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TIDBIT:

BOOS, BRAVOS

AND TIDBITS

Thoughts after watching Roots for the second time: When will one of the major networks do a major mini-series like this: "This season's Super Blockbuster, Patriarchy, a fictionalized account of the 3,000-year struggle of women against their ruthless (and sometimes intimate) oppressors! A story that will leave 53 percent of the population shocked, shaken. and angry!

BRAVO: To the Parma elementary schoolteacher who talked to her class about women choosing their own names, describing options from hyphenation to making up a name.

BRAVO: To Upstream,, a two-year-old Canadian women's newspaper, which has gone nationwide with distribution in 16 Canadian cities. The bilingual newspaper, printed in French and English, concentrates on items centering on violence against women and working women.

BRAVO: To The Milk Depot, this year's women's softball champion in Cleveland Heights.

By the Bionic Bitches

BRAVO: To June Adams, Oven Productions coordinator who is on tour with the Izquierda Ensemble for two months. June will be their road manager and sound technician for the group's National Fall Tour.

BRAVO: And Welcome to Evelyn Hayes, who will be the Oven Interim Coordinator. She is planning Oven's season opener in December, Sweet Honey in the Rock. Evelyn brings a lot of experience in organization, theatre, film, art and promotion to Oven, as well as fresh ideas and energy.

BOO:

To the Kucinich Administration for its blatant attempt to co-opt the leftists of Cleveland by sending a representative to the showing of the movie. "The Battle of Chile," who compared the attempted recall of Kucinich to the coup d'etat which overthrew Allende.

BRAVO: To Linda Batway, moving force in Women's Self-Help Movement in Cleveland, who just had her first baby. Although it was a long, hard delivery and she was unable to have the baby at home as planned, she is doing fine.

Open Letter to the Michigan Women's Music Festival Collective

Editors' Note: We understand that there was a comp ground for male children ten miles away from the main campsite. However, it was not publicized in any of the advance literature from the WWTM Collective that we received, and we doubt that this provision would have satisfied most mothers' needs.

Last year many women did not attend the festival because of the regulations placed on male children, and as

a result on the mothers of those children. (Male children, according to the leaflet put out by the collective, were not allowed in certain areas of the camp.) Apparently the

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In fact, women who attended said that these rules were never enforced. But regardless of the absence of a follow-through, the political message was clear. Mothers of male children were not as welcome as other women to attend the festival.

This year the collective has gone one step further by. disallowing male children over the age of six, entirely. It saddens us deeply to see elitism, classism, sexism and traditional heterosexist oppression of mothers exhibited so clearly by a collective of our sisters. The purpose of this letter is to express the reasons for our anger and demand a clearer explanation of why such a decision was made.

The most obvious result of this "ruling" is that mothers can not attend. Some women may be able to afford childcare while they are gone, but those number precious few. Even so, this additional cost is totally unjust.

Secondly, it is essential that male children be able to witness woman-energy so that they can incorporate our lifestyles into their perceptions of, and desires for, their own futures. As feminists, we constantly point out the atrocities committed by men. We must be able to show our sons how life can be different in this new world. If we exclude them, it is not our sons who will suffer, for they have the whole world, but our daughters, for having to face a generation of men no different from the generation we deal with every day of our lives.

Thirdly, oppression based on sex, class, age or race is not justifiable for any group at any time. We are forced to fight men in this culture. Self-defense is clearly a separate issue. But children are not our enemies and if we do not

make them our allies, we are fighting a one-generational battle; a battle which can in no way be called feminist. We anticipate your reply.

In struggle,

Marjory Ackerman, Laura Carstensen, Mary Hall, Susan Plunkett, Sylvia Gosop, Diana Viele, Lena Warwick Rochester, N.Y.

Rights for Women Prisoners

Two hundred people, mostly women, demonstrated outside the gates of Bedford Hills Women's Prison, a state prison outside New York City, on August 27, 1978. The protest was organized in support of a long season of activity by women inside, including a one-day strike on July 10 in which 350 out of 450 prisoners participated.

The prisoners' demands include:

Removal of the medical department from prison administration control. (A Federal court in December, 1977 upheld the prisoners' charges of "inadequate and irresponsible" medical care against corrections.)

Removal of male guards from prisoners' living quarters.

Removal of Prison Superintendent Phyllis Curry for her callous disregard of our human rights and well-being".

Ending keeplock without hearings (where women are confined to their cells for indefinite periods of time without recreation or showers).

Ending of reprisals against entire housing units. Allowing free flow of all legal and personal mail in and out of Bedford.

Keeping the telephone room open during the required time.

Rolling back commissary prices for daily necessities.

Substantially increasing the wage scale (of $.35 to $1.15 per day. Most women make only $5 a week, while costs for commissary necessities can run as high as $20 a week.).

Providing non-sexist vocational training and access to skilled jobs such as carpentry, wiring and plumbing.

Page 12/What'She Wants/October, 1978