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On April 29 Tidewater NOW had the honor and pleasure of welcoming Patricia Ireland to Hampton Roads. She debated John Rankin at the Founders Inn on whether or not abortion should be made illegal.
E. B., B. G., C. H., M. F., and L. B. met her at the Norfolk airport and took her to the debate. Thanks to all for the warm reception at the airport. She seemed pleased that we were there to present friendly support.
While Patricia Ireland presented the social, financial, emotional, and legal side of the issue, her opponent was bent on quoting scripture. We were informed that America was founded on the Jesus of the Bible. For any of us that are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, or any other form of thought, we are excluded from having a valid claim to the US. Think about that!
More members from Tidewater NOW, M. S., L. P. and M. R., joined us at the debate. Happily some of our friends from the New Life Metropolitan Community Church, Pastor C. W., Rose, Colleen and Rose's son, Jay, attended the debate, too. Thank you!
After the debate we all went out for dinner and enjoyed personal fellowship with our leader. Pictures were taken and I'm sorry we can't print them in the news letter.
May has been a quiet month for us at NOW but circle June 14th on your calendar. Our own C. H. is running for Va. State co-ordinator and we are trying to get a good group going to Ashland, Va. to encourage her. This is only a day trip so we plan to leave in the morning and return that evening. If any of you can go and need a ride, please contact any of the Officers. Let's have a big turn out to support C..
Lastly it is time to nominate new officers for the coming year. This is YOUR turn to get involved and make a difference. We need you to take a position and keep Tidewater NOW active.
L. J. B.
Tidewater NOW's annual elections will be held at the June meeting. To nominate someone or to volunteer for any of the positions, call the NOW phone line at 456-1509. Come to the June meeting to cast your vote for the people of your choice.
State elections will be held on June 14 as the Ashland Holiday Inn in Richmond. Tidewater NOW members will carpool to Richmond. For details, call the NOW phone line.
The national NOW conference will be held in Memphis, Tenn on July 4-6, 1997. If you would like to attend as a Tidewater NOW delegate, call the NOW phone line.
National NOW issued information on 14 more bills before (or soon to be before) Congress. Due to space limitations, most can only be mentioned briefly. Please contact your Representative and Senators, and where indicated, the President, on all of these measures.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) plans to offer bill HR 411 entitled Repeal of Abortion Ban for Overseas Military Women Coming Up in June. (support)
An amendment offered by Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA) would delete from a foreign aid/State Department FY 98-99 reauthorization bill a provision which places constraints on international family planning programs. The amendment, passed by the appropriate House committee, restored $25 million in funds to the United National Fund for Population Assistance (UNFPA), must now be voted on by the full House and Senate. (support)
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), sponsorer of the anti-choice restraining provision which Campbell's bill would void, vowed to bring a "Mexico City Policy" (MCP) amendment to the floor. The MCP amendment is a global gag rule which attempts to defund multilateral and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that, with their non-U.S. government funds, engage in any discussion of abortion. H.R. 581 is unnecessary because no U.S. foreign aid funds are used to either perform or promote abortions abortion. (oppose)
Senators Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) are offering legislation, S. 671, to clarify the domestic violence hardship exemption under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. The bill stipulates that these "good cause" waivers are to be counted separate from a 20% caseload hardship exemption. The clarification will be offered as an amendment to an appropriate vehicle as yet unidentified. (support)
By attaching bill H.R. 26 as an amendment to another bill, Rep. Bob Barr (R-FL) will attempt to amend to weaken of the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban. Barr's bill would make application of the law, which was passed September 30, 1996, prospective -- excusing anyone prior to that date who was convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense. (oppose)
Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO), sponsored S. 4, the Family Friendly Workplace Act, which would allow employers to NOT pay overtime so long as employees do not work more than 80 hours in a two week period. Employers could offer employees who work more than 40 hours in a given week comp time in lieu of overtime pay. Because many workers' pension and health insurance benefits are tied to the number of hours worked, their benefits could be slashed since "comp time" hours are not counted as hours worked under S. 4. Up to 65 MILLION employees may be affected. (oppose)
Essentially the same product liability bill which was passed in the 104th Congress was reported out of the Senate Commerce Committee in early May and is slated to move to a full Senate vote soon. S. 648, the so-called Product Liability Reform Act of 1997, has all the same defects: limits on punitive damages, immunity for older defective products, a loser pays provision, immunity for biomaterials suppliers (that is, for manufacturers of medical implants), and restrictions on joint and several liability on non-economic damages (e.g., loss of fertility, loss of a loved one, permanent disfigurement). These latter restrictions are seen to effect women, children, the poor and elderly the most since individuals from these groups tend to receive a greater percentage of their compensation in the form of non-economic damages. (oppose)
Activists are being encouraged to contact President Clinton about the need to issue guidelines which clarify the status of welfare recipients who work in exchange for their benefits. The new welfare law allows states to provide employees to private or public employers who can require welfare recipients to work for 20 hours a week without being required to pay them wages. Instead the benefit the recipient receives under the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) is used in lieu of wages or salaries, which in states where monthly allowance is a few hundred dollars means that recipients are receiving below-minimum wages. Further, employers do not have to provide any skill training or commit to hiring anyone permanently and if workers do not strictly comply with job requirements could be out of both TANF cash assistance as well as a "job". Battered women, especially, are at great risk of losing both because of the multiple problems they encounter with partner abuse and job interference.
Furthermore, it is not clear that this new class of workfare workers are subject to protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations. Urge the President and Congress to assure workplace protections that all other Americans enjoy and to move from punitive policies for the poor to positive support programs that help women become self-sufficient in sustaining themselves and their families.
For information only:
A late-term abortion ban was passed by both houses of Congress, although in different forms. The voting in the Senate was about 5 votes shy of the number required to over ride an expected Presidential veto.
As of May 1st, of 40 state legislatures where D & X abortion ban bills were introduced; 13 are considered to be good possibilities for passage. Thirteen states may pass waiting period (prior to an abortion) legislation: North Dakota and Utah have bills already signed into law. Fourteen states have introduced parental notification or consent legislation, with six of those considered likely candidates for passage. Two other states -- South Dakota and Virginia -- have parental notification or consent requirement laws recently signed by their governors. Anti-choice forces are chipping away at women's access to abortion.
Hoping to double the funding for battered women's shelters by adding $72.8 million to that program's appropriations, Rep. Nita Lowey's (D-NY) amendment to a Supplemental Appropriations was turned down by a voice vote on April 24. Our cowardly legislators could not even go on record when they rejected a paltry increase of $72 Million (not Billion, Million) in a $1.5 Trillion budget for women's shelters. How much does a new bomber cost?
A Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University, Chicago low-income neighborhood survey of 834 women found that the rate of domestic violence among ADFC recipients was three times as high (31.1%) as the rate found in other low income households (11.8%) and that the amount of recent severe physical aggression was two and one half times as high.
For Mother's Day, the House Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) disclosed on May 7th their policies to help women be better mothers. The six items which the Democrats vowed to address in this Congress include: full funding for the Women, Infants, and Children's (WIC) program; fair pay; expanding health care for kids; expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); pension equity for women; and, expanded child care services. If you would like a copy of the report, contact Melissa Narins at the DPC (202)-225-6760.
Myth: Domestic violence is just a push, slap or punch - it does not produce serious injuries.
Facts:
from "Domestic Violence: The Facts" - A Handbook to STOP violence (courtesy of Peace At Home (formerly Battered Women Fighting Back), Boston), posted at the Cybergrrl Webstation website
In US ex. rel. v. Robinson (1968), the Federal District Court struck down as unconstitutional a Connecticut statute requiring longer prison sentences for women than for men.
In 1975 a Utah law requiring divorces fathers to support a son until age 21 but to support a daughter only until the age of 18 was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Feminist Chronicles, 1953 - 1993, Toni Carabillo, Judith Meuli, and June Bundy Csida, Women's Graphics, 1993
Violence against women manifests itself in many ways: Religious Violence Against Women means using religion to subjugate women or using religion to justify verbally, emotionally, or physically abusing a woman. Religious VAM includes preaching/ teaching God's support of men's "right to chastise" women, women's inherent inferiority to men, or men's right to dominate women; developing a theology which lacks a female/feminine in the godhead, and suttee.
Amazon feminism is dedicated to the image of the female hero in fiction and in fact, as it is expressed in art and literature, in the physiques and feats of female athletes, and in sexual values and practices.
Amazon feminism is concerned about physical equality and is opposed to gender role stereotypes and discrimination against women based on assumptions that women are supposed to be, look or behave as if they are passive, weak and physically helpless.
Amazon feminism rejects the idea that certain characteristics or interests are inherently masculine (or feminine), and upholds and explores a vision of heroic womanhood. Thus Amazon feminism advocates e.g., female strength athletes, martial artists, soldiers, etc.
In our annual tribute to our fathers and by extension to all of our feminist forefathers, feminist forefathers will replace feminist foremothers. This month we would like to honor, Tom Paine (1737-1809), patriot, author of numerous pro-democracy works including: the staunchly feminist "An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex" (1775), probably the most influential pro-American colonial tract "Common Sense" (Jan. 1776), a series of pro-American, Revolutionary War era pamphlets entitled "The American Crisis", a 2 volume response, The Rights of Man (1791-1792), to Edmund Burke's condemnation of the French revolution in Reflections Upon the French Revolution; and the 3 volume work The Age of Reason (1794, 1795, and 1807).
"An Occasional Letter" is an eloquent plea for women's EQUALITY. Paine writes that if a woman were to defend her own sex she might say, "How great is your injustice? If we have an equal right with you to virtue, why should we not have an equal right to praise? The public esteem ought to wait upon merit. Our duties are different from yours, but they are not therefore less difficult to fulfill, or of less consequence to society: They are the fountains of your felicity, and the sweetness of life. . . . 'Tis we who soften that savage rudeness which considers everything as due to force, and which would involve man with man in eternal war."
"Paine, Thomas," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.
"An Occasional Letter" can be found in Michael Kimmel and Thomas Mosmiller, Against the Tide, Pro-Feminist Men in the United States 1776-1990, A Documentary History, [Boston, Beacon Press, 1992] pp 63-66
Happy Father's Day to all feminist men in our audience, especially one great Dad, my Dad, E. C. of Florida.
Throughout the world, the women's rights movement is generally regarded as beginning in the bucolic NY town of Seneca Fall in 1848.
In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, long-time fellow activists in the abolition movement, decided that the time was right to begin the fight for women's rights. Frustrated by the many impediments in their suffrage work due to their sex, Stanton and Mott were sensitized to these same impediments in their daily lives. For eight years, they had discussed the possibility of a convention. Finally Mott, accompanied by her husband James, visited central New York and the tow of them, along with three local Quaker women, decided to hold a "convention." Only one short notice announcing the meeting was published in the local paper, yet roughly 300 people attended the two-day convention, some driving 50 miles in their horse drawn carriages.
Women spoke on all issues, including politics, the law, religion, customs, violence against women, marriage and divorce, and employment opportunities, that affected their lives. The most controversial provision of the Declarations of Sentiments and Resolutions, which was adopted by vote one item at a time, was the demand for female suffrage. It would be another 72 years before women won the right to vote.
A follow-up meeting, presided by a woman, Abigail Bush, was held in Rochester two weeks later. The movement for women's rights, at some times strong and at other times quiescent, grew year by year and continues to flourish to this day.
The speech I would most like to see given at the 150th anniversary celebration of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention.
Seven score and ten years ago our mothers brought forth on this continent the vision of a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great cultural war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We meet at a site of a great battle field of that war. We have come to commemorate a portion of that field, as a memorial for those who gave their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave women living and dead, who struggled for our freedom, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it will never forget what they did. It is for this the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these women shall not have fought, struggled, and died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of all the people, all the people - female and male, black and white, Christian, gentile, and atheist, rich and poor, old and young, educated and uneducated - by all the people, and for all the people, shall not perish from the earth.
copyright 1997, Patricia L. Cross
The Women in the Military Service Memorial Dedication will be held on Oct 16-19, 1997. Call 1-800-222-2294 or 703-533-1155 for reservations before Sept. 15, 1997
sunshine@pinn.net
Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
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