WHAT WE WANT

The other day I was having a "discussion" with a man concerning the issue of exactly "what it is we women want." My basic response was that we simply wanted the right to choose and to control our own lives. Even though ultimate control will never be fully realized as long as our non-democratic profiteering society thrives, prospers and exploits both sexes, there is still a primary change in our orientation towards these op pressive institutions which is not only pos sible but necessary.

Inherent in the feminist movement are very radical ingredients (or additional move. ments) which attack the system on many levels. This is evident by the types of existent women services and groups here in Cleveland. For example, the struggle of women to control their own bodies is aided by the work of Cleveland Women's Counsel. ing; the East, West and Near West Side Clinics; V.D. Clinic; Planned Parenthood; Women's Self Help Clinic; Rape Crisis Center; the abortion counseling services of the Free Clinics and Abortion Clinics, as well as the political aid of the Emergency Abortion Task Force.

Struggles of working women are being brought into the forefront by the Cleveland Council of Union Women plus the various child day care centers and committees around the city. Groups involved in working towards political and legal changes affecting Cleveland women include: Wornen Speak Out for Peace and Justice, NOW, Women's Political Caucus, Women's Law Fund, Women's Equity Action League, Welfare Rights, Gay Activists Wornen's Caucus, Socialist Workers Party, Cornmunist Party, Youth Against War and Fascism, plus a number of University Women's Liberation student and faculty groups.

On the personal level, there are many worthwhile activities for women such as Cleveland Women's Counseling which offers a diversified range of counseling and referral services, and Wornen for Awareness which arranges cousciousness raising groups. The Cleveland Women Artists' Slide Registry, Women's Poetry Collective, Big Mama Poetry Group, as well as What She Wants newspaper and the Feminist Forum are some of the

earth

other many varied women's groups in Cleveland.

The need to effectively integrate and establish a balanced perspective of the intensive, varied work of all these groups is one which is not only present in the Cleveland community but on a movement-wide basis as well. While it is a mistake to undermine the work of one group as opposed to another it is also a mistake to waste valuable time and energy searching for the "Golden Experience" for the "Ideal Liberated Woman." As members of a society, women are effected by every realm of society; therefore each personal experience is relative to their percep tions, desires and roles in that society. For instance, a woman involved in a radical pol. itical party is no more or less devoted than a woman who is an active member of a "CR" group or a union activist who serves on committees with men.

There is a harmful tendency to polarize these groups and struggles which not only ultimately affect all of us but are in our same basic interests. The reason for this is that the one common experience we all share is that of OPPRESSION; and oppres sion comes in many shapes and forms. To impose an ideal or single goal of feminism and expend all our energy in working toward this ideal or goal is counter-productive. For instance, while the progressive provisions of the ERA cannot be denied, it would be foolish to delude ourselves that its ratifica tion would be a panacea and end all of women's oppression. Twenty years have passed since the Civil Rights Act was passed yet our Black Sisters and Brothers are still not given equal opportunities. Even as our sisters struggled nearly a century ago during the Suffragist movement and were successful in getting the vote, their bodies and minds were still in bondage.

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page 10/What She Wants/September 1974

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The same situation exists today resulting in the need for a broad, affirmative and integrated approach. Even if we

receive "equal pay for equal work" or ex. panded educational opportunities, or twentyfour hour day care centers, how can we guarantee that we will not remain victims of rape, or be censored from choosing our own sexuality or be ashamed of our anger, frustrations, joys and sorrows,

Secretaries (cont. from pg. 8) She had left the farm to seek her fortune (husband) in the world of business only to be segregated by sex and class in the office and back stairways of her company by day and in a strictly supervised residence club or rooming house by night. As women realized that the need for female labor in the office would never decrease, they became, as did the "flappers," less concerned about their behavior.

Office workers continued to grow rapidly in numbers but slowly in status. During the Depression, women were denied promotions on the grounds that they were taking jobs away from the male breadwinners. This situation was, of course, temporarily reversed in all job categories during World War II, when the demand for labor was so great that even married women were given the call. When the men returned, however, "persuasive propaganda was needed to make women accept their demotion and their renewed lack of opportunity, and this is the reason for the intense propagation of the suburban myth, the consumer myth, the motherhood myth, and the rest of the ideology that trapped Betty Friedan's fellow housewives." Historically, the employment of women has been dictated by economic convenience.

Today, office work is the largest single female occupation, employing seven and a half million women. Three-fifths of female high school graduates and 10% of the col. lege graduates who don't become teachers become secretarial and clerical workers.

"It has been an article of feminist faith that when women achieved the right to work, their economic independence would inexorably lead to equality in every sphere. But women in offices act out the roles that women have always played-those of wives, mothers and mistresses" in addition to end lessly performing the mind-numbing paperwork of the American bureaucracy.

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