COMMENTARY:

The Magician And Her Tricks

What happens when an organized, militant movement which threatens our rights as women appropriates our feminist language and uses it for devious ends? We have seen our feminist values co-opted time after time. Large corporations, seeking to broaden their markets, pretend to promote women's liberation by advertising for the newly-emerging assertive woman. Branches of the military, entrenched in an aggressively competitive value system, appeal to the image of the female soldier, curiously exploring her world, in their slick recruitment ads. These efforts can mystify feminism, transforming a potentially radical ideology into an ethic of romantic individualism.

On October 6, the CSU “Students for Life" and the Student Government sponsored a debate on the issue of abortion before a capacity audience. Karen Mulhauser, Executive Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, was invited to Cleveland for this event, to debate with Anne O'Donnell, Vice President of the National Right to Life Committee. Both sides vehemently made predictable charges and rebuttals on the politics of abortion. Karen Mulhauser, it seemed to me, spoke assertively and behaved "humanely'' -in the sense that she argued and reacted to the content of the discussion in ways that demonstrated what she is like as a person in most contexts. Ann O'Donnell, on the other hand, pursued her goal dramatically, using emotionally-charged imagery and speaking in tightly controlled expressions. We did not really know this she wore an efficient mask and behaved in person; the role of debater. Because we seem to be conditioned early on to be impressed by dramatic style, regardless of fact and content, I felt afraid that her stern delivery and unshakeable demeanor would sway newcomers to her side.

What

But more than her style worries me. surfaces as a new strategy in this debate appears to be the clever use of feminist thought and language as a method of gaining support from those who are new to women's liberation. Anne O'Donnell characterized young women as a "generation of women exploited" to fit into a system of male sexuality, declaring that we don't fit in if we're pregnant or feel labile emotions. The "true feminist,

O'Donnell claimed, should refuse further sexual intercourse with men until safer contraception is discovered and unless a concrete commitment to the unborn child is made. Abortion negates the "full expression of our parenthood," she charged angrily. "Our biology should be respected because we are special," said the wolf in feminist clothing. Those women who value feminism in its recognized forms, she vowed, are really "pseudo-feminists" because they are deceived into identification with the oppressor, acting out their anger against males in the form of abortive violence against the innocent unborn child. Pregnant women, O'Donnell pleaded, are shuffled with male-chauvinistic glee into abortion clinics and are transformed into hollow but potentially useful sex objects. What we really need, the argument concludes, is a "true feminist strike" to reverse the Supreme Court decision which gave men the right to be slave-driver. The woman who uses an IUD is a "fool".

Steaming with anger I watched this woman try to steal my language and my values, by abstracting one part of an idea, one grain of the whole kernel, and then distort the meaning of feminist for ulterior ends. This process is called co-optation. The method is rhetorical and single-minded. And the goal is the end of our freedom as women.

--

Carol Epstein

On June 19, 1953

the Government of the United States executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

ON THE DOUBLE EXECUTION OF ETHEL ROSENBERG

Once was enough for Julius, They only had to send the electricity Raging through his body once, But Ethel did not die After the first coursing of current. The initial jolt electrified her brain,

Made her bladder and sphincter lose control,

But it didn't stop her heart. So they had to do it again. They had to kill her until she was dead. Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of conspiracy. Conspire means "to breathe

together"'

Found guilty of being the typist in a Communist plot. These were the crimes

For which Ethel Rosenberg

Was sent to her death.

It was said that there was other evidence That the State could not present.

Evidence that she was "the Queen Bee

In a hive of Communist workers."' The prosecution said there was Incontrovertible proof

That they just could not use, After all, the D.A. had made a deal With other "spies":

Immunity in exchange for -sufficient State's evidence To convict the Rosenbergs.

So the charges that were brought against Ethel Were limited to just what was necessary

To send her to the chair.

They said that she typed up the notes

drawing by Gene Epstein

Of a conversation between her husband and a "spy" They said she was a Communist.

They said her husband was a Communist. They said her friends were Communists. They said that she had spoken out Against "Amerikan justice". Ethel Rosenberg was put to her death Because she didn't fit in.

Ethel Rosenberg was sentenced to die

For being too Jewish, for not assimilating, not taking her

In machine Democrat politics.

Ethel Rosenberg got the chair because her man Was too far to the left.

Ethel Rosenberg owed her life to the State Because her own beliefs

Were too far to the left.

For being a typist The State

on behalf of its people Executed Ethel Rosenberg -Twice.

place

Barbara Ruth "'from the belly of the Beast" a book of poems

c/o The Four Zoas Press, Box 461, Ware, Mass., 01082

Lessons Learned in Political Repression

On October 21, 1978, over 300 people gathered at CSU's University Center Auditorium for the first public showing of Commonworks' multi-media presentation in commemoration of the U.S. Government executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 25 years ago. The show reconstructs the McCarthyist America that allowed the government to condemn the Rosenbergs, but also suggests that there are parallels between the repression of that era and the threat of right-wing forces today. Women and men from a wide range of ages, races and progressive political stances shared, while many relived, the drama of these American dissenters who were denied their right to a life worth living.

Commonworks is a group of local artists using their skills to produce progressive political cultural works. Gene Epstein, Carol Epstein, Jesse Epstein, Steve Cagan and Jim Miller succeeded in creating an

enlightening human document of American political repression in operation. Hopefully many more people across the country will view this presentation and learn that we cannot sit by and let it happen.

Following the presentation, Michael Meeropol, eldest son of the Rosenbergs, provided the audience with a detailed look at the state of the Freedom of Information Act, which he and his brother Robert are using to obtain the FBI files on their parents' case. Michael represents a New York-based organization called Fund for Open Information and Accountability, Inc. (FOIA, Inc.), which helps movement individuals and groups learn how to use the Freedom of Information Act efficiently.

For information, contact Commonworks at 932-1422.

-by Marycatherine Krause

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November, 1978/What She Wants/Page 3