LOCAL NEWS

Cleveland Women Take Back The Night

We wish to express our gratitude to all who stopped by the Take Back the Night booth at the Hessler Street Fair for your support of our ongoing attempt to end violence against women. Enthusiasm for new members to join the coalition was at a high. It was also very heartening to see that our senior women were very supportive.

Take Back the Night T-shirts can be purchased at the Rape Crisis Center and Coventry Books on the east side, and Six Steps Down and Tish's Shoe Repair on the west side. The price is $4.00.

About the March

Our march is based on principles, supports for ongoing work, and demands. The principles listed below are affirmations of the rights we believe all women have, but have been denied. They are principles rather than demands because we do not believe that reforms, if granted by the state, will ultimately end violent attacks on women. Women must work together to make the necessary changes.

Principles

1. At present, women's fear of verbal harassment, criticism for being on the street, physical assault and rape has severely limited our freedom to leave our homes and workplaces and go where we want to, in safety. Women have the right to be on the street when we choose, where we choose and with whom we choose, without being subject to attack or threat.

II. The threat of male violence, both physical and psychological, is always with us, on the street, in our homes and workplaces. Women have a right to fight

LETTERS

The article "Professionalism in Nursing" was provocative. Must state that I was a returnee to the BSN program before I even knew about the 1985 proposal. However, is education nursing's biggest enemy? Possibly there are other areas to explore as well-is nursing capable of a "commonality"....

New York Reader

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for Cleveland's very finest newspaper. I look forward each month to my issue, as it has become an essential part of my life as a relative newcomer to the women's community.

Thank you for letting me know that the women in Cleveland are indeed alive and well! I have lived here all my life and until I first saw a copy of WSW, I never knew this town was so great....

Terry Bullen

vu.. against the violence directed toward us by all reasonable means necessary,

III. Women have had less access to physical education than men and often haven't developed our physical strength to allow us to feel confident of being able to protect ourselves. Women have the right to access to self defense. Self defense classes should be easily accessible and within our control in our schools, neighborhoods and community centers.

IV. Incidents of violence against women, such as rape and battering, often are seen by others and overlooked because it is viewed as a personal issue, or, something which is only between the violent man and his female victim. On the contrary, violence against any woman hurts us all. No man has the right under any circumstances to abuse, physically or emotionally, any woman.

V. We have been denied knowledge of and control over our physical beings. For instance, in health care, particularly gynecological matters, we are not allowed to know what is happening with our bodies, or we are used for experiments and have no say in procedures done to us by male doctors. Women have the right to control our own bodies, and our own sexuality.

VI. We are assaulted every day by sterotypical images of women in magazines, on TV, on billboards, etc. We are pressured to fit ourselves into narrow and repressive roles, denying who we are as individuals. We reclaim the right to determine our own sexual and social identities.

VII. Economic independence has been unavailable to most women. Consequently, women are forced to -remain in low paying, exploitative and boring jobs. Many women are kept out of the workforce altogether by direct discrimination or indirectly through lack of skills. Women have thus been forced to remain in battering situations, continuing to endanger their lives and those of their children, because their economic livelihood depends on the violent husband or lover. Women on welfare are kept in an ever vulnerable position by the threat of welfare cutbacks. and the hardship of survival on a less than survival sum of money. And some women, without any means of support, are forced to live on the street-ever-present potential victims of violence. Economic independence for women is a necessary factor in realizing our right to self-determination and enabling us to stop being victims of men's and institutional violence.

I recently returned to Cleveland after an absence of several months and one of the first wonderful things to happen was the Holly Near concert.

Thank you for the informative review of Holly and J.T. I admire your paper....I guess for me, reading WSW is kind of like coming home....

Patricia Black

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your article that appeared in the May issue. I truly appreciate your efforts on my behalf. I found Linda's writing and Janet's pictures clear and concise, a.id the paper as a whole professionally produced.

Enclosed is my check for a long overdue subscription to the paper.

--Cleo Ferguson

Happy Seventh, What She Wants!

Page 2/What She Wants/June, 1979

DEMONSTRATE FOR CHOICE

A march and rally for reproductive rights will be held Saturday, June 23, in Cincinnati to protest the National Right to Life Convention. The rally will open with a speak-out from women victimized by the results of "Right-to-Life" political pressures-back alley abortions necessitated by the refusal of Medicaid funds for abortions (as a result of the Hyde Amendment) and sterilizations promoted by a government program.

Speakers will include: Rhonda Copelon (Center for Constitutional Rights), Fran Kissling (co-author of Rosie Jimanez, Investigation of a Wrongful Death), Helen Mulholland (Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, Ohio), and others. There will also be music by Meg Christian and Therese Edell.

Pro-choice activists will meet at 2:00 p.m. at Washington Park (12th and Race).

For further information, especially on bus transportation from Cleveland to Cincinnati, call Cheryl Jensen (Cleveland Abortion Rights Action League), 226-8990, or Education for Freedom of Choice in Ohio, 579-0028.

ANN GAYLOR:

No More "Nice-Nice"

Feminist author and abortion rights activist Ann Gaylor of Wisconsin brought an energizing influence to Cleveland pro-choice supporters and left behind some harsh words for those seeking to limit a woman's right to choose abortion.

In several appearances in early May sponsored by Education for Freedom of Choice in Ohio (EFCO). the Reproductive Freedom Coalition, and the CSU Women's Alliance, Ms. Gaylor challenged her audience to recognize that the "Right-to-Life" movement is better labeled a "Women's Death" movement. She pointed out that, since the Supreme Court decision in 1973, those seeking to limit access to abortion have shifted the focus away from the lives of women to the supposed rights of the fetus.

Ms. Gaylor is proud to be labeled pro-abortion rather than pro-choice. She reminded audiences that for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, abortion is a blessing. The availability of abortion is not a convenience for women. For the victim of rape or incest, the woman carrying a defective fetus or one facing social or economic pressure, abortion is a blessing. Certainly it is an absolute need in a society which still lacks safe and effective methods of birth control.

Gaylor believes that the current attack on abortion rights in particular and the women's movement in general is part of a furious effort by fundamentalist churches (as well as Roman Catholic, Mormon and others) to maintain institutionalized sexism. The idea that another party can force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is appalling. Catholic women, she pointed out, have more abortions than any other single group.

In her closing remarks Gaylor urged listeners to stop playing "nice-nice" with the opposition. Socalled "Right-to-Life" groups are costing women their lives, by limiting access to abortion and birth control. They are using pregnancy as a means to punish women for their sexuality. Their tactics are neither fair nor honest. Consequently pro-choice supporters must be vocal and aggressive in their strategy.

Gaylor's appearances in Cleveland left everyone a little stronger and a little more courageous.

-Christine Link