Reporting on IWY rally challenged

I am a feminist who attended the Ohio International Women's Year (IWY) Conference in Columbus, that your reporter Richard C. Widman wrote about in The Plain Dealer on Monday, June 13, and I am personally insulted by the manner in which this reporting was done. I really don't think he and I were at the same meeting.

The headline of his article, "IW Why?", gives the wrong impression to women interested in reading the results of that historic conference. This being the first time in my life that I have ever attended an event like this, I really wanted to read about some of the things that I may have missed. Needless to say, I was really amazed to learn that we were "fractured," "bogged down" and exhausted:" Exhausted was the only correct description of most women in the last few moments of the meeting.

.

This conference was fought for, made a reality and organized by women who have for many years worked hard in the fields of interest to women. All of us who attended, from so many diverse backgrounds, went to Columbus in the hopes of discussing and working on solutions to problems shared by many women in this country, i.e. jobs, health, child care, economics, education, equal rights, women and the legal system, legal status of homemakers, mass media, mature women, rape, reproductive freedom and women in politics, plus hold a mini political convention all in two days!

―

The facilities in which we were meeting were not designed to hold three or four simultaneous meetings.. Another reason for the early adjournment was the fact that on Sunday at 5 p.m. the food facilities and child care centers closed, and the chartered buses would start costing $15 per bus, per hour beyond 5 o'clock.

Early Saturday, June 11, the realization was made that the pro-life and anti-ERA blocs were insistant upon discussing, in practically all the workshops, their own very narrow interests. They came to the conference with men in tow, who even spoke for them at times. They carried candidate lists and written instructions on how to vote. They also signed written affadavits swearing that they voted the pro-life and antieverything-else slate!

But, on that historic Sunday, I was part of and helped with the coalition of women who fought for the two resolutions that came out of that conference. We recognized our side by the lavender armbands that most of us were sporting at this point. The

Letters

lesbian groups supplied them to any woman there who was "pro-women.” I saw black women, Hispanic women, union women, rape crisis workers, women educators, young women and mature women, all of us who are concerned and working for things of interest to women, stand together against a common enemy. For me, it was an informative and splendid "together" occasion.

MS. SANDRA L. COSTER Cleveland Heights

Our Ohio "feminists" are crying foul lamenting that the 80% prolife delegates elected at the Ohio IWY Conference in Columbus are not truly representative of Ohio women. Hogwash! Who ever said that their views on abortion and other women's issues were what most Ohio women sub-

scribed to? Let the burden of proof be upon them and not us!

The fact that the liberal media have consistently featured their viewpoint and that they have been the most vocal group to date does not in any way prove that they speak for the women of Ohio.

Personally, I believe that women got fed up with the above-mentioned facts and decided it was time the other side got a few licks in, and that a different philosophy was presented. Viva la difference!

MRS. MARY V. RIDILL Lakewood

Your June 13 article on the Ohio IWY meeting attributed a direct quote to me: "We women are just babies at running something like this.”

Those are not my words and they are certainly not my sentiments. LOIS GOODMAN Shaker Heights

EDITOR'S NOTE

Widman

reiterates the quote was made. The Plain Dealer stands by its story.

'Ignored economic ills'

As chairperson and panelists of the Welfare Workshop of the IWY Conference in Columbus, we must take serious objection to Richard Widman's article which appeared June

13.

Widman refers to a resolution that was passed by the body as a proabortion resolution. Such a misconstruction is an afront to all of us who wrote that particular resolution. The resolution in fact reflected our concern about welfare and how it relates to women in Ohio.

The resolution came out of the

world of economics and reads in its entirety as follows:

“RESOLVED: that the President of the United States and appropriate government agencies support the right of every individual to the fulfillment of basic human needs, such as adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical attention, including all legal methods a woman may use to control her fertility.

"BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: that they support uniform national standards for welfare, and a guaranteed adequate annual income which allows every recipient to maintain a minimum standard for health and decency as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor, with consideration for the dignity and constitutional rights of the individuals."

By the irresponsible way Widman wrote his article, it only gives credibility to the statement "to giving a woman control over her fertility" while it completely neglects to mention the intent of the résolution, which was to deal with economic repression of Ohio's poorest women.

We are deeply distressed to see such erroneous reporting of an issue that dealt with the need for welfare reform, an issue vital to all poor persons.

REV. JOAN B. CAMPBELL MS. GAYLE S. CHANNING MS. GLORIA LEWIS MS. EVELYN JONES Cleveland