Carolyn Bird -

Women in the Business World

Carolyn Bird, although presenting us with an accurate picture of women's ommission from the U.S. business world, conveyed a disturbing perspective in her talk given on November 9th as part of an all day program at CWRU on working women especially in her closing remarks. Ms. Bird preferred to concentrate on the angle of getting a few women up the ladder of success, all the while evading the question of the revolutionary implications of the women's movement and its goal of changing the basic nature of our society which could not function without sexism. Ms. Bird, speaking on women in the business world said that, Women achieve in very specific areas of the economy, where they are permitted to achieve. In this connection she was in the process of drawing up a sex map of women in the business world for her forthcoming book on enterprising women. She is already the author of Born Female The High Price of Keeping Women Down and Everything A woman Needs to Know to Get Paid What She's Worth.

According to a study of wage scales, Ms. Bird noted, the pay of women in any occupation is close to the mean. Women don't get merit raises. Her definition of a woman's job was anything you can't get a man to do for the money. She said it didn't have anything to do with the feminine sphere. For instance, delivering babies or delivering Kotex offer money, so they are men's jobs.

Ms. Bird said that, Women are not supposed to be in business because they are not supposed to make money. But, she noted, anything is permissible for the sake of the family, and if the man of the family dies, women are then justified in making money. She said that most women who succeed do so by way of a family situation that permits them to, and that ac cording to a survey by Fortune magazine of the 10 most successful women in business, they are most often women who are inheritors of a business started by a man in the family.

Women have had to create paying jobs within the traditional division of labor secre tarial jobs, bookkeeping, training the trainees, and buffering hostilities at the complaint desk to name a few, according to Ms. Bird. Women's roles in industries are extensions of what women did in the home. She felt that women

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should take advantage of this fact and had done so already to some extent, noting that women founders of businesses were often in the field of secretarial agencies, etc.

Talent is androgenous, she said, but it is first necessary to break down the existing sex stereotypes by getting a few women into new fields or to"feminize"them. Then, she felt, more women could proceed to work their way in and up. She noted that a large proportion of women making over $10,000 or $15,000

a year had come up as handmaidens to the boss. She indicated that working in these ways women would eventually be accepted into the business world.

She ended her remarks by vehemently stating that women should not let themselves be used as tools of a revolution. I could not help but agree with one audience member who wondered aloud if perhaps Ms. Bird herself wasn't being used, or if perhaps Ms. Bird had turned chicken.

AN EVENING FOR

Preterm of Cleveland, a non-profit, tax exempt abortion clinic, held the first "Evening for Women" in November, an event which will be repeated with a more in-depth format in the spring. The evening featured discussions, demonstrations and film in a small group type setting. The clinic opened up its own facilities and created a woman's place, a sort of center or meeting place for one night, and it felt and looked good and happy, judging from the approximately 40 smiling faces.

That evening was the beginning of what Preterm has had in mind for their clinic as long as it has been open. While functioning primarily as an abortion center, their approach has always been to deal with the whole woman, Within that context, teaching and sharing information about how our bodies function and how we can control our reproductive capacity exactly suits their goals.

After a mini-social period, a Preterm worker introduced the other Pretermers in the room and gave a short history of the clinic and its purposes. We were then given the option to attend any of the following groups:

1) birth control and abortion

2) health and nutrition

3) pregnancy and childbirth

4) sexuality and sensuality

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5) self-exams breast and gynocological 6) turning yourself on masturbation Each woman who was to lead or facilitate a group explained the plan for her topic, and

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most were open enough to ask for ideas, contributions from those participating.

Everything sounded inviting; many of us expressed a desire to go to all or several of the groups. That being impossible, we divided into various rooms, the WSW reporter ending up in Sexuality and Sensuality workshop. We all chose a relaxed position, closed our eyes and reminisced while a series of questions were posed. The effort was to help us reconstruct how we first learned about our bodies and our femaleness, the ideas and attitudes we formed in childhood and teenage years. We then talked of our memories. It was a good exchange nearly everyone present contributed some thing.

A second exercise had us again close our eyes and visualize ourselves alone nude in a place where we are comfortable. There is a mirror there and we examine and enjoy viewing ourself, then someone enters how did we feel? Could we explain? Share our experience with her or him? Because of time, we did not really develop this discussion, but that was obviously a disappointment for many of us who left the room discussing our feelings.

Reports from the other rooms were enthusiastic. The questionnaire/evaluation given to us seemed to be primarily positive and encour. aging Preterm to continue and expand upon this idea, WSW would like to add our encouragement as well information gained and exchanged in such a setting can only succeed in advancing women's health, mentally and physically.

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