LETTERS

Dear WSW Readers:

Women Invited to Play

It has been over a year since Labyris, Cleveland's women's coffeehouse, closed. Although Labyris did not survive, while it was open it provided a place for

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women to relax, talk, play cards and listen to music by local feminist performers.

Many major cities have women's coffeehouses, and here in Northeast Ohio the Tenth Muse in Kent has been quite successful for the past year. We believe that it is important for Cleveland to reestablish a women's coffeehouse here. Cleveland women need to have a chemical-free space of our

own where we can meet and talk with other women and where feminist performers can share their music, poetry, etc., with other women in our community.

While women are continuing the search for a permanent location for a coffeehouse, we would like to make that kind of space available in the form of a monthly open house for women. These events will be organized coffeehouse-style with coffee, tea, and excellent homemade treats available, and we plan to feature feminist performers each month.

We are enthusiastic about making space available for feminist performers, as it is not easy to find supportive places to play in Cleveland. Women who have music, poetry, and other talents to share are encouraged to call 371-0483 for more information. If you are not comfortable about playing a full set but would like to share a shorter amount of time with other performers, this will be an ideal place. We can provide a piano and also three microphones.

We plan to hold these open house evenings on the fourth Saturday of each month beginning November 22 (December may be an exception; check WSW next month for the date). The address is 1600 Eddington Road (up), near Mayfield and Superior, and we will be open from 8 p.m. until midnight. A $1.00 donation for the entertainment will be requested.

Our first open house will feature music by Deb Adler and Micki Petrillo. Deb Adler is well known as a performer in the Cleveland women's community, and she has also played at coffeehouses in Oberlin, Kent, Minneapolis, and Albany, New York. She per-

WSO Annual Holiday Boutique

By Daisy Ford

On Saturday, December 6, Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice, a branch of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, will present their annual holiday boutique. This year 30 Cleveland artists will display their work, interpreting the concepts of peace and justice. Participating artists include Gertrude Brodsky, jewelry; Ann Caywood Brown, pottery; Dorrit Buckley, woven belts; Jerry Buckley, candles; Steve Cagan, photography; Judy Charlick, pottery; George Kanoti, wooden toys; Janet Century, photography; Sue Gallagher, pottery; Margaret Kelso, personalized lapel buttons; Janice Leykauf, batiks; Bob Pozarski,

leaded glass; Gene Epstein Richmond, hand-painted cards; Anita Silverstein, jewelry; Marcella Welch, soft sculpture dolls; Janet Wiggens, quilting; Gwen Williams, fruit cakes.

Holiday gifts and cards with a peace and justice motif, arts and crafts, plants, and home-baked goods will be available for sale upstairs at the Unitarian Society, 2728 Lancashire Road, Cleveland Heights. A white elephant sale will be held downstairs.

The boutique will open at 10 a.m. and last until 6 p.m. At 4 p.m., a drawing will be held for two works by prize-winning Cleveland artists—“Autumn Landscape" by Jean Kubota Cassill, and "Girl's Profile with Toy" by H.C. Cassill. For further information, call Daisy Ford at 247-5856.

Editorial (continued from page 1)

defending heterosexuality as a feminist option. Or perhaps lesbian feminists are more concerned with creating a woman's subculture than confronting male domination.

Many factors contribute to the apparent lack of discussion of male supremacy within the movement, but that's beyond the scope of this article. Have we somehow banned talk about the problem, male domination, and is the lesbian-heterosexual context a good example of that trend? If so, it's not hard to understand why consciousness-raising isn't a pressing

concern.

If all of this were so, we'd have to ask how and when we moved away from the early goals of the movement. In early consciousness-raising groups, women examined their own lives. Singling out “problems" that were, on closer inspection, instances of oppression, they identified the pattern, male domination. They analyzed, planned, and acted to raise public awareness. Women created a mass

Pas 2/What She Wants/November, 1980.

political movement based on the data drawn from their own lives. How do we continue the movement without gathering more data on male domination/women's subjugation, without looking to ourselves and our experience with men.

Consciousness-raising is the fundamental work of the women's movement. Without recognition of male domination in their lives, women would have no reason to organize, and men, no reason to change or be changed. If consciousness-raising were completed, I wouldn't have this quote from The Plain Dealer, October 25, 1980:

Twin brothers Harold and Darryl Caldwell were acquitted yesterday of charges of raping an East Cleveland woman even though the jury was shown a 43-minute videotape that replayed the sexual act.

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The twins, also acquitted of kidnaping charges, broke into smiles when the Common Pleas Court verdict was read. During the two-

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forms original music and songs by other feminist songwriters with guitar accompaniment.

Micki Petrillo is a feminist singer, guitarist, and songwriter who has recently returned to Cleveland from Cincinnati. While in Cincinnati she played as a solo performer at coffeehouses, bars, and political events and recently was the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in a new wave band. She plays mostly original music in a variety of styles from folk to acoustic jazz.

If you're interested in an evening of good music, good food and good company, come join us November 22.

-Lisa Rainsong and Gayle Pilat

WomenSpace Sounds

Local jazz, folk and blues artists will perform in a benefit concert for WomenSpace, beginning at 7:30 p.m., November 16, at Peabody's Cafe, Cedar and Taylor Roads, Cleveland Heights.

Performers include Mary Martin and the 9th St. Tunas, playing blues and jazz; Cindy MacKay, folk and jazz; Abbe Linhart, traditional Irish folk music; Norma Troy, blues and rag; Elise Farrel, freesyle jazz; and special guest Russ Gale of "Flatbush", performing country music with Tom Wolf, who plays ballads, folk and lays.

Ticket prices are $3.00 in advance and $3.50 at the door and are available at WomenSpace, Peabody's, Arabica (The Arcade and 1864 Coventry Road), Coventry Books (1824 Coventry Road) and Six Steps Down (1921 West 25th Street).

Money raised by the concert will be used to help support the WomenSpace Help Line, which has extended its phone coverage to include evening hours. The Women's Help Line is a free, supportive telephone service open to the female community from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday. Trained staff members listen and help women who call to explore the options available to them in seeking solutions to problems or concerns. Referrals are made, if desired, to the most appropriate source of help needed in each different situation. Resource files are carefully selected and updated. To reach the Help Line, call 696-3100. For more information about the benefit concert, call WomenSpace at 696-6967.

week trial, they maintained she wanted to help them make a pornographic film.

The woman, however, testified that she was abducted and brutally attacked. She cried in court when the tape was shown to the six-man, six-woman jury, In the film, she is seen crying and later vomiting after the sex act.

Despite the tape and the woman's testimony, jurors said they thought the woman willingly participated. Others, noting the woman said she is a lesbian, said they found her hard to believe.

"What did they want? A sound track?," an angry policeman asked.

The verdict brough similar outrage from Judge James J. Carroll and leaders of the Rape Crisis Center.

The grinning twins, 26, both of 17500 Euclid Ave., swallowed their smiles when Carroll icily addressed them, after the jury left.

"The jury found you not guilty, but that does not mean you are innocent," Carroll said. "It merely means that the state did not prove its case. The book of time will be the final judge."'