WSW EDITORIAL
Feminism means freedom for women. We discover it in our first visions of ourselves as independent. There we stand, proud and self-assured; each woman thinks, speaks, and acts, prompted by her own conscience. From these roots grows our belief in ourselves as women and autonomous people, those who, tempered by their pasts, decide and act now, all
By Marycatherine Krause
the while looking to the future as a universe of possibilities.
Feminism is the conviction that we are moving toward futures of our own making. As such, it is the matrix out of which specific women's rights struggles emerge. Galvanized by our essential challenge to male supremacism-women will be self-defined, not
CONTENTS
News National
Legal Aid Imperilled....
Moral Majority Tactics....
Local
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Cleveland Conference for Radical Women..... .2
CWW Working Women's Convention................2
Dinner Party Update.......
Features
Margaret Sanger...
Charlotte Bunch on New Strategies....
vol. 8, no. 9
Role Reversal Test for Ads....... Templum House........
.5
..3
Story: Win or Lose........
.8
Poetry
9
Reviews....
....10, 12
.2
Find It Fastest....
.back cover
Classified Ads.
..15
What's Happening..
..........6 .7
Cover Graphic by Carol Goodwin
What She Wants
.13-15
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:
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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.
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 © 1981
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male-defined-we are moved to change present conditions that deny us our freedom. Women's rights movements, in turn, can extend feminist consciousness and promote further activity to change the conditions that bind women's lives.
The employment rights movement is one example of the symbiotic relation that can exist between feminism and campaigns for specific rights. The inequities women face en route to and during employment are symptomatic of the value of women and their work in a male-dominated society. Severely limited in the numbers and types of employment possibilities (women are currently working in only 20 of the 420 employment categories listed by the U.S. Department of Labor) open to them, women have been segregated in "pink collar" positions. A reference to not so long ago when men filled out the blue applications, women, of course, the pink, “pink collar" is synonymous with low-level, low-paid, deadend job.
According to Working Women, National Association of Office Workers, most women workers are confined to clerical, service, retail and domestic jobs; one third of the more than 44 million American women workers are office workers. Despite equal employment opportunity laws and regulations, U.S. Department of Labor statistics reveal that the percentage of women in clerical jobs increased from 30.3 percent in 1960 to 34.6 percent in 1978. In roughly the same time frame, the average woman's earnings declined from 64 cents for every dollar a man earned to 59 cents. In other words, more women are now working for less fifteen years after the introduction of measures, specifically designed to curb the prevailing pattern of job segregation and wage discrimination.
Working Women's historical overview of clerical work extends the meaning of "women's work". It is familiar as a generic term for the essential but. devalued work traditionally done by women gratis or for a nominal sum. In Working Women's analysis, "women's work" is created, not inherited. By way of example, a typical 1850's business was small and staffed by few peoplé, generally the owner, and the clerk and bookkeeper, who sometimes were the sons or sons-in-law of the owner. 75 percent of clerical workers were men. They were well-respected and well-paid for their work. The trend to contemporary offices, large and primarily staffed by women, began with emergence of American big business at the turn of the century. Today 80 percent of all clerical workers are women. The average clerical worker makes less than the average blue collar worker; average clerical pay is less than $10,000 per year. Clericals are among the lowest paid U.S. workers. What's more, female clerical pay is only 63 percent of male clerical pay.
unorganized. In "Pay Equity for Office Workers," Working Women cites a figure of 90 percent. At year-end 1979, America's 18 million clerical workers accounted for 18 percent of the workforce. Clericals comprise such a significant segment of the workforce that it's hard to image why the majority of office workers haven't organized to win better wages and working conditions. For the record, organized clericals make 30 percent more than their unorganized counterparts. No doubt many clericals are dissuaded by fear of the loss of an already meager income, the odds that a similar low status, low-pay job awaits her elsewhere, and the anti-union, antiorganization pressures the clerical industries can afford to exert.
National Women Working and the Boston af(continued on page 2)
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Application to mail at second class postage rates is pending at Cleveland, Ohio. What She Wants is published monthly except August and February. Yearly subscription rates are $6 (individual), $10 (non-profit organization), $15 (profit organization), $15" (contributing) and $25 (sustaining). What She Wants is published by What She Wants, Inc., P.O. Box 18465, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118.
April, 1981/What She Wants/Page
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