WSW EDITORIAL
Eight years ago, the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Still faced with inadequate birth control, unwanted pregnancies, and mandatory motherhood,
women have not gained control over their reproductive lives.
The announcement below is the only input we've
CONTENTS
Vol 8, 40.7
received from concerned women, reproductive rights activists and others in preparation for the anniversary of this landmark decision:
News
Reviews
Cleveland Women's Handbook.......
Nine to Five..........
Conversations in a Clinic.......
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National
.6
National Women's Studies Assoc. Conference......4
.7
Gay Students Win Court Victory......
.4
.6
Local
Getting Out........
.7
Take Back the Night Pressures RTA...................3
CWW Reports on Office Hazards......
.2
Letters........
........2
Find It Fastest........
...back cover
.5
.8
What's Happening...
Features
A Tribute to Stella Walsh........
Finding a Feminist Therapist..
What She Wants
..11-12
What She Wants usually goes to production the third weekend of the month. Copy should be submitted by the 15th of each month so that we can discuss it and edit collectively at our editorial meetings. Contact us for specific deadlines. Please print or type articles. Mail material to WSW, P. O. Box 18465, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118.
WHAT SHE WANTS IS:
A MONTHLY NEWS JOURNAL PRODUCED FOR ALL WOMEN. We always like input from our readers in the form of articles, personal experiences, poetry, art, announcements, and letters, We welcome.women who are willing to help us in specific areas of the paper (writing, lay-out, advertising, distribution, publicity, etc.) and/or who are interested in our collective.
On January 22, on the 8th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, pro-choice supporters will meet at 7:00 p.m. in front of the Masonic Temple, 3615 Euclid Avenue, to picket the annual Right-To-Life meeting. Afterwards, a rally will be held at the CSU University Center, 22nd and Euclid. Rhonda Copelon, one of the attorneys arguing before the Supreme Court against the Hyde Amendment, will be the main speaker.
Why this apparent apathy? Is abortion a safe, legal, and dignified procedure? Is it available to all women as an elective alternative to pregnancy? Have the legislative and medical changes necessary to secure our reproductive rights been accomplished? Is the number of older and newly emergent reproductive rights organizations adequate for the task of strategizing and mobilizing women to effect change?
In a time when our scientific, technological society makes pregnancy at least more financially profitable than before, we're considering a 9-month production break to become surrogate mothers. All proceeds will be used to support the struggle for reproductive rights.
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WHAT SHE WANTS ADVOCATES:
...equal and civil rights
...the right to earnings based on our need, merit, and interest
...access to job training, salaries, and promotions we choose
...the right to organize in unions and coalitions to advance our cause ...the right to decent health care and health information
...the right to safe, effective birth control and to safe, legal abortions ...the right to accept or reject motherhood
...the right to choose and express sexual preference without harassment ...access to quality education and freedom from prejudice in learning materials
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copyright © 1980
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About the Cover -
The cover graphic is reprinted from a postcard by Christine Engla Eber (1975). Pictured are Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) and Sojourner Truth (17971883), perhaps the most celebrated Black American women political activists. No commemoration of Martin Luther King Day is complete without noting that while there have been many Afro-American women activists, they have been ignored in U.S. history.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1927) became a journalist after dismissal from her teaching post for writing a criticism of school segregation. Campaigning against lynching in post-Reconstruction America, she wrote that "black men were lynched not to protect white women from rape, but to block the economic and political development of Afro-Americans."
Ella Jo Baker (1903) began working in civil rights organizations around 1940. She organized the first student sit-ins in the 1960's as a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) field secretary.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), an organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), began working in the Mississippi Delta prior to the Civil Rights Movement. With Ella Jo Baker, she helped organize the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenge to be seated as delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
These are three of the numerous Black American women activists who have changed history only to be denied a place in it. In the words of "Sweet Honey in the Rock" from their song "Fannie Lou Hamer:'
"We call her name today in the tradition of African libation. By pouring libation we honor those who provide the ground we stand on. We acknowledge that we are here today because of something someone did before we came."
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(Information from "Black Activists" by Carole E. Gregory, illustrated by Vivian Browne, Heresies, Vol. 3, No. 1, Issue 9, 1980, eight profiles of AfroAmerican women political activists.).
What She Wants/January, 1981/Page 1