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Lesbian Battering (continued from pɩge ¿'0)
fairness if the woman has n.ade some attempts at change-and who among u can accurately determine this?)
Professional counseling can be a very healthy way to help resolve the conflicts. This can take the form of individual counseling or peer support groups. As always, use care in choosing a therapist, making sure she isn't homophobic or otherwise biased. At the present time, there are no support groups for either battered or battering lesbians. I would be willing to help organize such a group if interest developed.
For lesbians in a violent relationship there is also the possibility of utilizing the services of a battered women's shelter. There are shelters in Cuyahoga, Portage, Summit, and Stark Counties, to name just a few. My guess is that most of the shelters will show some degree of ignorance and homophobia. Yet small throads have begun, and I can attest that at WomenShelter in Portage County, I constantly challenge volunteers and staff regarding attitudes toward lesbians and include information on battered lesbians in our training program. At the very least, the workers at these shelters will understand and accept the pain, confusion, and frustration of the caller, and staying at the shelter may be a viable option. Some cities have lesbian-run safe houses, where lesbians offer shelter in their own homes for a lesbian
needing a s fe place to stay. This may be an option for us to tink about. (I feel that those of us in in positions to do so should constantly challenge the local "heterosexual" shelters on their homophobia, and on doing more public outreach to lesbians who could make use of their services. In many cases lesbian time, energy, and money went into the establishment of these shelters.)
While the problem of violence in lesbian relationships may be hard for many of us to talk about, its time has come. 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. The problem and solution belong to all of us.
References:
Brown, Beverly. "Lesbian Battery". Lesbian Inciter/Insighter/Insider, No. 8, July 1982.
Hart, Barbara. "Violence in Lesbian Relationships". National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, discussion paper, July 1982.
Roy, Maria. Battered Women. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977.
"Violence in the Women's Community”. Amazon, Dec.-Jan. 1981, Feb.-Mar. 1981, Apr.-May, 1981. Walker, L.E. The Battered Woman. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
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BITS &
PIECES VDT Ban Sought
(HerSay)-Union officials at a Vancouver, Canada hospital are calling for a ban on the use of video display terminals, after a sixth abnormal pregnancy occurred among women using the computer equipment.
In July, hospital workers at Surrey Memorial Hospital in suburban Vancouver reported that of six recent pregnancies among VDT operators, only one had produced a healthy baby. Two of the women miscarried; one gave birth prematurely; one baby was born with a club foot; and another was born with bronchitis.
Now yet another hospital worker has miscarried. In the wake of that miscarriage, the Hospital
Sickness, Not Sorcery
(HerSay)-A historian at the University of Maryland thinks she knows why women were tried for displaying supposed witch-like behavior in 17th Century Massachusetts. The answer: fungus poisoning. Mary Matossian theorizes that women burned as witches had likely eaten rye bread contaminated with ergot, a fungus that thrives in cool, rainy weather. Matossian says some symptoms once considered proof of demonic possession, such as convulsions or the feeling of being jabbed or bitten, are also symptoms that can arise from ergot poisoning.
Matossian further reports that New England apparently underwent an abnormal cold spell from 1690 to 1692, a fact that could have furthered the spread of ergot. Says the researcher, "New Englanders believed in witchcraft both before and after 1692. Yet in no other year was there such severe persecution of witches".
Workers' Union is demanding an immediate shutdown of the terminals, until they can be thoroughly tested by an independent agency.
Similar clusters of multiple miscarriages have occurred at other workplaces in the U.S. and Canada. However, the total numbers of women involved have been so small that scientifically "significant" studies rv.。、6 ·+x{2 have not been possible.
New Health Book
(Hersay)-The Boston Women's Health Book Collective says a new edition of its self-help manual Our Bodies, Ourselves will be in the bookstores this spring. Spokesperson Pamela Morgan says the new edition will be published by Simon and Schuster, and will update earlier editions with a lot more information on older women, disabled women, and women of color.
Morgan says sales of Our Bodies, Ourselves have remained steady over the years, despite efforts to ban the best-seller dating from 1976. Those who challenged the book's presence in libraries, she says, objected to its explicitness about abortion, masturbation, and lesbianism. Community groups always rallied to the books's support, however, and Morgan says, "To our knowledge, it has not been successfully banned in any community".
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Page 14/What She Wants/October-November, 1982
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