WomenSpace Annual Meeting

by Carol Epstein

In high school I never seemed to fit neatly into any of the dozens of peer groups which, over the years, remade their membership with remarkable speed. Instead I would circulate-and watch. Always intrigued by the way in which kids were accepted, allowed to remain, or excluded from a particular group, I myself felt stifled by the pettiness, and sometimes the cruelty, of those tightly-knit clusters. One thing characterized those groups: each member's perception that their special activity was "where it was at.

In some ways we never really leave high school. When I first moved to Cleveland four years ago I got the "lowdown" on WomenSpace from every imaginable perspective. To some, WomenSpace represented the leader which guided the direction of the Cleveland women's movement and a safe refuge where all women could meet. To others it was a middle-class pacifier for reformists, or even the ignorant tool of a corporate establishment which, a la Hough riots '66, funded token organizations in order to defuse and contain the radical potential of womenpower. About that time many grassroots women's groups were in the process of either giving up or deciding whether to give up their membership in the WomenSpace Coalition. So again I spent time moving among the various groups, hoping to gain a sense of what brings women together and what divides them.

--Attending the 5th annual meeting of the WomenSpace Coalition was, for me, returning to a place which for the most part looked the same. The office space has an official yet cordial ambience. maintained in part by a monthly rent exceeding $1,000 (an annual sum of $15,649 for rent and utilities in 1979). Everyone seemed to be greeted warmly by WomenSpace officials who literally had been running since 8 A.M. and who knows for how long prior to the day of the meeting. Well-dressed people held foam coffee, cups, looking casually professional and talking in small groups. Many public figures, male and female, running for re-election or holding government jobs, were introduced and applauded with enthusiasm. There was a significant proportion of black women but very few obviously working-class or poor women.

Doris Geist, President of WomenSpace, welcomed everyone with a hopeful summary of its status and past year's activities: the Women's Help Line; Women in Appointed Office Project; Women's Equity Planning Project; educational programs, e.g., "Seeking Solutions: A Day for Working Women" and "Racism & Sexism;" involvement with Cleveland Women Take Back the Night; EFCO's Legislative Workshop; and several other projects. Concerning its financial status, Geist reported on the two robberies WomenSpace suffered and its many problems in obtaining an accurate audit of its accounts. She also reported that the Gund Foundation turned down a grant to pay for the salary of a financial development coordinator, but an anonymous donor made a gift of $24,000 shortly after. In regard to the public image of WomenSpace, Geist mentioned that some people have identified it with one person-former Executive Director Jane Campbell-as if she epitomized the organization. But Geist insisted that WomenSpace has a solid foundation, surviving because many have believed in its value and kept it thriving.

Guest speaker Carin Ann Clauss, Solicitor of Labor for the U.S. Department of Labor, presented a broad picture of women in the labor force. Describing her perspective as an "upbeat, positive outlook," Clauss pointed out how feminists "tend to focus on our failures and...not stand back and look at what

we've done." Calling women workers a "critical mass" who must be taken seriously, she stated that for the first time in U.S. history women are a permanent part of the labor force and do not leave it when they marry or have children. In 1960, 37% of women participated in this way; today 51.1% have become workers. Out of the latter percentage, 63% fall within the age group of 21-34 years.

Yet out of 320 possible job categories, women particpate in only 20 of them. The few who occupy the . other 300 are statistically insignificant. Even in Sweden, where 75% of women work, the number of job categories they fill is even less than the U.S. total. When the Equal Pay Act was enacted 17 years ago, people generally hailed the legislation as the great equalizer between the sexes. But at that time for every dollar a man made, a woman earned 64°. To. day she earns only 59° for each dollar a man receives. Even if all women immediately returned to the labor force, their work would fall within the 20 job categories. Clauss concluded that we still face the problem of discrimination based on the devalued worth assigned to work done by women. So the issue of "comparable worth" based on skill, effort, and responsiblity will become the task of the 80's.

The present Executive Director of WomenSpace, Linda Batway, then opened up the meeting, asking women to express what we would like to see WomenSpace focus on in the next year. The content of most suggestions were impressively progressive in a political sense a call for a "human needs" priority in the Federal budget; a workshop on alternative options for those who don't-want-to-or-can't-afford-tobuy a house on their own; the problem of runaway plants moving South or out of the U.S. without consideration of the community it leaves behind; promotion of housing legislation to protect tenants who are

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heads of households with children; an older women's task force; a free legal clinic; and on-the-job training opportunities for women in business and industry.

A long-time advocate for the rights of people who lack the advantages of economic power and privilege, Linda Batway has the political savvy and the personal sensitivity to see that the base of support for WomenSpace needs to be broadened to become more effective as an organization and to ensure its relevance to women outside the middle class. In the curent annual report she writes, "1980 will have to be

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a year of reconsideration and reorganization to better involve all of our members to strengthen the coalition. We will establish a task force to look at special program needs of poor and minority women....We are also considering the development of special services to women in blue collar, non-traditional fields....We will also explore the changing role of .women as volunteers in the community and at WomenSpace."

The general optimism of. the meeting was somewhat tempered by the comments of Cleveland suffragist Josephine Irwin. Now 90 years old, she recalled how their cavalcade of women on horseback led a march of 7,000 suffragists dressed in white down Euclid Avenue on October 3, 1924. What was more remarkable, Irwin pointed out, was the presence of 200,000 spectators. "You couldn't get 7,000 women in Cleveland to march for anything now," she declared. Women seated behind me murmered that that wasn't true. Another replied, "Oh, yes it is. I'm worried about the mood of women in Cleveland. They just don't care!"

Irwin was followed by singer Peggy Cella, whose powerful and mournful songs seemed to lead each person into her own private thoughts of, perhaps, what does all this mean for me? Whether intended as the appropriate answer to this question or not, the Cleveland Women's Choir appeared. With animated faces and strong voices, they proclaimed their own political message in a series of songs charged with emotion and sung with a hearty sense of the potential of womanpower: "We've got to fight back in large numbers," "Bread and Roses," "We're all Strong Women." Women unfamiliar with the Choir responded well to the songs. The meeting of professional WomenSpace members with the grassroots fervor of the Choir seemed a refreshing change and a symbolic step in the right direction. And I was glad to see that no one interrupted the Choir's repertoire while the notorious Lillian Carter sat in the audience and sung with the rest of us, waiting for her turn to speak.

As I was saying, WomenSpace looked the same in some obvious ways.. As in any coalition-based organization, accomplishments will reflect the values and goals of the members who are willing to invest their time and effort, While this keeps the agenda moving and gets the work done, it also tends to attract only women of similar mind and discourage those who have other priorites. Such priorites might include the importance of activism in community issues, the state of lesbian-heterosexual relationships, and the relevance of a leftist perspective in the movement for social change.

In most peer groups, and I believe WomenSpace has functioned as one, there are simply certain things you don't say because the structure reinforces accepted norms and taboos which limit the thoughts and behaviors of its members. The public face of WomenSpace has in the past turned many women away or else not even glanced in their direction. The main thrust of its outreach has been geared to generating services, education, and advocacy for individual women who want to expand their personal options and, to put it bluntly, want a piece of the American pie. To ask for anything different would involve an identification with women that transcends personal gain (although this struggle is more satisfying than any piece of pie!) and moves beyond one's class, race, and sexual preference to a broad collective movement. Within the span of several hours, I witnessed impulses in both directions. We live in a time when we can ask ourselves honestly what each of us, in our separate groups, does either with or without deliberate intent to keep others away and, ⚫ just as important, what we do to ourselves that keeps us from becoming more than we are..

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