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Preventing Hunger at Home

In response to increasing hunger in the United States, Bread for the World (BFW) has launched an "Offering of Letters" campaign to protect poor people from further cutbacks in federal food and nutrition programs: In the campaign, Bread for the World, a national Christian citizens' movement against hunger, is urging people to write letters to their members of Congress in favor of the "Prevent-

ing Hunger at Home" resolution that the organization will support in Congress this year.

The resolution has special significance in light of current economic conditions. It would put Congress on record in favor of:

Freezing cutbacks in federal food programs and ensuring that the food stamp program can respond to rises in unemployment and inflation;

Ensuring that more low-income and poorly nourished pregnant and nursing mothers and their children be allowed to participate in the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) by increasing program funds; and

Supporting continued federal responsibility for all nutrition programs which prevent hunger.

The resolution, according to Arthur Simon, executive director of BFW, has special significance to women because the majority of poor adults are women. Nearly 60 percent of all poor people are female; 65 percent of all poor adults and 72 percent of all poor elderly persons are women, according to the Women's Research and Education Institute.

Three out of five working women earn less than $10,000 per person per year. One out of three full-

OWL Goes East

(HerSay)-The Older Women's League will move its headquarters to Washington, D.C. this year. The Oakland, California-based league, which was founded by Tish Sommers and Laurie Shields two years ago, is moving to the nation's capitol because "that's where the action is."

Shields and Sommers say they will continue organizing women on the west coast from their

time working women earns less than $7,000 each year, according to the National Education Association. Minority women are worse off. While women in general earn approximately 59 cents for every dollar earned by white men, black women working full-time earn 54 cents and Hispanic women earn 49 cents.

Help Feminist Press!

For twelve years, The Feminist Press has brought the classics of women's literature out of dusty attics and put them into the hands of readers. Beginning with works by Kate Chopin, Agnes Smedley and Zora Neale Hurston, the list of titles has grown past seventy.

On September 19, 1982, The Feminist Press suf-

fered a seriously damaging fire. Though a fair amount of inventory and equipment could be salvaged, the damage severely reduced available workspace.

Add to this blow current circumstances. Under normal conditions, hundred of thousands of dollars are needed to sustain the kinds of research and publication done by The Feminist Press. In the past, the Press has been able to count on government and foundation grants for over half the funds needed to support its work. While the curtailment of government and foundation funding and the state of the economy itself are threatening, the many unrecoverable damages resulting from the fire endanger the very life of this organization.

Losing this organization would cripple the work of restoring the lost history and culture of women for decades to come. Though it were re-invented, nonetheless permanent loss would remain.

Send your tax deductible contribution to Elizabeth Janeway in care of The Feminist Press, Box 334, Old Westbury, NY 11568. Make checks payable to The Feminist Press.

National and International News

London Prostitutes Win Demands

The recent occupation by 25 women of a church in King's Cross in London ended successfully after twelve days. The women were protesting illegal and racist actions by the police against prostitutes in London's Argyle Square. Police harassment in the area included the illegal arrest of prostitutes, threats to take away their children, harassment of their families, and refusal to investigate rape and violence against them. The occupation was organized by the English Collective of Prostitutes and was joined by Women Against Rape and Black Women for Wages for Housework.

International support for the occupation and calls for the British government to meet the women's demands came from groups in Germany, Italy and Canada. Groups across the United States

Oakland office, and that OWL's new Executive Latinas Limited

Director, Shirley Sandage, will take up the job of drawing the administration's attention to the situation of older women in America-a situation which is frequently one of poverty.

OWL's new national headquarters plans to start driving its message home with a March demonstration by older women in front of the Social Security headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. Women at that demonstration plan to push supermarket baskets in front of the building to show how little food their Social Security checks can buy.

Natural is Safer

(HerSay) The rate of infant deaths in birth centers and alternative birth centers in hospitals is only half the U.S. national average, according to Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal. In 1980, Lancet surveyed all birth centers in the U.S. and found the death rate for infants under one month old was only four per thousand. The national average rate for infant deaths is eight per thousand.

Thirty states now have hospital-based birth centers, and plans are under way for such centers in every state except Idaho.

Page 4/What She Wants/January-February, 1983.

In Washington on November 3, in the opening speech at the 21st Assembly of the Interamerican Commission on Women, participants were informed that the active participation of women in the development of South American and Caribbean nations is very limited.

Women as a group have little effect on the economic and political decisions of many of these nations. Few women have an active voice in the policies of the governments. Instead, millions of women lead a marginal existence in their countries because of societal pressures and little access to educational opportunities. In fact, it was found that women in most of Latin America have an illiteracy rate of over 50 percent. In Guatemala alone, the illiteracy rate for women is 77.6 percent.

The president of the commission warned delegates that in many cases it would require radical economic changes before women's lives could improve to the point of having impact on their countries' policies.

Translated from especial-mujer Unidad de Comunicacion Alternativa de la Mujer

demonstrated their support by picketing and sending delegations to British consulates in Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Tulsa, Portland, New Haven and New York. In San Francisco the U.S. Prostitutes Collective requested the British Consulate to pass the message on to the Home Office in London, which they did.

The women in the occupation demanded and won: 1) a city employee to monitor police activities in Argyle Square, i.e., how often they make arrests of prostitutes and under what circumstances, and police follow-up when prostitute women report incidences of violence against them;

2) city employees in the Housing and Welfare Departments working with the Prostitute Collective to help women who want to get out of prostitution; and

3) a meeting with the Chief of Police in the King's Cross area.

Their local Member of Parliament (MP) is pressing the Home Office to meet with the women and has organized a meeting with other MP's in the House of Commons.

School for Success

(HerSay)-Two professional groups have launched an all-out effort to increase the number of women in school administration.

In 1981 women accounted for only four percent of secondary school principals and 18 percent of grade school principals. Now, Northwest Women in Educational Administration and the North East Coalition of Educational Leaders are trying to overturn those statistics by offering recruiting aid to school boards and governments, and providing job banks, counseling and workshops to potential women administrators.

As for the timing of the two groups' efforts, Mary Frances Callan, Executive Director of Northwest Women, notes that about 35 percent of all school administrators are duc to retire in the next five years. That, says Callan,, should open the way for "a new generation of leaders."