Dottie Dodgion: Bridging the Jazz Gap

BITS & PIECES

(Her Say)—Dottie Dodgion, a jazz drummer who has worked with such artists as Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, Zoot Sims and Marian McPartland, says that despite the increasing number of women jazz musicians, there are still large gaps in jazz training for women. According to Dodgion, "Women just don't have the opportunity to get experience, and the

Burn, Fat, Burn!

(Her Say)-When it comes to marathons, muscle doesn't matter. Dr. Joan Ullyott, a inarathoner and author of Women Running, recently talked about the differences between men and women runners at a

running conference in San Francisco. She said that men try to muscle their way through marathons, adding that the mile, and even the six-mile race, is a muscle dependent distance. However, the marathon is a fat dependent distance, which explains why women do better running long distances.

Ullyott explained that women are born betteradapted to burn body fat than men, but men can train their bodies to burn body fat better and can also learn to pace themselves better. She feels women have an easier time going slow because they haven't heard all their lives, "If you don't do it fast and hard, it doesn't do any good."

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guys don't want you to play with them." She adds, however, that male resistance to female musicians ES lessening because so many girls are now playing in high school stage bands.

Dodgion performed recently with guitarist Mary Osborne at a women's jazz festival in Dearborn, Michigan. At another such festival, the Second Annual Women's Jazz Festival at Kansas City, Missouri, the Combo Contest was won by Aerial, a women's jazz quartet from New York, which competed against 13 other combos from nine states. Also performing at the Kansas City festival for a crowd of 2500 were vocalist Carmen McRae, trombonist Melba Liston and pianist Marian McPartland.

No Safety in Separation

(Her Say)-Separation from her husband may not spell safety for a battered wife, according to a recent study of 142 women in New York City. The study showed that separations themselves often brought on beatings. A majority of the battered women studied had already left their husbands. However, fully half the group charged that their spouses had threatened to kill or wound them.

2,4,5-T On Trial Again

(Her Say)-Miscarriages occurred at nearly twice the national rate in Benny, California after forests surrounding the small town were repcatedly sprayed with the herbicide 2,4,5-T. A study by the San Jose Mercury shows that 6 of 21, or nearly a third, of the pregnancies in Benny since 1974 ended in miscarriage. Between 1974 and 1976, the forests around Benny were sprayed three times with the powerful herbicide, which contains dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical which has been called "the most powerful carcinogen known to man". Its use as a forest spray was banned in March, 1979 after women in Alsea, Oregon reported high rates of miscarriages which they blamed on the spray.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Pending Federal Legislation

HR 1039-"Homemakers Social Security Benefits Act." Would provide social security coverage for homemakers.

HR 2650-Would establish a working spouse's Social Security benefit and eliminate gender-based discrimination in the Social Security Act.

HR 2682-Would provide for a HEW-administered program for the prevention and treatment of domestic violence.

HR 2977-"Domestic Violence Prevention and Services Act." Would create a national clearinghouse on domestic violence, would fund a national media campaign, and would review federal, state and local programs about domestic violence.

HR 3005 (S 464)—Would allow employers a tax credit for hiring displaced homemakers.

Pending State Legislation

Am.H.B.150-Would eliminate the female labor laws to bring the laws in compliance with a 1972 Ohio

Supreme Court decision regarding protective labor laws for women.

Am.H.B.230—Would make discrimination on the basis of age (40-70) unlawful.

Am.S.B.46-Would provide $10.00 tax to marriage licenses to be used to support shelters for victims of domestic violence.

HJR 24-Resolution to memorialize the federal Congress not to support cutbacks in Social Security benefits as proposed in the President's 1980 budget.

S.B. 11-Would prohibit storage of nuclear wastes in Ohio.

H.B. 498-Would monitor nuclear plants for safety and responsibility.

Write to your state representative, State House, Columbus, Ohio 43215, and urge them to support these bills.

Excerpted from Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice, WIC Status Report (April, 1979), and Greater Cleveland Nurses Association

SECOND CITY

MSjudged in N.H.

(Her Say)-A federal judge has ruled that a New Hampshire school board violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when it banned Ms. Magazine from a high school library in March, 1978. The judge ordered the school board last week to replace back issues of the feminist publication in the library and to resubscribe to the magazine.

The school board had contended that Ms. was "'obscene" because it contained information on birth control, sex, and lesbian relationships. The judge, however, ruled that the magazines were “not obscene within any recognized definitions."

Witches Egged

(Her Say)-Male spectators complaining of "female noise" hit marching women with flour sifters and eggs at a Walpurgis Night demonstration in West Germany on April 30, the date of an ancient witches' Sabbath. On that night in olden times, flying witches were said to fill the skies. More than 2,000 women in Frankfurt celebrated by parading under the slogan, "We won't be victims any more".

Several of the male hecklers found themselves in fist fights with the demonstrators.

Another Abortion Loss

(Her Say)-The U.S. Supreme Court recently left intact a Massachusetts law that restricts the use of state money for abortions. The action clears the way for state officials to cut off state aid for most women on welfare who want abortions. The law matches a federal amendment approved by Congress in 1977.

Childless, Not Childish

(Her Say)-Married women who reject motherhood are as happy and as well-adjusted as women who want babies, according to a recent study by Dr. Judith Gus Teicholz, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Teicholz said she did the survey because scientific and fictional literature depicts childless women as immature and neurotic.

The study involved 35 married women between the ages of 23 and 38 who had decided against having children. Teicholz found that "all the women who never wanted to have children had given their decision serious thought." The women were described as highly achieving and intelligent, happy in their relationships with their husbands, and content with their lifestyles. They had, however, an overwhelming sense of how much time good parenting took.

Dr. Teicholz said she hopes the survey will help erase the image that childless women are neurotic and immature.

June, 1979/What She Wants/Page 5