NATIONAL NEWS

By Loretta Feller

Women's International Media Network

Over 100 women from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the South Pacific, and the U.S. met in Washington, D.C. in mid-April. We gathered to continue on a larger scale a series of discussions begun at the 1980 World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen, Denmark. Our purpose was to form a network tentatively called Women's International Media Network (WIMN). The conference

content of world news being played out on a larger scale at UNESCO, we came to plan an international news and information exchange for women.

Concern over the misuse of power and privilege, especially in the news, was the main reason for our attempting this large task. Most of us agreed that news systems controlled by men fail to address women's needs or to portray women accurately. Some additional political and economic dimensions entered into most discussions. A Chilean woman, for example, criticized consumer-oriented media por-

netpe

was sponsored by Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (Washington, D.C.), International Women's Tribune Centre (New York City), and New Directions for Women, a feminist newspaper.

In attendance were journalists, editors, scholars, administrators, artists, and activists. Some believed feminists should work in alternative feminist media, but many others advocated a "new world information order". A few women were political exiles, while others were sponsored by governmental or private organizations. In a weekend conference which mirrored a decade-long dispute about the source and

trayals of the "ideal feminine model" with its First World, white, male assumptions. Women, she said, are often ignorant of the causes of their present condition, and she hoped WIMN would help dispel this ignorance. A woman from Sri Lanka called for a feminist analysis of information. She expressed her belief that this information must infiltrate mainstream media to be effective. Yet, she cautioned, we need to keep in mind the economic and political inequalities on the international level, and examine what type of information flows from the First World to the Third World as well as what type

Women Board Members

By Susan Woodworth

According to the Wall Street Journal of April 7, 1982, the trend toward adding female directors to the boards of pubicly held corporations is falling off from its peak in the 1970's. This decline is attributed to the stricter professional standards now required to sit on boards, due to the troubled and very complex financial environment of some of these companies. Formerly, prominent women in the arts, education and philanthropy dominated the field of women candidates for board positions. Many of them were named as directors during the heyday of affirmative action. Some companies feel that these women haven't worked out because they lack sophisticated business and. financial skills. Certain women were named because they wouldn't make waves; however, many spoke out on social and equal rights issues. As one board chair said, "Frankly, we made a mistake with our woman director. She's used to giving money away; our aim is to make it". As a result, new women members are often assigned to minor committees with names such as "Public Responsibility”.

Women don't exactly see the job of a director as any bed of roses, either. The burden of the job wears on the director who must also handle family responsibilities. Female board members spend twice as much time as their male peers perparing for meetings, talking with employees, and investigating company operations. Also, they must tolerate

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chauvinist attitudes in formerly all-male board

rooms.

The article concludes that "qualified" women are much sought after, with some receiving as many as thirty offers. Particularly desirable are those women who have held high Federal posts. The situation may change over the next decade when more women have moved into high-level executive positions and represent a broader field of candidates for board positions.

Pennies from Women

(Hersay)-Women's philanthropy could blossom in the 80s, according to Marya Grambs of the Women's Foundation in San Francisco. Grambs said that just a few months after the foundation opened it had raised $50,000 toward its goal of $300,000. Grambs says that women's philanthropy is picking up around the country. Efforts are underway to establish women's foundations in Denver, Boston, and the Mid-West, while New York state already has several operating women's funding groups.

Grambs says funding for women's projects has suffered from "incredible neglect" in the past, partly because women who do have money are intimidated by it and don't exercise control over where it goes. To help women overcome their fear of finance, Grambs says, the Women's Foundation offers seminars in money management, investments, taxes, and, of course, philanthropy.

of inforination flows from men to women.

Our ensuing discussions of how feminists could (or should) change the flow of information about women (as well as to and from women) bore an uncanny resemblance, to the dissensions at UNESCO about world news. At the U.N. agency, the doctrine of a free information flow first came under attack in 1976 by political leaders from Third World countries who saw the concept was nothing more than a vehicle for rich countries to impose their cultural and economic views on the developing world. To end what they felt was an informational imperialism, they called for a New World Information Order. Rosemary Richter noted in London's U.K. Press Gazette that "nearly 90 percent of the international news circulated worldwide is supplied by four main agencies-Associated Press, Reuters, Agence-France Press, and United Press International". Critics of this news monopoly feel that interpretation of information about developing countries by outsiders has led Western-based media to focus on sensational stories of misery, degradation and civil war rather than on the news mattering most to those being covered.

As in all disputes, however, there is an opposing viewpoint. Western editors involved in the UNESCO debate questioned the definition of news being proposed by the non-aligned nations' proposal of a New World Information Order, the concepts of which were articulated in the controversial MacBride Report. Western editors who defended the concept of freedom of the press worried that they might be asked to accept propaganda in the name of some admittedly larger good, such as ending racism and apartheid. As if on cue, the Russians backed a declaration at UNESCO's General Conference in Nairobi that governments should have the power to control the content of news. That was followed by another proposal calling for the creation of a commission to issue ID's to journalists working abroad, to judge their conduct, and to have the power to withdraw the ID's, making it nearly impossible to work in many countries. The issue became the gap between those who view information as freedom and those who see it as power.

One possible solution to the conflict is the Inter Press Service (IPS), a Third World news agency established in 1964 to provide "in-depth news and background information on development issues as an alternative to the major news agencies". It is an international non-profit journalists' cooperative, the profits of which are reinvested "to finance its professional and technological evolution".

To draw the feminist parallel, we find that mainstream media, when it covers women at all, often portrays such female stereotypes as seductress, sexual object, lazy welfare mother, and victim rather than drawing any attention to the social, political or economic sources of problems. Women are seldom

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Anti-nuke Women Legislators

(Hersay)-Fifty percent of the women legislators in the US House of Representatives have endorsed the resolution calling for a nuclear arms freeze. Nearly one third of the House has endorsed the call for the freeze, and among the co-signers are nine of the 18 women representatives.

The women supporters, who cross political boundaries on the issue, are Reps. Margaret Heckler, Barbara Kennelly, Claudine Schneider, Pat Shroeder, Barbara Mikulski, Mary Rose Oakar, Shirley Chisholm, Millicent Fenwick, and Geraldine Serraro.