally and had a cup of tea together and chatted. Oh why don't they let more women into the diplomatic corps? Are the boyz afraid their armies and the pretty uniforms will be an endangered species? ....................... * ........................ Kay Mary, on another listserv remarked, "I see, and do the women police officers feel a comparable need to go home and hit around the members of their family? Hard to go home indeed!!" Food for thought, eh? Obviously someone was excusing the violent and abusive behavior of police officers in their own home as job related. The poor babies couldn't help themselves from punching out their wives and kids. ....................... * ........................ Nina Wouk wrote: "There is a movement that feminists should be taking part in too, to get "Gender Identity Disorder" removed from the American Psychiatric Assn's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Symptoms in girls include `intense negative reactions to parental expectations or attempts to have them wear dresses or other feminine attire' and identification with `powerful male figures' (as if most girls knew about powerful female figures!) "Can you imagine what the DSM would have made of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's identifying with the male function of public speaking. The organizations working on this are the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and some others. (NOW? Ha!) And the president of the APA is a woman: Dr. Mary Jane England, President, APA, 1400 K Street NW, Washington DC 20005, FAX: 202-682-6114 but no email address. I tried to be polite in telling her that no woman with any self-respect could take "Gender Identity Disorder" seriously. Don't know if I succeeded. "There's also a person with broken chromosomes (to write to): Dr. Chester W. Schmidt, Chair, Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Working Group, APA, Johns Hopkins Bay View Medical Center, 4940 Eastern Avenue, B3 South, Baltimore MD 21224." My GAWD, according to the APA, if a woman wants to be a human being and not a brood mare, she is to be considered crazy. What teenager doesn't have "intense negative reactions to parental expectations?" Who is crazy here? ....................... * ........................ The URLs to the most current weeks' 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 Catt's Claws being archived by William Affleck-Asch, are: ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/f/feminist/ (or NCFTP open ftp.eskimo.com cd /u/f/feminist/) The FTPs for Catt's Claws being archived by Dorothy Dean are: FTP.execpc.com ....................... * ........................ Women's rights are young and tender and we must protect them from the plagues of holy hypocrisy and newts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Copyright 1996. Send your ideas, comments, and news to istuber@cswnet.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. All rights reserved but Catt's Claws may be distributed for non profit use.<<<<