A CHALLENGE TO FEMINISTS

VIEW POINT

By Gail Powers

Feminists surely recognize that women have experienced more than enough self-destructive and suicidal behavior-bistorically the most condoned form of anger permitted to them. Yet, feminists continue to smoke cigarettes. Unless one successfully has blocked out any information readily available on the hazards of cigarette smoking, ignorance of smoking's dangers is impossible. In the 15 years since the original Report of the Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health to the U.S. Surgeon General in 1964, over 30,000 articles have been written on the relationship of tobacco consumption and health.

In both men and women, smoking has been shown to cause premature death. Smokers can produce illness, disability, and any number of acute, chronic, or fatal diseases in themselves. For instance, women who smoke subject themselves to more cardiovascular disease, such as coronary heart disease. Women can impair their pulmonary function and increase their chance of disease and premature death with respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, or emphysema. Then there's the most time-tested of all-lung cancer-which appears as if it will become the leader in cancer deaths in women in the next ten years. The list could go on and on, to include discases such as bladder cancer or peptic ulcer disease. Until recently, most studies have been done on male smokers. But with an increase of studies done on female smokers, and the smoking habits of women becoming more like the smoking habits of men, there will likely be an increase in the evidence of women's self-destruction through cigarette smoking.

Perhaps a feminist who smokes can bear her discomfort about what she is doing to herself, or, at times, ignore her addiction. Perhaps she can separate her own self-destructive behavior from her political effort to end the victimization of women. Can she

OFF MY BREAST

By Christine Haynes

separate her commitment to end violence against women from her own perpetration of violence to others?

For I contend that cigarette smoking is a violent act against non-smokers when committed in enclosed spaces. It causes varying degrees of discomfort and suffering to those violated, who are known as "passive," "second-hand" or "involuntary" smokers. Many involuntary smokers (myself included) who are sensitive to or suffer allergic reactions

C. Sller

from cigarette smoke can attest to the physical discomfort of irritated eyes, nose, and throat, or the headaches and nausea caused by inhaling air polluted by cigarette smoke.

There are about 4,000 compounds generated by a lighted cigarette, with 30 major components suspected of eausing a health hazard-even to the

healthy non-smoker. Two of the most lethal products of a burning cigarette are carbon monoxide, which cuts down on the function of hemoglobin to transport oxygen throughout the body, and nicotine, an extremely toxic chemical which affects the cardiovascular and central nervous systems. Some of the other components of cigarette smoke which affect non-smokers are benzoprene (a carcinogen), nitrogen dioxide (an acutely irritating gas which reduces the efficiency of the major cleansing mechanism of the respiratory tract), hydrogen cyanide (an enzyme poison), benzene (an industrial solvent), formaldahyde (a chemical for pickling biological specimens), hydrogen sulphide (a flammable poisonous gas found in putrefying matter), and cadmium (a substance which damages the air sacs of lungs and causes emphysema).

Studies show neither air conditioners nor air purifiers can clear tobacco smoke pollutants from the air. In enclosed areas, even with adequate ventilation, enough carbon monoxide can be produced to be well above the Ambient Air Quality Standard. Studies have shown these levels of carbon monoxide adversely to affect people who have certain cardiovascular diseases. Studies have also shown changes in involuntary smokers' psychomotor function, especially their attentiveness and cognitive function. I have seen pregnant women, when made aware that cigarette smoking during pregnancy causes a reduction in fetal growth and birth weight of babies, summon the power to break their addiction, only to renew it after their baby is born. Research shows that in children of parents who smoke, bronchitis and pneumonia are more common during their first year of life than in children of non-smokers.

It is especially frustrating to me to feminists-women who have devoted a great part of their lives to end the victimization and violence

The Courage to be a Mother

Last week I had my IUD removed. It was due to come out in June (after three successful years) but it was late August before I had the courage to do it.

That act marked my decision to have a child. I don't think I have ever made a more difficult decision-one which continues to bring up questions.

I am 28 years old and a feminist. I am a college graduate and a self-employed piano tuner-technician with a talent and the drive to succeed. I have lived for four years with a man who constantly supports my selfhood and refuses to kowtow to the veteran selfdoubts which still haunt me from time to time. He understands and performs his equal responsibilities as co-homemaker and co-wage-earner. We work at not restricting each other's freedom and individuality. We've talked extensively about how both of us need to be involved in parenting and not in traditionally male-female ways. Damn it, we're different! So why was that so defensive?!

I really want children (2.2, of course). I want to expand this family and I look forward to all the sharing, learning, growth and caring we can experience. I know it will be hard—will people please stop reminding me of that? I know our lives will be altered. We will be in great demand. We won't be able to go out as impulsively. We will have another person to love. Believe me, I've held both verbal and silent debates on the subject, of having children. Fred and I talk about how much responsibility it entails-the time, money and the emotional energy. We've told ourselves all the right things. “We'll make mistakes.

Page 6/What She Wants/October, 1979

Parenthood will have its ups and downs. The world may not be a great place to raise a child."

Then, as I sit reading a Good Housekeeping magazine, I feel scared. I feel the energy being drained from me. I envision my life around the TV. I fantasize Fred coming home from out of town-kissing me and the baby, eating and collapsing into bed. I see my tuning, my singing, my writing, my thinking suspended as if covered with gauze or seen through the murkiness of anesthesia. I feel as if I'm sinking....sinking.

I can feel the ancient lethargy tugging at me-as if after all these years of fighting to feel my strength and realize I am in charge, that this step, motherhood, is one of resignation.

I understand my fears. Out of a sincere desire to grow a family into my very fulfilling life, I, like so many other women, will be immersed in a condition which has been used to oppress us historically. "Anatomy is destiny," and so on and so on. Obviously this oppression is still very alive. Otherwise, daycare centers would be an integral part of every office building. Men would be allowed paternity leave. Women would be paid enough to support a family on their income alone. People would stop telling me, and not Fred, that my life is shot for the next 20 years!

We

What has emerged is a bittersweet decision to go ahead. We want à family partly because remember our own families. There were tender and fun times...and for all the painful times and restrictive socialization, we've grown up just fine and are now very close to our families. In a way, we even owe

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the world our children. However selfish that may sound, we who have worked so hard at self-act alization-the feminists, humanists, civil rights ac

tivists--we who are so careful to carve a rational lifestyle in an irrational world-we are precisely the ones who offer hope for future children. We are also.

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