may be no legal document binding two women together, the emotional bonding of two women cannot be minimized. Many of us feel a strong bonding to our lovers, a desire to stick with them and help to heal them. Add to this the possible factors of selfblame, guilt, denial, isolation, and fear of others knowing about the abuse, and it all adds up to immobility and a lack of response.

Individual and Community Response

As a movement against domestic violence, we have identified and begun to work on battery in lesbian relationships. But as individuals and members of the community, what has (or shall) our response be? I believe that, initially at least, we need to support both women in an abusive relationship, especially if there is no clear distinction between batterer and battered. Obviously these women are going through some very painful times. Statements which encourage their break-up may be very inappropriate and detrimental. They each need to see that they have the ability to

"It is my hope that we can work out these conflicts with the same strength, determination and sense of sisterhood that has characterized the women's community.

have power and control over their actions, and that their behaviors are in no way indicative of their value or worth as women. We need to let them know that the problems they are facing are not theirs alone, but that they belong to all of us as lesbians, as members of the community, and as women oppressed by a patriarchal society...

The women in the abusive relationship may feel internal pressures to keep their relationship together "for the benefit of the women's community"—to be able to demonstrate that lesbian relationships can have longevity. They may keep silent or downplay their problems so not to burden their friends, and finally they may feel that they are totally capable of resolving these conflicts on their own, without individual, community, or professional assistance. As friends and community members we need to validate their concerns, but also to let them know they don't have to deal with their problems alone or maintain a certain posture just for the sake of the community.

Where it is obvious that one woman is being abusive to the other, it may be hard to support the violent woman. Yet she needs our backing and encouragement to make the changes necessary to stop the abuse. While many male abusers feel that they have a right to control their women, from what 1 have sensed, most abusive women realize that what they are doing is detrimental and inappropriate. Again, they need to know that change is possible and that the community will not reject them as they seek to empower themselves in a non-violent constructive way.

There are instances, however, where abusive women are unwilling to work on behavior changes. This poses a dilemma for many of us. Other communities have approached this problem by isolating or restricting where the woman may go. For example, in Minnesota an abusive woman was not allowed into the local wimmin's coffeehouse as she posed a threat to one of the coffeehouse collective members. Given that the lesbian community is the major support system for most lesbians, this ostracism has proven effective in reinforcing the need for an abusive woman to own up to her behavior(s) and initiate needed change. Another method some communities use is to "warn" new lovers of an abusive woman as to the woman's past herstory of violence. (While there may be some rationale to this, I question its (continued on page 14)

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The Feminist Consumer

By Judy Gregory

A friend of mine is the youngest of three children. As a child she had little contact with her two. brothers, who were several years older. They did, however, play one game with her which, much to her surprise and delight, she always won. The game was called "Who can hit the softest?"

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We were all born into the "family of man," society with rather well-established rules, rules we did not participate in creating but must try to live with or by. Many issues in the women's community are economic issues which imply an acceptance of the values and rules of our society. Much time and energy is spent trying to establish women as equals in terms defined for us, not by us. Winning "Who can hit the softest?" when the rules are made by people who do not have our best interests in mind may leave us being very sorry losers.

The justice of equal pay for equal work seems obvibus. There is no rational or ethical reason why women earn, on the average, 57 percent of what men earn for similar work. However, I have never heard the question raised, "Are men earning too much?" The problem, as presented, accepts men's position in society as superior, that which is to be attained.

In 1970, the average yearly income for western nations was $2,701, the average yearly income for nonwestern nations was $208, and the average yearly income in the United States was $4,274. One may argue that it is desirable that all societies attain a standard of living equal to western society, but outside the scope of this article are countless reasons why the resources and environment of earth cannot support such worldwide economic growth. In order to achieve true equality, not only between woman and men in western nations, but throughout the world, we must redefine our goals and desires not in terms of an ever-increasing Gross National Product or acceptance of the idea that more is better, but in terms that include our responsibility as citizens of earth and only one of the thousands of species sharing a small, fragile biosphere.

Consumption, Solid Waste, and the Women's Community

You may ask what consumption and solid waste have to do with feminism and a women's agenda. Solid waste is a means of determining what a society consumes; what a society consumes is a measure of what it values. Identifying ourselves as a women's community implies that we have a different set of values from the society at large. One of those values is to define ourselves in terms of who we are rather than in what we own. 1

As the world population is increasing at a rate of 1.9 percent per year, consumption is increasing at a staggering 5 percent per year, which means a doubling every generation. Increased consumption results in an accelerated depletion of non-renewable resources and increased solid waste.

Today, the world produces an adequate amount of food to provide minimum nutrition to all its inhabitants. However, each year, ten to twenty million people starve to death. The North American diet contains ten times the meat and twenty times the protein of the average diet in Southwest Asia.

The U.S. also consumes more energy than any nation in the world, three times more per capita than Western Europeans and thirty times more per capita than any of the developing countries..We don't even consume efficiently. Of the energy consumed in the

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U.S. (industry 40 percent, commercial 16 percent, residential 19 percent, and transportation 26. percent), only 51 percent results in useful work; the remainder is wasted.

Nearly half the world's industrial materials are consumed by Americans. Most of these materials end up as trash. In 1970, Americans disposed of 55 billion cans, 26 billion bottles and jars, 65 billion metal and plastic bottle caps, and more than half a billion dollars' worth of other packaging material. Seven million automobiles are junked each year. Disposal of society's waste costs the U.S. about $4.5 billion a year. In fact, we do not "consume" anything. We simply take commodities we consider valuable and transfer them into things we reject.

Approximately 84 percent of these wastes are unloaded in open dumps, which are not only unsightly, but a source of land and water pollution, a waste of natural resources, and an unused source of energy. The use of solid waste for energy would fulfill 3 to 5 percent of the nation's energy requirements, which is sufficient to satisfy all residential and commercial lighting demands. With current technology, solid

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waste could be a major source of processed and saved energy.

Technology now exists which would enable us to live more ecologically; more humanely and more responsibly as women and men in our society, but not without some decrease in profits for the corporations that provide us with things society values. When it is profitable to be ecological and humane, business will make that their agenda. As responsible consumers, we can demand, via our willingness or unwillingness to purchase certain products, that industry use the technology available to it for the good of all society, not just the corporation. Goods and materials which are produced intentionally for obsolescence should be heavily taxed so that the burden of solid waste disposal is borne by the producer and the consumer.

Conditioned Consumerism

Most of us were born into this consumer-oriented society and like my friend, who had no reason to mistrust her brothers, we were socialized by the people we trusted most, our parents, and they were taught by their parents. I am not suggesting that they were "bad" people or that we are bad because we buy things. I am suggesting that we have internalized our consumerism in much the same way as we inter-

(continued on page.16)

October-November, 1982/What She Wants/Page 11