no. I

Judge Upholds Bank Settlement

By Edie Vonn

On February 1, 1982, the Labor Department surprised Cleveland Women Working and National City Bank employees by announcing that it had withdrawn its race and sex discrimination suit against National City Bank (see WSW, Feb. 1982). Even though Cleveland Women Working was a third party litigant in the suit, or an "intervenor," the organization was not informed of the negotiations. For that reason, Administrative Law Judge Robert Feldman postponed his decision on whether to approve the agreement to dismiss until CWW could also file a brief. On March 1, however, Judge Feldman approved the

dismissal. The plaintiffs had hoped that back pay of up to $15 million would be awarded to women of National City Bank; the decision to dismiss the case, therefore, was a great disappointment to CWW.

Judge Feldman's decision includes some comments worth noting. Ironically, he admonishes CWW for relying on the government agency to enforce civil rights legislation by implying that it was CWW's own fault that they were left without a case. The text reads, "[T]hat circumstance is clearly a consequence of its own decision to ride along with the OFCCP proceeding rather than to undertake the effort and expense of instituting an independent lawsuit”. Perhaps that is the judge's free market approach to

Feminist Writers Conference

By Pat Randle

"If there ever was a conference of love, this is it,' said Marilyn Atlas, head of Ohio University's Women's Studies Program. Atlas spoke to a packed auditorium at the three-day women's studies conference held in Athens, Ohio on March 4-6. The conference featured readings by writers Marge Piercy and Toni Cade Bambara, discussions of women's studies programs, and presentations of academic papers on women writers. Participants, at the conference included professional academics from as far away as Texas and Massachusetts who analyzed and debated feminist literary criticism. They mingled with women who wanted to hear and meet Piercy and Bambara, with O.U. English majors and graduate students drawn to the literary event, and with those who were interested in learning how to become writers.

The overflow crowd to which Atlas spoke was gathered to hear Piercy, Bambara and feminist literary theorist Carolyn Heilbrun speak on the overall theme of the conference: where women's literature and criticism are going today. Bambara was not on the platform. She was in the air somewhere over. Pennsylvania, Atlas explained; her plane had been delayed flying out of New York.

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Heilbrun's books, Reinventing Womanhood and Toward a Recognition of Androgyny, examine women's roles in literature. They are considered 'groundbreaking works, and classics in their field. Heilbrun also writes mystery novels under the name "Amanda Cross". Her major thrust remains aca⚫demic, however. A professor of literature at Harvard University, Heilbrun grew up in an upper-middleclass, academically oriented household. Her voice is warm; it sounds of good schools and a privileged upbringing.

Piercy is a novelist, poet and political activist. Her books concern contemporary women and, in her words, "what happens when you make one set of choices rather than another". She grew up in inner · city Detroit, and now lives in New York City. Her background is belied in the blend of street smarts, quick humor and compassion that informs her speech, and by her fast city-kid gestures.

Not surprisingly, Piercy and Heilbrun's approaches to the question differed. But a strong common ground was revealed as they spoke. They share a love of literature, and both have felt the strong impact of feminism in their lives and work.

Neither Piercy nor Heilbrun felt comfortable defining a feminist tradition of literature. "I don't come from a tradition of women who wrote. I come from a tradition of women who work," Piercy said. "I find it easier to relate to my mother than to Virginia Woolf". Her own work, she said, is not much influenced by the "great" writers of the past.

"In college writing courses, we were all supposed to be English gentlemen". She paused a beat. "I'm not".

Instead, she said, her influences are more contemporary and diverse. "I write out of a great number of traditions," she said. "I've been influenced by Latin American writers, the writing of black women, Asians, by poetry. I don't even like the word 'tradition'. I don't really feel there is one and I don't want there to be one. I hate hierarchies".

Heilbrun quipped, "I suppose I am a sort of

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STATE AND LOCAL NEWS

civil rights, where legal rights accrue to those who can afford them.

Judge Feldman stated in the decision that "the issues have not been proved or disproved" and that "therefore there is neither victory nor defeat for any of the parties". "Suffice it to say," he ended, "that it marks the end of a small battle in the endless war to preserve equal employment".

National City Bank has chosen to interpret the judge's ambiguous comment as a vindication. In its recent Letter to Shareholders, the bank stated that "National City Bank demonstrated that its personnel practices were and are non-discriminatory and consequently there was no basis for a back pay claim". CWW claims NCB made a "back-room dirty deal" with the Department of Labor.

CWW Director Carol Kurtz stated at the organization's business meeting on March 18 that CWW plans to appeal. The bad news is that the appeal must go to Raymond L. Donovan, Secretary of the Department of Labor.

Kurtz noted that after the Department of Labor brought suit, the women employees of NCB reported an atmosphere of repressiveness and intimidation in the bank. Women were afraid to discuss the suit, distribute literature, or post notices on the bulletin boards. Since the dismissal, however, employee dissatisfaction is surfacing. Women are breaking the taboo against discussing their salaries, and are confronting managers about pay disparities, promotions, job posting, and affirmative action implementation.

Guns or Butter/Handling Despair

By Catherine Podojil

The second annual Guns Or Butter Conference was held March 18-20 in Cleveland, Akron/Canton, and Youngstown. Sponsored by dozens of organizations connected with churches, universities, unions, and groups working with hunger, human needs, peace and disarmament, the conference was an at-

women war and theology

i want no more no less no measure of difference i want these wires to be put to good use these barrels to be put to good use

the hearts of the people to be free this is all that is wanted by this woman wanting the world to glorify existence to attain to the principles of freedom freedom

it is the word to begin all words

it is the passage word into our mystery our dreams

our visions

our beliefs

now it is woman who must breed on freedom we must breed freedom as if it were our wombs

our potentials

our presences in this world.

we must begin to think as freedom thinks ruled by freedom's laws

fed by freedom's virtue

governed by the interests that are freedom's and the fearlessness that only freedom brings.

-anonymous

tempt to deal with concerns about the Reagan budget particularly as it loots. the people for the Pentagon, as well as increases the likelihood of

nuclear conflict--and develop grass roots programs for change.

William Sloane Coffin, firebrand antiwar activist turned disarmament prophet, opened the conference in Cleveland with a passionate diatribe against our insane defense policy and the attitudes and values that support it. He compared the disarmament movement to the abolitionist movement of over a century ago. We seek not to make cleaner bombs or fewer bombs, but to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether, just as the abolitionists sought not to ameliorate the conditions of slavery, but to abolish it. His stirring speech set the tone for the conference, which focused on the need to merge attitudes with behavior, apply moral criteria to monetary decisions, and demand ethical standards from policy makers.

It's necessary to say that I covered only what my time and particular inclinations allowed; no one could have gone to the dozens of workshops and speeches offered, even had she wished to. First of all, the speakers represented a cross-section of Americana which suggests that the antibudget/nuclear war message is cascading over the land. (Time Magazine, hardly a beacon of progressivism, has a cover story, March 29, on the growing disarmament movement which seems to confirm this point.)

Secondly, one of the speakers dealt directly with a problem that affects all of us, whether we are aware of it or not. It affects those who work for change, those who don't, those who are too scared to face the facts, and those who work even though they are scared to death. It is despair, that combination of rage, fear, sadness and hopelessness we feel at the possible loss of our own life, the lives of many or all other people, the loss of animals and plants, and the end of the planet. Joanna Macy is an eloquent

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April, 1982/What She Wants/Page 1