JANU, '/FEBRUARY 1982 UBRARY-AUCKLAND 'COtLEGE OF EDUCATION

NEW ZEALAN WOMEN NOW?? : The Smith Women" ^ - What do school^irf^x ^ want •< , . A woman called Mary Thomas % New women MBs in the House Don’t keep yourj^idflk the closet & } %

f e m in is t COMMENT N% Andrea Dworkin o n l Pornography * Interview Simone de Beauvoir t ^ Funny Murimiē^ Feminists on | | | motherhood FRONTING UP

women who’ve created their own welcome. Thousands of us marched BROADSHEET OFFICE jobs and workplaces. — what did we learn from it? We’re also interested in hearing is at: 1st floor, Gane Building, from readers and women’s groups 43 Anzac Ave, Auckland. ideas for articles, women who would Office hours: 9-4, Mon-Fri. be good to interview, women who Phone number: 794-751. you think have a story to write up for Our box number is: us. Is you group taking part in a pro­ SEMINAR “HOW TO PO Box 5799, Wellesley St, ject or political action you’d like to Auckland, New Zealand. see reported in Broadsheet? We CHANGE THE WORLD” Broadsheet will re-open after the want to hear from you. Broadsheet is planning to hold a Christmas break on Tuesday, seminar on Saturday, March 20, 1982. January 5, 1982. This is just a preliminary announce­ ment — full details will be in the March issue of Broadsheet. We’re hoping to FEEDBACK focus on the nitty-gritty, tin tacks DEADLINES FOR Our November issue focussed on business of just how you bring about FUTURE ISSUES the Springbok tour and action social change, with lots of practise at against it. We’d still like further tackling the problems and sharing of in­ Deadline for March issue is January 10 discussion of the issues raised by formation. We’re also keen to provide a Deadline for April issue is February 10 Donna Awatere, Judith Aitken and forum for women to discuss the more Display ads, classified ads, small an­ Ros Noonan, or exposition of other theoretical side, and what we’ve learn­ nouncements, “What’s New” , and ideas the struggle raised for you. ed from our tactics and actions over the news can reach us up to two weeks Contributions long and short, most past ten years of struggle. after these dates. Remember no February issue!

ENVELOPING______Stuffing of the March issue of Broadsheet will be on Saturday, 27th February, in the Broadsheet of­ fice. All women and children welcome from 10 a.m. The Broad­ sheet shop will be open for perusal of new arrivals during this time.

1982 We’re currently planning what topics we’ll be looking at in 1982. We plan a feature on women in “new” jobs for the March issue. That is, women who have jobs in ^broadsheet & what are traditionally considered “ male” fields. And we’re especially interested in women in the so-called BROADSHEET’S NEW POSTER unskilled, semi-skilled jobs, women in the manual trades and jobs which Designed by Claudia Pond Eyley give on-the-job traJning rather than those requiring university degrees Printed in black on heavy matt cream paper or professional qualifications. We’re also interested in work coops. Cost: $2.00 (plus 35C postage and packing if posted) Are you part of a coop, or is there Send to: Broadsheet Posters. P.O. Box 5799. Auckland. one near you? We’d like to hear from CONTENTS FEATURES Four More Women in Beehive 10 Exquisite Volunteers: Andrea Dworkin on Pornography 12 Motherhood, Motherhood and more Motherhood: Don’t keep your Children in the Closet by Miriam Saphira 17 Waking up in Hospital by Maureen Scott 20 Feminists Flounder on Motherhood 22 Schoolgirls’ Aspirations 23 Funny Mummies — cartoons on motherhood 24 A Day in the Life of a Polish Woman 26 This is Simone de Beauvoir Speaking 28 “You always feel alive’’ — an interview with Mary Thomas 30

FICTION ' Wild, young womin by Rachel Sutton 34

THE ARTS A Morning at “Mothers’’ by Elizabeth Eastmond 42 Freedom Flyers Project 45 Battered Wives Take Centre Stage 46 Film Review: “Gloria” 46

REGULARS Letters 2 Comment: New Bill to Protect Battered Women 4 Discussing the Differences — a Response 5 Behind the News: The Smith Women/Crime and Secrets 8 In Brief 41 What’s New 33 • Theory: Feminist Fathers — a discussion of Nancy Chodorow’s “ Reproduction of Mothering” by Phillida Bunkle 36 Classified Adverts 48 THE BROADSHEET COLLECTIVE Sarah Calvert, Sandra Coney, Sandi Hall, Sally Hollis-M cLeod, Miriam Saphira, Anne Macfarlane, Heather M cl.eish.

THESE WOMEN Worked on this issue: Peggy Ashton, Edna Butterworth, Penny Chappell, Anne du Temple, Jasmine Hubbers, Lesley Smith, Doreen Suddens, Jess Hawk Oakenstar, Anne-Marie Searchfield, Jean Volkerling and enveloping women.

Cover photo: Gill Hanly photographs Claudia Pond Eyley painting a street-mural on a Mt Eden Day Care Centre.

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Published January 1982 Perm ission must be sought before article's may be reprinted.

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ISSN 01 10-8603 Registered at the G PO as a magazine LETTERS

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Rural Life Rugby, racism and marshals’ committee, Alick profess to be non-sexist and Shaw, in true male “radical”, Dear Broadsheet, non-racist, yet in practice often riot gear leftist fashion. Shaw was very behave in direct opposition to Thank you for sending me. a intolerant of ideas other than free copy of Broadsheet with their “ principles” . They also Dear Broadsheet, his own (the Party’s??) and seem to rely heavily on hierar­ the rural articles in it. Very Having just read Donna often rubbished them openly at timely as I am about to take a chies and power-tripping for Awatere’s article on the Spr­ meetings. I for one felt too their organisation. Just how workshops on “ Rural Women ingbok tour, in particular her threatened by the atmosphere and Isolation” . radical are the radical Left? criticisms of the Wellington of the meetings to speak; and Isn’t it about time they In our community we have anti-tour movement (the I’m sure that was a feeling an eighty-year-old woman understood the relation bet­ November issue of Broadsheet) common to many women. ween the personal and who, during the thirties, with I feel I must write and express , So, as a result of the ineffec­ her husband, built a house of political? my own dissatisfaction with the tiveness of the plenary meetings In sisterhood, clay and tin cans and panned leadership and organisation of as a restraint over the actions for gold in the Lindis Pass near the movement here. I was in­ of the marshals’ committee, the Caren Wilton Omorama, Otago. She also volved in the campaign from its committee operated more or Wellington rabbitted, and once beat a man early days and became increas­ less autonomously: and it was, who boasted that she couldn’t ingly concerned, and then as I’ve said, male and pakeha- Dear Broadsheet skin a hundred rabbits in one angry, about sexism, racism dominated in the extreme. At There I was, reading Donna hour. She did it, and proved and lack of democracy in the times the secrecy surrounding she could be better than the Awatere’s views in the events organisation COST (Citizens committee decisions was quite of the tour, (November issue) men. She still has photos, taken Opposed to the Springbok frightening. I acted as a mar­ agreeing with her analysis, en­ for the then Auckland Weekly, Tour) which directed the Well­ shal on several occasions, and joying the way she writes, and of their sod house and their ington campaign strategy and even then frequently didn’t Pow! I was slapped in the face goldmining camp in the Lindis actions. know the full details of the pro­ by another attack on white Pass. COST’S mode of organisa­ posed actions. At times I was as middle-class feminists. Perhaps Because of their isolation, tion was characterised by an ex­ bewildered as the protesters, I should have been expecting it women living in lonely houses treme hierarchicalism. At the who were seldom given even an — it was hardly the first time. are easy game for men return­ top of the hierarchy was a mar­ indication of what was planned On other occasions I have not ing from the pub, thinking that shals’ committee, consisting of for matches until immediately wanted to counter-attack, I the women must be wanting a seven men and only one beforehand. And as a woman have told myself she has plenty man. So you have to cope with woman. Only two of the com­ marshal I was not treated with to be bitter about, and I have a man in your room, drunk, in mittee members were Maori; the seriousness accorded to refused to take these attacks the middle of the night. This most of the members (the two male marshals — this generally personally. But I am tired of girl was sleeping badly, with black men excluded, in­ from “ higher”marshals rather letting them go unanswered. her husband away, had taken a terestingly enough) belonged to than from protesters (surprise, It is always distressing to be sleeping pill, and woke to find one communist organisation, surprise!) let down by another woman or a drunk guy wanting to rape which was extremely reluctant I find the lack of com­ to be attacked by one from her. to allow “ outsiders” any munication between marshals whom you might have expected How do you cope with this in power whatsoever. The com­ and protesters and lack of con­ support. Often it is possible to a small rural community? Tell mittee made its decisions sup­ trol over the marshals’ commit­ mutter, “ co-opted by the the police and have them warn posedly in accordance with tee very disturbing, particularly patriarchy” or “threatened by the guy, and not tell the wife? directives given by the weekly since the “ need” for total obe­ feminism” , and it helps to And carry on living in the com­ plenary meetings. However, dience to marshals was con­ lessen the sting. But it is both munity — so difficult in a small especially later in the cam­ tinually stressed. Protesters painful and insulting to be the closed area where everyone paign, the degree of secrecy were thus basically placing object of attacks and accusa­ knows everyone so well, and surrounding tactics made it their own safety totally in the tions on a class/race basis from you have to continue living near-impossible for the hands of a small, white-male- another woman within the here for another twenty years. meetings to make decisions on leftist-dominated group over movement. Yes, I am white. I How insulting and any but the most general mat­ which there was little restraint. can’t help it and I don’t degrading! Why can’t men ask ters. As the group was, in my opi­ apologize for it. I am probably with manners, and not wait un­ Also, the meetings were nion, often more concerned by most definitions middle- til they have “ dutch” courage generally dominated by white with its own political ends than class (whatever that may from booze to do things, and males, and many speakers were with what happened to protests mean), though I wasn’t always, barge in. To do things they subtly sexist and racist in their (or to blacks in South Africa — and I don’t apologize*for that wouldn’t normally do. attitudes, at times blatantly remember them?) it was a either. We are all oppressed — Just though you may be in­ rubbishing or ignoring sugges­ potentially dangerous situation we would not be feminists terested in these notes. tions made by Maori or female — and certainly an otherwise. And it is time- Yours speakers. This was seen at its undemocratic and unfair one. wasting and self-indulgent to Name Supplied most forceful in the not-so- I’m also dubious about the play games like “ I’m more op­ subtle sexism and racism political integrity of the Left — pressed that you are” . None of Kurow displayed by the leader of the or at least this sector of it. They us has any right to query

2 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 Editor: Christine stepped in at others’ credentials, not that I Rixen Dispute as a working What also the last minute to cover the thought we needed any. women’s issue — which it most certainly is. Nor has she ex­ Rixen dispute for Broadsheet. 1 still believe that sisterhood happened She made it clear in the article is powerful. If it isn’t, then plored the sexism that I found that she had based the article we’re all wasting our time and Dear Broadsheet, unbearable from union men on talks with Julia Knight of energy. Attacking each other, Christine Dann’s article titl­ towards the Rixen women. ed “ Anatomy of a Dispute — This was most evident in the Wellington Clerical and therby antagonizing each Workers’ Union, and had not other, is counter-productive. I What Really Happened at Rix- patronising speeches about ens” (November Broadsheet) is “the girls” , in endless sexist visited Rixens herself. We had remain a committed and active been expecting an article from feminist, but I need support no more a discussion of what jokes which women visitors or has really happened at Rixens the Rixen women bore. the women who had visited Rixen from my sisters; I wonder how and talked to the women there, many become alienated by at­ than all the “ straight” media brunt of, and in numerous let­ articles that have appeared ters from various union of­ but this fell through. As we tacks like Donna’s and decide considered it important to since the dispute began ficials signed “ Yours fraternal­ to put their energies elsewhere. cover the event, we chose to go In the same way that ly” ; these examples, however, In sisterhood, ahead and do it in the way we newspapers and TV crews have as in society generally, merely did. Broadsheet does not have Rebecca Judd ignored the thoughts, feelings illustrate the sexist power rela­ the funds or staff to send and experiences of women sit­ tionships that exist in a more Hamilton reporters to cover events like ting in at Rixen, so does this “ behind the scenes” way. Rixen. We encourage women one. In a magazine concerned At Rixens, a situation where who live nearby and feel with women, and how the women dominate numerically, motivated to report to do so for system impacts on women, I men (unionists, husbands, and Living Alone us. Readers are invited to find the scope and content of Rixen workers) still hold the report on future events in their Dear Broadsheet, this article very disappointing. majority of public and private areas for the magazine. Many issues ago a woman Whilst giving an overview of (behind locked doors) power. wrote on the pleasures of living the sequence of events at Rix­ Christine Dann’s lack of atten­ alone. I agree with her article ens (in much the same way that tion to this side of the Rixen but also wish to point out the many other newspapers have) dispute is only surpassed by her NEW WOMEN’S real dangers for a woman living this article has not addressed complete neglect of racism CALENDAR 1982 alone. My flat was entered in itself to the problems facing the issues at Rixen. the middle of the night -r for­ women actually doing the pro­ It has not been generally tunately for me my screams testing; I would doubt that C. publicised that over fifty per $8.95 plus 50 cents postage and packing. drove the would-be attacker Dann had even spoken to those cent of the women remaining at away and brought neighbours women. Things such as stress the sit-in are Black women nor Large glorious photos of to my rescue. However, the on lover relationships or child economically and politically women in NZ’s past — pleasures of late night partying, care arrangements have not why it is true that women, par­ climbing mountains, late night listening to Bach, even been mentioned. In the ticularly Maori and Polynesian riding bokes, running a etc., were never quite the same same way there is nothing said women are more likely than dairy, marching for suf­ after that. about the women’s feelings of men to lose jobs and be made frage in London, camp­ At an English teachers’ con­ frustration and anger towards redundant. Similarly no-one ing, flax weaving — you ference, 1 talked to many not only Dungey but also the has commented on the total won’t have seen many of women who were in the same FOL, particularly as time drew lack of representation the these before. position as me — alone in a on and they had no word (or Maori and Polynesian women small town. All had had similar very little) from the FOL as to have on the Rixen dispute Large format, glossy paper, experiences. So, do enjoy the what was happening. organising committee, which clean design. pleasures of life alone and C. Dann’s article appears to by that very fact is racist. Published by the New enrol in a self defence course! be written with liberal accep­ Women’s Press, Auckland. tance for unions, and all that Vivien Maidaborn Send to the Broadsheet Lesley Smith they do; she has not challenged Bookshop, PO Box 5799, Wellington FOL neglect to develop the Wellington Auckland.

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 3 NEW BILL TO PROTECT BATTERED WOMEN BY DORIS AND JOHN CHURCH BATTERED WOMEN’S SUPPORT GROUP CHRISTCHURCH

Two days before the end of the last parliamentary sion. If passed into law, the new Bill will give the court session, the Minister of Justice, Mr Jim McLay, in­ the power to evict the violent partner from the family troduced his long promised Domestic Violence Bill. If home or family flat. passed, the new Bill will give battered women two The accommodation order will be available to “ new” kinds of protection against a violent partner. anyone who is being assaulted by their partner provid­ The first of these is the non-violence order. If passed ed that there are also children involved. It will be into law, the new Bill will give the Court the power to available to both married women and to women living make a non-violence order wherever two people are in de facto relationships. It will not matter whether the living together and one of them is assaulting the other house is owned by the victim or the assailant. It will (or their children). The order will be available to both not matter whether the battered woman is presently married women and to women living in de facto rela­ living in the home or whether she has had to leave that tionships. home. In order to get a non-violence order, the victim of In order to obtain an accommodation order, the domestic violence will have to convince the court, first, battered woman will have to convince the court, first, that she (or the children) have been assaulted and, se­ that she (or the children) have been assaulted and, se­ cond, that this is likely to happen again. Once the cond, that this is likely to happen again. order has been granted it will become an offence for Once the order has been granted, the violent partner the violent partner to assault or to threaten to assault will be required to leave the family home (or flat) and any other member of the household. to stay away for the period of time specified in the To enforce the order, the police will be given the order. It will be an offence for them to come into the power to arrest any person that they suspect (with house, to hang about the property, or to approach or good reason) to have disobeyed the order. The police to persistently telephone the other parent or the will also be given the power to detain the arrested per­ children. When the court makes this kind of order it son for 24 hours. Anyone who is detained in this way will have to specify the period of time that it is to re­ will have the right to see a judge the next morning. main in force and the circumstances (if any) under And the judge will have the power either to release the which the violent parent is permitted to come on to the violent partner or to leave them in jail for the rest of property. Anyone convicted of disobeying an accom­ the 24-hour period. modation order will face a fine of up to $500 or a term Of course the police already have all of these in prison of up to three months. powers. They have the power to arrest and to detain The accommodation order is very similar to two of anyone who assaults or threatens to assault another the orders which can already be obtained by the bat­ person. So the Bill does not introduce any new police tered wife. These are the exclusive occupation order powers. and the non-molestation order. What the police do not do, is to exercise these There are two main differences. First, the accom­ powers. The police almost never arrest the violent modation order will be available to women in de facto partner following a domestic assault. It is part of relationships as well as to married women. (The oc­ police policy not to do so. The new Bill recognizes and cupation order is only available to married women). accepts this. Secondly, the non-molestation part of the accom­ What the non-violence order will do is to issue the modation order is much better than the non­ police with a clear set of instructions — instructions molestation order presently available. The new order which say that if someone has a non-violence order will allow none of the exceptions and excuses which against them, and if they again assault the person they can presently be used by a violent husband to get are living with, then they are to be arrested and detain­ around the non-molestation order. The violent of­ ed regardless of police policy. The order will make it fender will only be allowed on to the property under much more difficult for the police to fob-off and ig­ circumstances which have already been agreed to by nore the rights of battered women in the way that they the judge when he made the order. These are obvious have done in the past. If the order doesn’t reduce the improvements. violence (as it won’t do in most cases) and the violent The new Bill also contains a third provision. partner is arrested for disobeying the order, then the Whenever the court makes a non-violence order or an 24-hour cooling-off period will als

4 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 Obviously, the new Bill introduces only a few of the battered woman to separate from a violent partner. changes which we have been calling for. In Listen to Hence it is likely to be opposed by those who believe Me, Please!' we identified more than 30 changes which that separation and divorce should be made more need to be made to the law just to reduce the worst (rather than less) difficult. The Bill also puts the safety aspects of marital oppression. The new Bill introduces of the battered woman and the children ahead of the only six of the changes which are most urgently re­ property rights of the violent offender and hence is quired. However, six is better than none, and when likely to be strongly opposed by groups like the Equal you belong to the most oppressed group of all you sup­ Parental Rights group. Those who would like the Bill port even small changes. passed into law should not underestimate the power of Also, it is our view that the proposed changes, these lobbies. although limited, are still very important changes. It is The new Bill is presently being considered by the important that a woman who is being terrorized by a Statutes Revision Committee. The Support Group will de facto partner have the same rights in law as a mar­ be making a submission arguing that the Bill should be ried woman. The new Bill recognizes this. It is impor­ passed without any substantial changes and that it tant that the battered woman have the same right to should be passed as soon as possible. We hope that police protection as any other victim of violent assault. other women’s groups will do the same.2 Anyone who The new Bill recognizes this. It is important that the would like to see our submission when it is ready housing needs of the battered woman and the children should write to us. It will be interesting to see whether be given priority over the property rights of the violent the Bill gets passed or not.D partner. The new Bill recognizes this. These are all 1 Listen to Me, Please! by John and Doris Church is changes which we support most strongly and we hope available from Battered Women’s Support Group, PO that other women’s groups will also. Box 5227, Christchurch (Single copies: $4.00). Of course, the fact that the Bill has been introduced 2 The address is: Statutes Revision Committee, does not mean that it will be passed. It must be Parliament Buildings, Wellington. The closing date remembered that there are many groups within New for submissions is February 4. Zealand society who are opposed to improvements in Listen to Me Please is also available from the Broad­ the legal status of women and especially married sheet bookshop, as is the Churches’ earlier book How women. The new Bill will make it slightly easier for a To Get Our O f Your Marriage Alive ($3.00)

DISCUSSING THE DIFFERENCES — a response by Susan Markham

Having just read with growing irritation the sweep­ another activity under criticism for becoming politiciz­ ing statements of Mallica Vajrathon from UNFPA in ed, rugby football, “ there is no public activity that can her article Discussing the Differences (Broadsheet, Oc­ be carried out anywhere in the world that does not in­ tober 1981) I feel compelled to reply in an attempt to volve politics.’’ To me, the fact that the Copenhagen put into perspective some of her comments relating to Conference was so blatantly political marked the com­ the UN Mid-Decade Conference for Women and the ing of age of the international women’s movement. differences as she sees them between feminists from For a United Nations Women’s Conference in 1980 to developing countries and those from the West. ignore the political situation in the world would be for Let me first state my credentials, as Ms Vajrathon it not to be taken seriously. And let me tell you — that did, so that your readers will understand that I am not Conference is now taken very seriously indeed, par­ just talking off the top of my head but do have some ticularly around the UN. knowledge of the issues she raises, even though I can­ Because it was ‘just another women’s conference’ not, as she does, claim to come from a developing before it began, many delegations attending it did not country. I was one of two Information Officers for the include their ‘big guns’ from New York, most of Copenhagen Conference (the other being my colleague whom, needless to say, are men. Many of the delega­ Nadia Younes from Egypt) and as such attended tions were headed by women — women, of course, strategy meetings before the Conference and the Con­ rarely being considered the big guns. However, as the ference itself. I did not attend the Mexico Conference. truth dawned that many of the women present were During the two years I have worked at the United Na­ not content to stick to ‘safe’ issues but were staging tions I have discussed the issues raised by Ms Vaj­ political walkouts and demonstrations, the men began rathon with many women from both developing and to appear. So it was that when it came to the delicate developed countries because these issues are not new and controversial negotiations surrounding the in­ but have long been of concern to many women work­ troductory segment of the Programme of Action, the ing both in the UN and in the field of international part that includes reference to ‘racism’, ‘zionism’ and relations. ‘sexism’, many delegations, including some from Like Ms Vajrathon, I do not agree with those who developing countries, were represented by men, and criticize the Copenhagen Conference for being too the women were forced to the back seat. I state this political and therefore a disaster. As Micheal Manley, merely to set the scene so that your readers will see that former Prime Minister of Jamaica, said recently about although women were in the forefront of the Con-

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 5 ference, they did not control its every facet. I don’t believe that the concern expressed by some And while I’m at it, I must take strong exception to women (both from the West and from developing Ms Vajrathon’s implication that it was only women countries Ms Vajrathon will be interested to hear) from the West who “ followed the instructions of their about the politicization of the Conference had much to male leaders in the government or delegation’’. All do with what is or is not a woman’s issue. It had more delegations followed instructions from their govern­ to do with a general concern thaf this UN conference ments. That is the nature of a UN conference where not get bogged down in political rhetoric which is the delegations are be definition representatives of their trademark of most UN conferences, but instead come governments. This was illustrated in the votes on the up with an action oriented programme which could be three parts of the Programme of Action where a vote of real use to women everywhere. Many people were was called for, all of which related to the Palestinian- concerned that if the Palestinian-Israeli issue began to Israeli issue. During these votes the delegations were dominate the Conference, this would not be possible. lined up for and against in a predictable fashion. But For example, the section in the Programme of Action to say, as Ms Vajrathon does, that this showed that concerning measures of assistance to Palestinian women from the West were not voting in solidarity women which everyone agreed was important, was in with their sisters from the Third World on this issue, jeopardy because the USA and Israel would force a and were therefore ‘insensitive’ to the issues women vote on it if the section in the introduction to the Pro­ from developing countries consider crucial is gramme equating Zionism to racism was included. At nonsense. Ms Vajrathon omits to mention the work one point a member of the PLO delegation told me going on behind the scenes by women in the delega­ they were under pressure from other delegations to tions from the West who, with furious telex messages drop the zionism/racism reference in order that the going to and fro between Copenhagen and their capital measures of assistance to Palestinian women could be cities, were trying desperately to convince their govern­ agreed to without a vote. Whether or not this was a ments to abstain rather than vote “ No” . These women misguided attitude, it had nothing whatever to do with were realistic enough to know that they couldn’t over­ whether this was or was not a woman’s issue but the night change their governments’ foreign policies, but negotiations were based on a realistic appraisal of in the interests of women everywhere they wanted the what governments would allow delegations to agree to. Programme of Action to be agreed upon. The fact that some were successful is shown by the later vote during Furthermore, faced with the prospect of bringing the General Assembly where some Western countries the whole Programme of Action to vote rather than who had previously abstained voted “ Yes” , and being able to agree to it by concensus, many women Australia which originally voted “ No” abstained. condemned the politicization of the Conference. They A more constructive and perspective analysis would realized that those countries voting against or abstain­ be to point out how on every other controversial issue ing (which are the so-called donor countries, the ones included in the Programme of Action there was no which could provide the money to put into effect some need for a vote. And, not quite as constructive but of the provisions in the Programme of Action) could equally pointful, one might mention that the fight to use their vote as an excuse not to implement the Pro­ include the word ‘sexism’ in the long list of ‘don’ts’ gramme. Women also expressed concern that politics was opposed by some male delegates who said there could get in the way of the very real work being done was no such word in their language and therefore by in Committees which were trying to come up with implication it didn’t exist in their societies. However, realistic measures to assist all women but most they couldn’t argue that ‘discrimination on the basis of especially the poorest and most disadvantaged. So sex’ was not translatable, so this was included and whatever condemnation there was about the politiciza­ ‘sexism’ was added as a footnote. tion of the Conference, be it from the West or develop­ ing counties, it was not because delegates wanted And this brings me to the crux of my difference of merely to stick to women’s issues. opinion with Ms Vajrathon. She states that condemna­ tion of the politicization of the Conference stemmed Ms Vajrathon’s analysis of the differences between from the separation, in the minds of women from the women from developing countries and those from the West, between what are women’s issues and what are West (or North America and Europe as she puts it) political issues. This separation is caused by an falls into the UN trap of seeing every issue as a North- historical accident, namely the fact that in the West the South division, a division which does little to elucidate women’s movement has been led by middle class the very real problems facing women everywhere. I am women working outside the political and economic not suggesting that women are exactly the same structures of their countries. On the other hand, she everywhere, but I would strongly suggest that the dif­ states that feminists in developing countries “ are quite ferences are not as sweeping and unbridgeable as she different” in that they work within the system and makes out. therefore do not make this distinction between what is Her statement that feminists from developing coun­ and what is not a woman’s issue. I find this a totally tries “ are quite different” from feminists from the fatuous argument. Whatever the historical West because they work within the system overlooks background of the women’s movement in the West the fact that many feminists in the West also work (and I won’t debate that point here), it has nothing within the system. I am pleased to see that later in her whatever to do with what happened at Copenhagen. I article she at least pays lip service to this fact. will discuss her perception of the difference between By insinuating, as she does, that women from feminists from developed and developing counties developing countries have more in common, just later. because they come from a developing country, than

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 they do with women in the West is to ignore the real ef­ accident of birth we cannot understand, support and fects that factors such as wealth, poverty, education or fight for the same things. Otherwise it would make a lack of it, jobs, unemployment, class, race and even mockery of events such as the Copenhagen Conference international travel have on women no matter what and the NGO Forum where surely their point was to society they live in. It is to place too much emphasis on further our understanding of each other. It is true that nationality, upbringing, cultural heritage and other ex­ many of us are at different stages of awareness, but is periences which are similar in some countries rather that any reason, in 1981, to fall into the divisive than others. It is to assume that a black American nonsense of international politics as played by men woman cannot identify with the struggle of a black which assumes an unbridgeable gulf between the con­ Southern African woman against apartheid just cerns of developing and developed countries? Can’t because of an accident of birth. It is likewise to assume women see beyond the stereotyped categories of North that an upper-class Indian woman living in New Delhi and South (UN jargon for developed and developing can identify with the Southern African’s situation, just countries respectively) and attempt to reach other because they both come from developing countries. It women no matter what part of the world they come is my experience that some women from developing from? countries can be accused of being ‘insensitive’ to the It might well be true that women from the West have problems of their sisters in developing countries, just been (past tense) too quick to state what issues are im­ as some Western women can. But by the same token, portant and assume they apply to all women some women from the West, just like some women everywhere. But I would take strong exception to Ms from developing countries, are very concerned about Vajrathon’s elitist remark that feminists from in­ national liberation struggles, poverty, malnutrition, dustrialized countries “ still believe that they have to be the new international economic order and other sub­ the leaders of the Women’s Movement, to develop a jects which Ms Vajrathon seems to think are the preoc­ certain ‘feminist ideology’ for the rest of the women of cupation of women from developing countries only. the world to follow.’’ Most feminists I know who are involved in the women’s movement at the interna­ tional level would be pleased to follow the leadership Nor is the concern about male vs female and the par- of any woman, no matter what part of the world she triarchal control of society the preoccupation of came from, as long as she was concerned about im­ women from the West only, as Ms Vajrathon implies. proving the situation for all women and was actually Maybe she did not talk to women from the PLO and prepared to do something to achieve this. Rather than ANC delegations as I did and hear their stories about discussing “ feminst ideology” the women I know are dreadful injustices women suffer from in their male- more concerned with discussing strategies and action, dominated societies and what they are doing to try to what they can actually do rather than the philosophical change this. Maybe she didn’t hear them express con­ cern that once the national liberation struggles in arguments for doing it. We all know action is required which they are actively involved are won, the battle for and view with some impatience those women like Ms women to take an equal place in the government is not Vajrathon who seem to find it more beneficial to em­ automatically won, and what they hope to do to ensure phasise how we can’t work together rather than how this happens. And maybe she didn’t talk to the women we do. from developing countries who were, like women from The point is not, as Ms Vajrathon suggests, that the West, concerned about issues like equal pay, equal women from different countries have enormous dif­ opportunity, equal education, equal treatment. No ferences which cannot be bridged. The point really is issue, whether it be the NIEO or equal pay is the con­ that despite our differences we have much in common. cern of women in one region of the world only. The question is how can we best build on this so that Certainly there are differences between the im­ women are powerfully united in their quest to make mediate concerns of women in different countries, just this world a better place for us all. I wish Ms as there are between different women in the same Vajrathon had directed her talents to a discussion of country. But this is not to say that just because of an this.D

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Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 BEHI N D THE NEWS

m first time when one had to say she they had done with their lives. didn’t like the work of the other — Each woman was interviewed but the friendship survived very once, and taped, the interview tak­ well. For the authors, working ing up to three hours. Each was ask­ together on the book was an exten­ ed about her life — Where were you sion and a vindication of their born? Where were you brought up? feminism. Sadly, this contrasts with What can you remember of your the experience of the women they in­ childhood....? The interviewer sat terviewed. Most of them had no and listened, making no attempt to sense of either support from, or affect what each woman was saying. sympathy for other women. After the interviews were transcrib­ By using the surname “ Smith” , ed, they were cut up to be categoris­ the authors hoped to “ reach the ed under the chapter headings which mainstream of New Zealand” . represent the stages of a woman’s However, they did place other limits life cycle. As the Prologue says, on their sample. The age range of “ The women themselves talk about WHO ARE THE SMITH 20-50 excluded those women who how they feel of felt at each point WOMEN had grown up during the Depres­ and describe what they see as the Claire-Louise McCurdy reports sion, and those who have yet to ex­ constraints and influences on their on an investigation and book of perience the range of female situa­ lives ... The women give a picture of more than passing interest to tions. Women on farms were ex­ what it is like to be a woman in New feminists. cluded, although several interviewed Zealand. had spent their childhoods there. And the picture that is conveyed And the authors point out in their raises so many questions — about One hundred women with the Prologue other categories they miss­ the images we have of ourselves, most common surname in New ed. None of the women said they about the constraints that are placed Zealand agreed to speak about their were lesbian. None of the women on our lives. Most of the Smith lives to Alison Gray and Rosemary had had mastectomies. None of the women have married. And they ex­ Barrington. From the tapes came women were air hostesses! But most pected to do so. But most of them the book The Smith Women, releas­ of the women saw themselves as are in paid work. And very few of ed last month by AH & AW Reed. typical. The first response from them had planned for that. For The publishers have been marketing many on being contacted was “ Why three-quarters of them, school was it with an enthusiasm that is still do you want to talk to me — I’m unpleasant and/or irrelevant. Some unusual for books by authors who just an ordinary New Zealand?” chances and choices were lost very are not only New Zealanders but But who is the ordinary New early. The book documents the female. Launching in Wellington Zealand woman? It is possible to similarities and the differences and Auckland, television interviews, generalise? We have more statistics among New Zealand women, but newspaper articles have aroused in­ than we have ever had before, but the similarities tend to be in the im­ terest (and sales?), but the this is partly because of the Society age, the differences in the actuality. publishers were aware of a potential for Research on Women, the There are very great differences, in audience even before the book was Federation of University Women background, in age, in income, in started. Alison Gray completed her and the Women’s Studies Associa­ education, in experience, and some masterate thesis on inequality tion (NZ), and their work does not. of these combine in the class dif­ among women with a number of yet give a total picture. There are ferences that the authors see as themes she wanted pursue further. government statistics too, but these greatly underestimated in New A conversation over coffee with a fail to document many aspects of Zealand. The division of the Smith friend in publishing had this book women’s lives. The last census ig­ women into upper middle, middle, on its way. nored the work done by any woman and working class, and the defini­ Alison was joined by Rosemary who was not paid for at least thirty tions of these terms, suggests an Barrington and the two women hours per week of it. Rosemary and area of discussion and further discovered how much easier the Alison interviewed one hundred research this book could provoke. work could be when it was shared women, a number that does lend Each chapter could open up another with another woman. They inter­ itself to neat percentages and area in this way. A third of the viewed and wrote chapters separate­ “ statistical correlations” but they women under thirty knew nothing ly, but they swapped drafts, shared were mainly interested in what about menstruation before it hap­ childcare and cheered each other up. statistics do not give us, what the pened to them. What does this say There were the bad moments — that women themselves felt about what about availability of information?

8 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 Rosemary Barrington and Alison Gray are feminists and they were in­ terested in documenting the women’s attitudes to other women and to the Women’s Movement. They were disconcerted to find that “ underlying many of the comments was a deep dislike of women as peo­ ple’’, a dislike that included feminists and extended to what they understood the Women’s Move­ ment to be. The authors go on to say “ We found this ... not altogether unexpected, given that from the time they are born, 95 out of 100 women are led to believe they are not as good as men. ...It is not com­ forting to identify with such second- class citizens.’’ The authors suggest that the Smith women see the Women’s Movement as “the preserve of a privileged minority, whose concerns and struggles are removed from those of the majori­ ty.’’ But the actual lives of the women contradict this image they have. Here is a source book for Women’s Studies, an information base for feminism. Here is a book that documents the fear that results from ignorance, the unwanted pregnancies, the limited job oppor­ tunities, the petty and gross discriminations and the hostility of Alison Gray [left] and Rosemary Barrington, authors of The Smith Women published by AH an oppressed group towards their &W Reed. Photo: Dominion/Sunday Times.* own kind.D 1

tion and relay it to a foreign agency, 52. It is a similar clause except that it or use it in any way to prejudice the appears to threaten all citizens, and security or defence of the nation. is directed at any information. New Zealand is no exception, Clause 52 of the proposed Bill pro­ since 1961 our Crimes Act has vides for a penalty of up to stated: — 14 years imprisonment for 78. Communicating secrets — Every one anybody owing allegiance to Her Majesty the — who communicates information Queen in right of New Zealand is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 (it doesn’t state, or infer that it must years who, within or outside New be official) Zealand, — — with intent likely to prejudice the (a) With intent to prejudice the safety, security, defence, or internationa security, or defence of New Zealand, communicates or makes available to any relations of New Zealand. (Page 28 CRIME AND SECRETS person any military or Scientific informa­ of the Official Information Bill). Sherry Baumgarten looks at the tion... the communication or making 52. New sections substituted — (1) The available of which is likely to prejudice principal Act is hereby amended by controversial Official Information the safety, security, or defence of New repealing section 78, and substituting the Bill, a bill which gives sweeping Zealand; following sections: powers to the state. “78. Wrongful communication of infor­ Under the Security Intelligence mation — (1) Every one is liable to im­ prisonment for a term not exceeding 14 Service Act any offence against this years who, being a person who owes section is defined as “ Espionage” , allegiance to the Queen in right of New Wherever governments seek to an activity to be investigated by the Zealand, within or outside New Zealand, protect themselves against real or SIS. for a purpose prejudicial to the security, But what has security intelligence defence, or international relations of New imagined enemies, they value their Zealand, advantage in keeping military and or espionage got to do with us? “ (a) Communicates information or political information secret. Most Draconian Change delivers any object to a country or governments have laws which pro­ The proposed 1981 Official Infor­ organisation outside New Zealand or to a vide stiff penalties for those who il­ mation Bill repeals Section 78 of the person acting on behalf of any such coun­ licitly secure this type of informa­ Crimes Act and substitutes Clause try or organisation; or

Broadsheet Jan/Feb198? 9 “(b) With the intention of communicating copies to: information or delivering any object to a country or organisation outside New Mr P. E. Kennedy, Secretary, Zealand or to a person acting on behalf of Select Committee on Official Infor­ any such country or organisation: mation, Legislative Department, if the communication or delivery or in­ tended communication or intended Parliament Building, Wellington. delivery under paragraph (a) or paragraph On or before January 29, 1982 (b) of this subsection is likely to prejudice You may send one copy to your local editor the security, defence, or international but it must reach her/him before you send the relations of New Zealand. copies to Select Committee. You will notice two astonishing changes have been introduced, that the term “ international relations” has been added, and that any reference to “ official” has been deleted. Changes that leave the clause open to the widest possible interpretation as to what type of in­ ternational relations would be pre­ judiced, and what type of informa­ tion relayed constitutes a crime. Dissent or Espionage Proven transgressions against this clause constitute espionage. Suspect transgressions would have to be in­ FOUR MORE WOMEN Margaret Shields: Labour, Kapiti vestigated by the SIS, who also have IN PARLIAMENT a duty to “ inform the New Zealand was a member of the New Zealand Intelligence Council of any new area SANDRA CONEY makes government delegation to the IWY of potential espionage” . This clause some brief predictions about Mexico City Conference in 1975. will undoubtedly widen the powers what we can expect from the Shield’s active involvement in the of our Security Intelligence Service new crop of women politicians. women’s movement tailed off making widespread surveillance and around this date as she wound investigation legal. The name of the herself up in the Labour Party. game — to catch a spy —• could easi­ The 1981 election put four new She’s been president of the Labour ly become — to harass a dissenter. women MPs in the House. Without Women’s Council twice and is cur­ New Zealand is reputed to have getting into any arguments about rently on the Policy Council. an outstanding number of non­ how usefully women can work for Besides this, Sheilds has put her governmental organisations and social change through legislative in­ clearly prodigious energy into con­ watchdog groups. Groups that are volvement, here are a few impres­ sumer research, gained a degree that concerned with environmental, sions of the new MPs. It has to be traditionally back door route of social, political and legislative remembered that while all four are late-starting women through Massey issues. Most of these groups impart liberal on abortion, they are bound and served a term on the Wellington information locally and interna­ by their Party’s policies on abor­ Hospital Board. Phew! She’s liberal tionally, confident that the right to tion, and neither of these are what on abortion although she lapsed communicate freely is theirs in a feminists want. Remember too, that from grace when she supported the democracy. For some 25 years the these women will only be as useful Party’s referendum policy a while Official Secrets Act gagged civil ser­ as we make them. Without hearing back. Maybe the resulting flak vants from publicly dissenting from from activists what women need and taught Shields that people who sit government policy. Are dissenting want, they’re going to be less effec­ on fences get pricked; however the members of the public to be similar­ tive. lesson was learned, she’s currently ly gagged by Clause 52? viewed in pro-abortion circles as a If a vague penal statute is passed MARGARET SHIELDS dependable ally. Shields was given into law we may feel as threatened Of all the new crop of women the longest of long shots at a seat as do those who live in a police politicians, Shields has had the when she contested Karori in ’75’ in state. longest and most intense involve­ ’78 she won, then lost, Kapiti by 28 Your concern over this issue can ment in the women’s movement. votes. This election she wasn’t tak­ still be expressed to the Select Com­ Her concern pre-dated the second ing any chances. She’s slogged her mittee who will be considering the wave of feminism and initially stem­ guts out in Kapiti over the past three Official Information Bill and mak­ med from a period spent knocking years and reaped her reward with a ing recommendations to Parlia­ on suburban women’s doors as a majority of 495 votes. ment. You may make submissions part-time market researcher when Shields solid data-based of one, or many pages. State who her own kids were small. In 1966 background provides her with a ♦you are, or who you represent, she, with others, founded the Socie­ clear understanding of the problems which section of the Bill you are ty for Research on Women; she was women face, and make her a useful discussing, state your case and what a keynote speaker at the first 1973 person to approach,'with the reser­ you consider should be changed. United Women’s Convention and a vation that these very qualities — Sign your statements and send 30 co-organiser of the second one. She what some perceive as her lack of

10 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 passion — may, in a crisis, render is a Muldoonishness about Richard­ do battle for abortion or women’s ier more cautious than courageous. son’s style. If she’s copied a thing of property rights. But she’ll probably two from our leader, it may explain fail to connect her Party’s economic why it’s rumoured that Richardson policies with the oppression of is one of the few people Muldoon’s women and other underprivileged scared of. groups, or see the feminist implica­ She’s certainly gone after a seat in tions of other issues like shop Parliament with awesome deter­ trading hours. She certainly won’t mination. While most of us were want to change the system. agonising over teenage acne, the schoolgirl Richardson was planning the fastest way up the Hill. The fastest way included becoming a lawyer for Federated Farmers and tailoring her personal life to woo her electorate. To some, Richardson epitomises a post-feminist breed of smart, ambitious career women, but under the “ liberated” image (which Richardson probably never sought), beats the heart of a blue-blooded Nat. She’s a fervent believer in free enterprise, and an opponent of ex­ cessive government involvement in the business world. As a more positive extension of that Fran Wilde: Labour, Wellington Central FRAN WILDE According to observers, women in Wellington deserted the National Party in droves. Some of them no doubt, helped propel freelance journalist and political science graduate Fran Wilde into the win­ Helen Clark: Labour, Mt Albert ner’s seat in Wellington Central. HELEN CLARK Although there’s strong feminist Clark openly aligns herself with and liberal pressure within the elec­ the feminist movement and has call­ torate, and despite her prior in­ ed for and got a lot of active support volvement with the non-sexist kids’ from feminists. However, her book collective, Kidsarus, Wilde political activity has been almost ex­ hasn’t pushed a feminist profile. clusively with the Labour Party She’s a woman politician in the following early student involvement traditional Labour Party mould, a in anti-War and anti-Bok protests. latter-day Mary Batchelor even, and She believes she’s doing her “ bit for there’s nothing the matter with that. feminism” by working through a The mother of three young children, political party. ‘Her background’s she’s said often that there should be distinctly academic; after getting her more women who are parents in the MA in political studies at Auckland House. She’s reliable on abortion University she moved into the and her own life experiences as a Ruth Richardson: National, Selwyn teacher’s seat. But her Mt Albert woman, and as an aspiring politi­ electorate has a solid working class cian who is also a mother, may philosophy she’s an outspoken sup­ heart and she shows a realistic grasp predispose her to be a strong and porter of open government reform of the realities of life on the factory committed battler for women’s in­ and believes in minimising govern­ floor, so to speak. She’s liberal on terests. There are plenty of women ment monitoring of individual abortion and on election night said in her electorate who will be wat­ citizens’ lives. Post election night that as the only Auckland woman ching out to see she is. she was wishing for a seat on the MP, she expected that women committee studying the notorious would look to her to represent them. RUTH RICHARDSON Official Information Bill. During her campaign she was sub­ Journalist Susa*i Maxwell, Richardson’s likely to fight for jected to the sort of nasty smear tac- writing about Richardson in 1979, the right of women to compete tice that can only be directed at a called her “ small and abrasive” . equally with men...on' men’s terms woman candidate, and survived. Listeners at last year’s WSA Con­ (although she mightn’t see it like She impresses as a hard worker anc ference confirmed that indeed there that). Thus she’d more than likely a hard talker.

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 11 Her head is tilted slightly backwards and turned to the left so that she is It is distinguished from “regular" light looking up. Her eyes are black. Her — for instance, the light from a light hair is black, thick and wavy. Her lips By Andrea Dworkin bulb — by its incredible intensity, the are full. Her skin is olive in some fact that it is light of a very pure color places, brown in others, depending on and that it manifests as a straight- how the light falls. Her nipples are dark In her forthcoming arrow beam that can be directed with and so is her pubic hair, which is abun­ nearly absolute accuracy at any target dant. Her breasts are full. She wears book, Pornography: near or far (for instance, according to black high heels, spiked, and black Men Possessing the Mew York Times, the Pentagon is gloves that extend slightly past her already developing laaser weapons elbows. Her arms are raised above her Women, Dworkin that can destroy tanks, air-craft, head; her hands are chained together missiles, and orbiting satellites). The at the wrists and attached to a horizon­ raises guestions intensity of light emitted by a laser tal pole. Her body is bound in black never asked before means that it also generates incredible straps: a V opening up from her crotch, heat. Laser light is burning light. In wrapped around her waist, an upside- about pornography, The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, down V that crisscrosses between her anti-Semitism, with characteristic prescience, wrote of breasts to form another V that disap­ a ray that caused whatever it touched pears behind her neck. Zigzagged and sadism to burn. He called it "that pitiless sword across her body, in front and behind, of heat," a fairly good description of are bluish-white laser beams. The the modern laser. In popular culture, woman is held stationary by the laser especially in science fiction and The feature is in Playboy ("Playboy's futuristic adventure films, a laser beams that cut across and behind her Roving Eye, July, 1979). The accom­ body. beam, emitted from a gun, will cause panying text explains that Playboy has a person or thing to vaporize. Scien­ A second photograph shows the eight foreign editions and that the woman s naked ass and legs. The top tists have already acknowledged the favorite of the editors in the United laser as a potential antipersonnel border of the photograph is cropped States is the German one: when they just below the woman's waist. She is weapon of astonishing destructive pass the German edition on to their capability. According to Richard standing. Her legs are spread. She is Porsche mechanic, "our car will — in­ wearing black spiked heels. Her ankles Mehrich, Jr., Gleen Voran, and Mor- explicably — run that much better." man Dessel, the authors of A to m ic are manacled. The manacles are Playboy editors in Munich 'have a fastened by chains to a pole that runs Light: Lasers — What They Are and slightly different approach to How They Work: "The use of the laser across the top part of the photograph, eroticism, one that is a refreshing blocked from view only where the for a death ray cannot be avoided as break from the home-grown variety. a possibility. It stands to reason that woman s ass blocks it. The chains that As you can see from these pictures, fasten the woman to the pole are a light ray powerful enough to their taste runs to the technological." penetrate steel could also burn attached to the outside of each ankle The woman is called "an exquisite and run perpendicular to the pole with­ through a nice soft human being." volunteer." The dangers of working with or near out any slack. The woman's skin is What was in the minds of the makers brown. Several laser beams appear to a laser include cellular damage, in­ of these photographs? Obviously I can­ tense burns, chemical poisoning, and penetrate her vagina from behind. The not know. But this is what I think these rays of laser light converge from below electrocution. Even accidental reflec­ photographs convey: tions of laser light from watchbands, at what appears to be the point of en­ The laser promises burning. The try into the woman. It is as if the jewelry, or buttons can damage the word "laser" is an acronym for "light eye. In science and warfare, experts at­ woman were hoisted on laser beams amplication by stimulated emission of going into her vagina. tempt, within the limits of their value radiation." Laser light is atomic light. system, to balance dangers against

12 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 benefits. In pornography, there is no nography, do not exist for me in a a kind of sexual degradation that was reason to bother: there is no argument historical vacuum. On the contrary, — and remains — unspeakable. Even against whatever works in exciting the they exploit history — especially the Marquis de Sade did not dare to male. The importance of pornography historical hatreds and historical suffer­ imagine what the Nazis created, and to the human male is measured in ings. The witches were burned. The neither did the Cossacks. With the gold; danger to the female is measured Jews were burned. The laser burns. Nazis, the sexualization of the Jewish in feathers. After all, the use of laser The sexualization of "the Jewess” in woman took on a new dimension. She beams to restrain and then apparent­ cultures that abhor the Jew — subtly became the carrier of a new sexual ly penetrate a woman is "a refreshing or overtly — is the paradigm for the memory, one so brutal and sadistic break from the home-grown variety" sexualization of all racially or ethnical­ that its very existence changed the of poronography, and once the ly degraded women. As Sartre wrote character of the mainstream sexual im­ mechanic sees the photographs, “our in Anti-Semite and Jew: agination. The concentration camp car will — inexplicably — run that There is in the words "a 'beautiful woman, a Jew — emaciated with bulg­ much better." Should one — inex­ Jewess"a very special sexual significa­ ing eyes and sagging breasts and plicably — argue that the use of the tion . . . This phrase carries an aura of bones sticking out all over and shav­ laser was both hazardous and rape and massacre. The "beautiful ed head and covered in her own filth gratuitous, and thus too dangerous to Jewess” is she whom the Cossacks and cut up and whipped and stomped be warranted, one would be wrong. It under the czars dragged by her hair on and punched out and starved — was only hazardous. It was not through the streets of her burning became the hidden sexual secret of our gratuitous. village. And the special works which time. The barely faded, easily accessi­ The laser beams promise burning. are given over to accounts of flagella­ ble memory of her sexual degradation The taste of the Germans has indeed tion reserve a place of honour for the is at the heart of the sadism against all run to the technological. There was no Jewess. . . Frequently violated or women that is now promoted in laser in Hitler's time, but he and his beaten, she sometimes succeeds in mainstream sexual propaganda: she in men pioneered the field of escaping dishonor by means of death, the millions; she naked in the millions; technologically proficient mass exter­ but that is a form of justice. she utterly at the mercy of. . . in the mination. The ethnic or racial identi­ Building on Sartre’s insight, Susan millions; she to whom anything could ty of the dark-featured model in this Brownmiller, in Against Our Will, link­ be and was done. . . in the millions; context seems to me clear; she is a ed the experience of black women in she for whom there will never be any Jewish physical type. A racial as well the United States with that of the sex- justice or revenge. . . in the millions. as a sexual stereotype seems ex­ ualized Jewess: It is her existence that has defined con­ ploited: as “an exquisite volunteer," It is reasonable to conjecture that temporary mass sexuality, given it its she walks willingly into the oven. The the reputation for unbridled sensuali­ distinctly and unabashedly mass- ambition of the Germans to exter­ ty that has followed the Jewish woman sadistic character. The Germans had minate the Jews was realized to such throughout history. . . has its origins her, had the power to make her. The a staggering extent because of the Ger­ in the Jewish woman's historical ex­ others want her, want the power to man commitment to a technology of perience of forcible rape, and is a pro­ make her. And it must be said that the extermination. The mention of the jection onto them of male sex fan­ male of a racially despised group suf­ Porsche that “inexplicably" functions tasies. In this respect, Jewish women fers because he has been kept from better conjures up the German and black women have a common having her, from having the power to transport of the Jews. She is the Jew, bond: the reputation for lasciviousness make her. He may mourn less what has the willing victim. She is the woman, and promiscuity that haunts black happened to her than that he did not the volunteer for bondage. Women, women in America today may be at­ have the power to do it. When he takes too, were burned en masse in an earlier tributed to the same high degree of back his manhood, he takes her back Germany: the witchcraft persecutions. historical forcible rape. and on her he avenges himself: The manual character of the burnings In this context, “forcible rape" (the through rape, prostitution, and forced meant that killing was slower. As word “forcible” underscoring the reali­ pregnancy; through despising her, his described by Pennethorne Hughes in ty of rape per se) does npt mean the contempt expressed in art and politics Witchcraft: rape of Jew by Jew or black by black and pleasure. This reclamation of In almost every province of Germany or wife by husband or child by father masculinity is too often evident among the persecution raged with increasing or any other tribal or familial forced Jewish and black males, though it is intensity. Six hundred were said to sex act. “Forcible rape" means rape by in no way limited to them. In fact, in have been burned by a single bishop an outsider who in a given social creating a female degraded beyond in Bamberg, where the special witch system is racially superior and who ex­ human recognition, the Nazis set a jail was kept fully packed. Nine hun­ presses this racial superiority through new standard of masculinity, honored dred were destroyed in a single year in rape, the same outsider may also rape especially in the benumbed cons­ the bishopric of Wurzburg, and in women in his own group — also forci­ cience that does not even notice Nuremberg and other great cities there ble rape though less often recognized sadism against women because that were one or two hundred burnings a as rape at all — but racially motivated sadism is so ordinary. year. rape has meaning as a discrete In his essay “Night Words," literary All Western Europe participated in the phenomenon for both rapists and critic George Steiner has recognised witch killings, but the burnings were victims. the assimilation of concentration horribly fierce in Germany. The laser The beautiful Jewess degraded by camp values into the present erotic promises burning. Cossacks will reverberates in the pool sensibility: "The novels being produc­ The photographs reprinted from the of sexual images that mystify the ed under the new code of total state­ German Playboy, like all pieces of por­ Jewish woman, but the Nazis created ment shout at their personages: strip,

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 13 fornicate, perform this or that act of that provoked the German response. the female. In his world view — which sexual perversion. So did the S.S. Real manhood demanded that the sex­ is so significant because his study is guards at rows of living men and ual beasts be tamed so that (1) pure the first modern codification of male women.” Steiner avoids the two essen­ Aryan women would not be ravished sexual values — force is required to tial specifics: Jews and women. It is not and (2) Aryan sperm, lured by the conquer modesty: that only Jews were imprisoned and lascivious Jewess, would not be miss­ Force is the foundation of virility, and killed: many other groups, including pent in producing half-breeds. This is its psychic manifestation is courage. Gypsies, Poles, and homosexuals, the paradigm of racist sexual ideology In the struggle for life violence is the were also captured and slaughtered. — every racially despised group is in­ first virtue. The modesty of women — The importance of the two specifics — vested with a bestial sexual nature. So in its primordial form consisting in Jew and woman — resides in the the force is marshaled and the terror physical resistance, active or passive, resonating power of sexual memory. is executed. The men are conquered, to the assaults of the male — aided It is her image — hiding, running, cap­ castfated, killed. The women are selection by putting to the test man's tive, dead — that evokes the sexual raped, sterilized, tortured, killed. When most important quality, force. Thus it triumph of the sadist. She is his sex­ the terror subsides, the survivors are is that when choosing among rivals for ual memory and he lives in all men. re-evaluated: previously seen as her favors a woman attributes value to But this memory is not recognized as animals, now they are not recognizable violence. a sexual fact, nor it is acknowledged as animal or human. They are garbage, This view of sex exists with or as male desire: it is too horrible. In­ remains, degraded beyond recogni­ without reference to genes, hormones, stead, she wants it — they all do. The tion. They are seen as compliant, sub­ and so forth. It is old and it is new. It Jews went voluntarily to the ovens. missive, passive. They did not have to is male. It means that a woman The central question is not: what is be conquered or tarried or terrorized: “naturally” resists force because she force and what is freedom? That is a they are too pitiful, too ruined. The use wants to be conquered by it. It means good question, but in the realm of of force is erased — it has no mean­ that the violence she resists is human cruelty — the realm of history ing — because these battered sur­ ultimately what she values. It means — it is utterly abstract. The central vivors must have complied, consented: that she is responsible for giving question is: why is force never how else could they have been degrad­ violence its sexual value by “selecting” acknowledged as such when used ed to such an appalling degree? The the violent male. It demands that one against the racially or sexually despis­ sexual nature of the metaphysical vic­ believe that once the violent male has ed? Nazi terror used against the Jews tim rapist or harlot — provokes force. captured her, it is she who has is not in dispute. Still, there is an The sexual nature of the metaphysical selected, she who has made the almost universal — and intrinsically victim — passive, submissive — erases choice. This is the fate of the anti-Semitic — conviction that the force as the authentic reason for com­ metaphysical victim: to be seen as Jews went voluntarily to the ovens. Ra­ pliance or submission. responsible for the violence used tional discourse on how the Jews were The same sexual ideology that both against her. She wants it, they a ll do. terrorized does not displace or justifies force and makes it invisible is The violence used against her is never transform this irrational conviction. applied to all women, without a measure of her authentic resistance. And similarly, no matter what force is reference to race, because women are Her final submission is not seen as the used against women as a class or as in­ metaphysical victims: actualized, not triumph of terrorism; it is seen as her dividuals, the universal conviction is forced. The female is sexual pro­ nature, her choice — her design all that women want (either seek out or as­ vocateur (harlot) or sexual submissive along. Given the premises of this ut­ sent to) whatever happens to them, or combinations thereof. In male terly irrational belief system, it is easy however awful, dangerous, destructive, ideology, the elements of harlot and to assert, as Ellis does, that women painful, or humiliating. A statement is submissive are never in reality oppos­ like the pain inevitably inflicted on made about the nature of the Jew, the ed because they are applied simul­ them by the sexual violence of men: nature of the woman. The nature of taneously or sequentially in any pro­ While in men it is possible to trace a each and both is to be a victim. A portions to any woman in any cir­ tendency to inflict pain, or the simula­ metaphysical victim is never forced, cumstance. Instead, the harlot/sub- crum of pain, on the women they love, only actualized. missive elements are more like the it is still easier to trace in women a The ideology that justifies force elements in an hourglass: always the delight in experiencing physical pain against the metaphysical victim and same, always present, yet the elements when inflicted by a lover, and an then renders it invisible apepars to be shift relative to each other, the shifts eagerness to accept subjection to his contradictory, whereas in fact, it is all- manipulated by the one who manipu­ will. Such a tendency is certainly encompassing. Hitler painted the lates the hourglass. norm al. Jewish male as a rapist, a despoiler of In his Studies in the Pscyhology of Masochism, then, is defined as Aryan women. He painted the Jewish Sex, Havelock Ellis maintained that synonymous with normal femininity as female as a harlot, wild, promiscuous, ‘‘the primary part of the female in manifested in normal women. As the sensuous antithesis of the Aryan courtship is the playful, yet serious, Theodor Reik so gracelessly express­ female. Both male and female Jews assumption of the role of a hunted ed it in Of Love and Lust: “Feminine were bestial in their sexuality. The wild animal who lures on the pursuer, not masochism of the woman? Sounds animal is dangerous and must be with the object of escaping, but with like a pleonasm. It is comparable to an caged. Hitler’s first and most basic the object of being finally caught.” expression like, ‘the Negro has dark anti-Semitic appeal was not economic Here her resistance is a form of pro­ skin.' But the color of the skin is defin­ (e.g., the Jews control the money). It vocation that enables her to submit. ed simply by the term Negro; a white was sexual — and it was the sexuality Ellis considered “modesty” the most Negro is no Negro.” For a white in a of the Jews as characterized by Hitler important defining characteristic of white-supremacist society, the color of

14 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 the skin determines race; it is an op­ The conceit, popular with psychiatrists who are in fact mercilessly degraded pressor’s criterion, the measure of and psychologists, is that a free mind bring it on themselves. For example, identity whether or not the color of the can exist within a sexually colonized in the recently influential book The skin corresponds to the racial, social, body. According to Stoller, Belle Homosexual Matrix — which is cultural, or familial history or ex­ chooses sexual masochism because saturated with misogyny and con­ perience of the ones defined from the through it she triumphs over men descension toward all women, homo­ outside. The essence of oppression is whom ultimately she controls because sexual or not — C.A. Tripp insists that that one is defined from the outside by she is the provocation to which they "a woman's status is highly variable. those who define themselves as respond. This is an expression of “her It is determined more by how she con­ superior by criteria of their own choice. own oversexed nature." She wants it, ducts herself than by other people’s That is why women are defined — they a ll do. predispositions toward her.” If she from the outside, by men — as The limitless possibilities of female does not want it, she does not get it. masochistic. Masochism is intrinsically choice are articulated with slightly dif­ If she gets it, she wants it. both provocation and submission. The ferent emphasis by sexual philosopher And so there is a woman, tied with ideology that justifies force against Georges Bataille in D e a th a n d black rope, hands chained together at women, and at the same time makes Sensuality: the wrists above her head, her body that force invisible, requires that . . . prostitution is the logical conse­ constrained by laser beams that criss­ masochism be the normal female quence of the feminine attitude. In­ cross in front of and behind her body, state: she wants it, they all do. But sofar as she is attractive, a woman is She is “an exquisite volunteer.” And since masochism — defined more a prey to men's desire. Clnless she so there is a woman, her ankles specifically as sexual gratification refuses completely because she is manacled, laser beams appearing to derived from pain — manifests in determined to remain chaste, the penetrate her vagina. The laser cuts as some few men, the masochism of the question is at what price and under well as burns. The laser is used in female — even that — must be seen what circumstances will she yield. But surgery. The laser functions as a knife. as inferior to the masochism of men. if the conditions are fulfilled she “Vagina” means sheath. She is “an ex­ The fictive dichotomy of absolute male always offers herself as an object. Pro­ quisite volunteer.” She volunteers to and female sexual natures rooted in stitution proper only brings in a com­ be what she is, what all women are: anatomical differences must be main­ mercial element. harlot and submissive victim in one, tained; otherwise — especially when it Bataille introduces the all-or-nothing her presence and representation an is acknowledged that the male is variant: she can choose to be chaste affirmation and an echo of her essence capable of masochism — male sexual or she can choose to be a whore. Since as a woman. She wants it, they all do. □ supremacy might be perceived as she is prey “insofar as she is attrac­ delusional. Reik’s solution is dazzlingly tive,” she can choose chastity only in­ simple: sofar as she is not attractive. Once This extract from Andrea Dworkin's But how does it happen that in raped she is ipso facto attractive Pornography: Men Possessing female masochism the ferocity and because she has attracted a predator. Women was originally published in the resoluteness, the aggressiveness and If a man wants her and takes her, she March, 1981 issue o f Ms magazine and the vigor of the male masochism is is a whore and has made a choice. is republished with their permission, missing? I believe personally that the The meaning of force is also and with the permission o f the author. anatomical situation does not permit obscured by the liberal view, which The book is being published by The the cultivation of a strong sadism grants that there is a social tendency Women's Press in London, October within the woman. The prerequsite of to degrade women but assumes that 1981 and is distributed in New Zealand the penis as the carrier o f aggression women who want to resist can do so by Hutchinson Ltd, Box 40086, Glen- is missing. successfully. This means that women field, Auckland. Masochism in the male is transform­ ed into a form of sadism. He suffers to conquer; she suffers to submit. In Sexual Excitement, Robert Stoller psychoanalyzes a prototypical female named Belle. Interpreting Belle’s sex­ WOMEN BY WOMEN ual fantasy life, Stoller discovers that MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITION female suffering is an occasion for female triumph: Secreted in the apparent suffering is the triumph. The Opening Monday February 8 at 7 p.m. and running till way is open to full pleasure. What bet­ Friday February 26, ter disguise than to display publicly the opposite — suffering — of what one and still on the theme of women. . . is secretly or unconsciously experien­ WOMENS PERFORMANCE AFTERNOON cing: revenge, undoing, triumph. She Sunday February 14 at 2.30. Cost $3 adults, $1.50 children. has even more control than all these Please b.y.o. cushion. brutal, powerful men. They try to WOMENS FILM MAKERS EVENING dominate her, but nothing they can Sunday February 21 at 8.45. Cost $2.50. Please b.y.o. cushion. do. . . enslaves her. Instead, she All functions at Outreach, 1 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland. belongs to herself, ultimately at the mercy only of her own oversexed nature.

16 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 Motherhood, and more motherhood

DON’T KEEP YOUR CHILDREN IN THE CLOSET It's not only dark but cramped in there... so says Miriam Saphira in this article which discusses sharing your lesbianism with your children.

Sharing your lesbian identity with man in the house, or at least a male people to maintain. your children can be a natural part of teacher as a model in order to grow up your relationship with them, but for "normally". Telling Your many lesbians it can become a major Betty Berzon, in her chapter on crisis. "Sharing your lesbian identity with Children______Older lesbians who grew up during your children" in Our Right to Love has this to say about that concern: The longer you wait the harder it will the repressive fifties sometimes feel get. With babies and toddlers there is that telling the child may influence the "A more productive concern, I believe, would be for a young person's no problem. You simply talk freely child's own sexual development. There about being a lesbian, having lesbian/ are several ways of answering this: orientation to sexuality itself. That is strongly affected by parental attitudes gay friends and gay reading material • This fear springs from the less than about your home. When your child is positive attitude many people, in­ and behaviour. If there is secrecy and tension older you will have to engage in more cluding- some lesbians, have towards specific conversations and for some les­ homosexuality. (On the other hand, it around the topic of sexuality in the home, the children may grow up bians this can be a cause for is understandable that some political trepidation. lesbians regard lesbianism as better believing that sex is something to be frightened of, and to keep hidden. Mary was so concerned that she ar­ than a heterosexual marriage with its ranged to see a gay counsellor and bor­ built-in inequalities — rape, for in­ Homosexuality is not contagious. Fear and shame are. Children are especial­ rowed some books to read. She had stance, is legal within marriage — and been in a long lesbian relationship that the compulsory heterosexuality of our ly sensitive to the feelings underlying the communication of adults." had begun before her daughter was society.) born and now her daughter was nine. • If we actively work to remove pre­ If you hide your lesbian identity, you are likely to instill in your children She had always been careful not to be judices against lesbianism then your too affectionate in front of her children will be freer to develop their a sense of shame. In behaving as if you are ashamed of yourself, you will sug­ daughter. Finally she braced herself, own individual sexuality. and with a nip of brandy began. • No concern is expressed at the gest there is some cause for shame. Children are very sensitive and do pick "A gay woman is a woman who heterosexual values that are constant­ likes other women and sometimes she ly loaded onto our children; values up many adult interactions and some we least expect them to see. Therefore, sleeps with other women. I'm telling which are most often extremely sexist. you this because I'm gay." • Children do not necessarily follow we cannot afford to wait for them to ask questions. Taking the initiative is "Oh, I know that Mum." their parents' sexuality. Most lesbians "How did you know about that?" appear to have had heterosexual probably a good idea. Don't wait till your youngsters find you in bed "We had a discussion at school parents, yet this did not prevent their about Gay Pride Week. 1 knew you sexual development being different. together. As one child at the recent Lesbian Mothers' Conference stated: were gay but I didn't tell them at , This fear that one's sexuality will school." affect one's children's sexual develop­ "Try to introduce your child or children to your friend before they Mary was quite astounded that her ment stems from the belief that sex daughter had learnt so much by just roles are an integral part of sexuality, discover you in bed with her." In ad­ dition to consideration for your observing and taking in the discussions yet this is the very premise that and activities around her. feminists believe to be quite false and children, there.is also consideration for oppressive to women. Part of the same your lover. A relationship which is sur­ Martha: belief is the view that children need a rounded in secrecy is a difficult one for Five years ago I told my children

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 17 that I was having a sexual relationship with Ann. The three boys were 14, 11 and 10. Two of them were quite non­ plussed. However, Mark (11) said it was alright to love another woman, but it was not alright to sleep with her. Nevertheless he grew quite fond of Ann and was always keen to see her call in. We were not living together at the time. About three months after our talk he sidled up to me when I was alone.and said, 'You know, it is alright if you sleep with Ann. A great deal has happened in the en­ suing years and we have vigorous discussions about hexterosexism and gay rights. They understand the pressure on young people to be heterosexual even when it makes them unhappy. At least they will be free to express their sexual orientation whatever it will be. We had several talks before my lover actually moved in and began liv­ ing with us and we all accepted some compromises on the way we like to live. It has worked out very well. The kids are very happy and as one of them said, there are less chores for them to do now. They do find it harder to have some of their friends in because of their prejudices but most of their friends are quite happy to visit." Eva: "I didn't really sit down and discuss my lesbianism in a formal way when the children were very young. The youngest would have been about three-years-old then. I would just say that Sue was coming around and how much I liked her. I have always been affectionate with my lover in front of the children and I guess they have just grown up with it. They listened to me talking about the various aspects of our lives and they consider it to be nothing out of the ordinary. We have sat down and talked about the attitudes at school and how the teachers assume there is a man in the house. Their grandmother has always been happy about my rela­ tionship and that has been good for the children too." Peer Group Pressure______Children will often find it difficult to get across to friends that the ability to love is not "bad" or a "crime", especial­ ly when they are frightened by the prejudices around them. Discussions about societal attitudes and how your child wants to handle them are impor­ tant. The trust your child develops will Illustration: Marvanne Gardiner

18 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 help you both (through her/his adoles­ lesbians. I don't say anything at school are very polite and don't want to rock cent years) grow and share the ups and 'cos 1 might be teased." the boat. There were a few strange downs. Having a parent who is dif­ For Daniel his mother's lesbianism looks as Barbra was opening the door ferent may allow children to develop was not a cause of concern. He's a bit in her nice striped suit. We reckon it differences in other aspects of their of a loner and since he doesn't mix a was like a wedding from 'Soap'. Bar­ lives too. For Simon who is sixteen- lot outside the family his peers do not bra and 1 doing our big number. The years-old, the significance of societal at­ have such an influence. Daniel is mother-of-the-bride and the mother-of- titudes is quite clear. eleven-years-old. the-bride's girlfriend and then my ex- "I can't remember when 1 first learnt "1 think I was in Standard Four when husband coming in with his lady. His that Mum was a lesbian. It was after I realised what lesbian meant. 1 didn't brother is so straight he wouldn't speak she and my father separated. 1 feel in­ think it was strange. It was the person to me, yet his wife came up to say different about that, but it does affect you wanted to be with and sleep with what a wonderful mother I had been me. I am less likely to bring some and you should be able to sleep with to the children. It was her way of say­ friends home and that sort of thing. whom you want to." ing, 'I don't know what has happened, Some of my friends know but they I don't understand it, but I don't think don't make mention of it, but I don't that it's so bad' and she was really sup­ think any of this year's teachers know. When Your Children portive while her husband was giving me icy stares from the other side of the You can't cure someone of homo­ Become Adults room." sexuality but negative attitudes prevail. For children who feel comfortable Like on some take-off TV programmes When your children begin to have about their mother's sexual orientation, when they reveal to their parents that their own sexual relationships the trust bringing home the boyfriend or girl­ they are gay. The parents treat it with that you have developed will pay off. friend does not seem to cause anxie­ an 'Oh, don't worry, she'll grow out Peggy's daughter recently got married ty. Certainly David who is 20 did not of it' attitude. They try to suggest it's so I asked her whether there were any forsee any difficulties. the latest fad. I think it would be a very problems relating to this situation. "It wouldn't worry me to bring a difficult task to get rid of people's pre­ "Julie was very up front about it and girlfriend home. If she was put off judices though, but it would make I was very proud of that. She is- quite because my mother is a lesbian then things easier for me.'' traditional and deep down she found I wouldn't like her. We never really The influence of the peer group in­ it hard to come to terms with. When noticed anything different just because creases once children begin school. she got engaged she told his parents there were lots of women in the house. Many parents find the classism, racism that 1 was gay, that I lived with Barbra I don't see any particular reason why and sexism of their children's friends and that she would like them to come you should be heterosexual. It's just difficult to overcome. Rachel has over and meet us. So she got it all tradition. Yuk. If everyone became grown up with her mother's lesbianism sorted out from the start so that made homosexual it would solve the popula­ yet at eight-years-old she expresses a it much easier. tion problem but I don't think that mixture of the attitudes around her, as Barbra and 1 did all the preparations would happen any more than there well as her own fears. for the wedding and Barbra worked in­ could be a straight world." □ "I like my mother being a lesbian. credibly hard even tho' she didn't think I don't like it when she is apart as I like it was too hot an idea my daughter get­ Reference to see her happy. ting married. Actually the wedding Our Right to Love, G Vida, ed, Prentice Hali, went off smoothly. New Zealanders m78 I probably feel great about not hav­ ing a man around the house. Most fathers get angry if you come in late, or don't do your homework or you are late to bed and your mother doesn't mind much. My friends don't mind, they think I'm a normal person. Les­ bians really are normal except they are a bit different 'cos they sleep together. National Women's It's different 'cos most children have a mother and a father who live together Health Conference. and I have a mother and her girlfriend September 17/18/19 1982. and I find that nice. A feminist conference focusing on health. To be held in , Auckland. When my friends see Mum and her lover together they don't mind. When The co-ordinating committee invites interested women who Katherine was here and they were kiss­ would like to organise workshops to contact them with an outline ing in the kitchen she just asked, 'Who of their ideas. is that lady', and I just said, 'That's Address: Cl- Heather McLeish, Mum’s girlfriend'. She didn't mind, I 7 Cliff Lane, Glenbrook Beach, think she knows a lot of lesbians. I R.D., don't tell the teachers though — it's Waiuku. none of their business — and they pro­ bably wouldn't want to know anyway. Some children have another lady liv­ ing in the house and they are not all

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 19 I lay in a hospital bed. Comfortable but vaguely wondering why I was there. The pervasive hospital smell had a cleanness about if. The other patients were dozing. I must have just awakened. I couldn't remember being there the day before. I was lying on my side. A nurse came over to my bed and peering over my shoulder said Ah you re awake, good and then went away. Then I remembered: I had taken a drug overdose and my attempt to take my life had apparently failed. A very thin man in a dark suit drew up a chair to the side of my bed and said “I am Dr Bennet, I would like to have a little talk with you! We found this little diary in your pockedt is it yours?" "Yes"! said. He continued "It says in here that you had TB as a child, that you worked as a typist until you got pregnant to a man you thought you were going to marry, but found out his wife was in a hospital as a long-term patient after you told him of your pregnancy. You then married a man whom you only knew for a fortnight. You did this in order to rear the child and not have an abortion. You didn't love this husband but allowed him to have sex as a sort of recompense for the housekeeping money he gave you. You had a son by him and then four years ago he attacked you with a scissors. He later tried to make you become a prostitute where he would have the role of pimp and generally be in control of yog." Then Dr Bennet said "Was it because you were unhappy that you tried to end your life?" I answsered "Yes, he refused to show me any respect as a person and as the mother of his son*(for now I had two children). From the time I married him I began to feel filthy. I hoped to leave him after the two children were past their schooling. But 1 developed asthma and was more dependent than ever. I lingered on fighting his filthy suggestions about prostitution and other cruelties until I could stand it no longer. "I swallowed two bottles of pills, was unconscious for two days. In hospital my stomach was pumped out and 1 did not die." Dr Bennet slowly closed my diary and handing it to me said "I don't suppose you will try to do this again?' "No" I said. "You must learn to stand up for yourself" he said. Well I have, I have taken a course in Aikido and Sue Lytollis' self-defence course, and I am gradually getting strong, though it is a very slow process. Because of my age making a new start will not be easy. But I shall try. □

20 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 “ X &0** ft*

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 21 FEMINISTS FLOUNDER ON MOTHERHOOD

Ann Martin-Leff is an American mother and feminist. In this article, originally published in the September/October issue of the US feminist newspaper New Directions for Women she describes experiences which New Zealand mothers in the movement will find parallel their experiences here.

In June, I took my 14-month-old In my mind, it's due in some We are floundering in ambivalence daughter to the fifth Berkshire Con­ measure to what I've come to refer to about the meaning of children in our ference on the History of Women at as "doubletalk" within the feminist lives. Vassar. It wasn't easy. movement, otherwise known as am­ The National Organization for Before the conference began, I bivalence. On a theoretical level, Wornqn has raised its voice in recent received notification that I was ex­ feminists write and talk about the im­ years in support of homemakers, ad­ pected to supply my own crib, high- portance of the nurturing role which vocating reforms in marriage and chair, and other baby equipment. I women have maintained and about the divorce laws. Social Security, credit, looked at the letter in disbelief. Was need to create a more nurturing socie­ and assistance for displaced home­ I supposed to hire a U-Haul? Perhaps ty. But in day-to-day interactions with makers and battered wives. Many out­ I could borrow and transport a port-a- mothers, feminists can be remarkably siders, however, do not perceive the crib. but taking our highchair was out unsupportive. < feminist movement as being strongly of the question. Melanie would just When I became a mother, one supportive of homemakers, and that have to eat sitting in her stroller or on feminist friend labeled my enthusiastic perception is not entirely wrong. In the my lap. The latter option, I realized, plans to join a play group "a waste of necessary push to improve women's would likely require my changing time." According to another,' I ap­ opportunities and status in the paid clothes after every meal — hardly a peared to enjoy "playing housewife." labor force, we have paid less attention pleasant prospect. (If I'd had my wits about me, 1 would to upgrading and affirming women's As it turned out, there was a high­ have replied, "And you seem to enjoy work in the nonpaid labor force. In my chair provided in the dining hall. But playing sales manager!") Yet another own experience and in the experience it was impossible to find. The cafeteria saw my taking care of Melanie as "un­ of many of my friends, mothers often personnel never knew its whereabouts, productive" whereas my teaching was do not emerge from contacts with i found it once — out of seven meals. "productive". feminists feeling that child rearing is a Melanie slept on a mattress on the I would be the first to acknowledge valid choice. floor with stuffed animals and blankets that taking care of a child for long I do not want to suggest that all piled around her. 1 kept waking dur­ hours can seem unproductive and it feminists are unsupportive of ing the night, to make sure she hadn't can be exhausting and boring. motherhood. That is far from true. But fallen off the mattress. However, it is not the value of the job I've heard a sufficient number of belit­ Child care was paid for by all con­ which is open to question, for raising tling remarks from feminists, as have ference participants: a dollar had been a child is intensely productive: another numerous friends, to convince me that added to each person's registration fee, human being is emerging, being form­ it is a problem, both within the move­ a truly feminist inspiration. The child ed at our hands, and we are likewise ment and in terms of our relation tq care itselt left something to be desired. being formed in the process. No, it is non-feminist mothers. In the infant division (birth to 18 mon­ not the value of the job which we must The ambivalence of feminists with ths), few of the child tenders were ex­ question; but its structure. Raising a regard to mothers and children is perienced. Some had no idea how to child is often considered unproductive strong — and completely understan­ comfort or feed an infant. Melanie was when a mother has no time to pursue dable. The current feminist movement sufficiently advanced in age that 1 other work or interests. So we must sprang from a powerful need to ex­ knew she would be quite content and modify the structure of the job by pro­ pand women's options beyond the secure with the toys and people viding parents with better support homemaker role. As a result, that role around her. But I felt sorry for the tiny systems. We must not disparage the is generally viewed as a potentially infants — they deserved better care. job or its product. dangerous limitation, which it certainly Had an emergency arisen, I would It bothers me that feminists continue can be. On the other hand, feminists have feared for the well-being of any to ask mothers, "Do you work?" must remember that homemaking and and all of them. Again, a conflict exists between child rearing can bring intense satisfac­ Eventually 1 reached the conclusion feminist theory — which asserts that tion. After all, we are urging men to that the Berkshire Conference had not women have always worked (both in move into those domains, not only to put the same effort into child care as the home and out) — and feminist day- share the burden, but also to introduce it had put into providing high quality, to-day interactions with other women them to the pleasures of home life, to smoothly functioning panels and — where raising children is still not broaden their humanity. Feminists workshops. Apparently, top-notch considered as "productive" nor as must also remember that social roles child care was not seen as .a priority. "work". It is not just a problem of and institutions have not yet changed Why not? semantics. It is a problem of attitude. much. Women who have or want

22 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 children must make difficult choices not necessarily with those home­ of their lives. In not being able to ar­ and are not always free to shape the makers, as feminists are inclined to ticulate a political and theoretical structure of motherhood and of their think. It lies in large part with the pro­ stance which supports them, we lose lives exactly as they would wish. found ambivalence about children and their support. □ Although some homemakers are ac­ about homemakers within the feminist tive members of feminist organisations, feminist movement itself. there are many homemakers who do Fifty-seven percent of all married not feel feminists are genuinely on women are still full-time homemakers New Directions for Women is published bi­ monthly. It is obtainable from 223 Old Hook their side and who, consequently, have and many girls will become home­ Rd, Westwood, N.J. 07675 (201)666-4677, USA not joined our forces. The problem lies makers in the future, for at least a part at $ 10 for a year.

SCHOOLGIRLS' ASPIRATIONS

Hilary Woolhouse talked to teenaged girls about their life goals, and came up with some depressing findings.

Hilary Woolhouse was active in the summed up the situation, "I never did early days of NOW in Wellington. She return to my profession (nursing). has recently completed a Bachelor of Never mind. I have my children and Arts degree at Victoria Univesity grandchildren to show for my fifty- which included study in women's nine years of marriage." All but two topics. The mother of two daughters, girls saw child bearing as a romantic ef­ she has been very concerned with the fortless exercise which gives automatic sexist stereotyping that distorts the fulfilment. Only one made a conscious educational experience of girls. Hilary scious decision to have children. None wanted to find out whether things made a conscious decision not to have have changed; has the feminist move­ children. Only one girl mentioned hav­ ment influenced the way teenaged girls ing problems with her twins crying all see themselves or do sexist stereotypes night. Many of the girls believed that dominate the minds of the next genera­ by having twins their fulfilment will tion of New Zealand women? automatically be doubled and their Hilary asked ninety-four fourth- success as women increased. Some form girls from a wide variety of back­ were not content with one set of twins, grounds and schools to write an essay but went on to have two or even three beginning “Today is my 80th birthday sets! and 1 look back to the day I left social life, ana more importantly, The identity projected by most of school. . .". The topic was used to pro­ future husbands. This was a typical these girls was centred entirely on vide an indication of the limits the girls story: “I went from job to job but I children, and very few of them men­ placed on themselves in terms of sex could not settle down'to working and tioned any other activities, or the role stereotyping. it was at one of these jobs that I met development of other skills or in­ The results are depressing. Tradi­ Jim. He was tall, with light brown hair terests. Only two mentioned any kind tional stereotypes based on the and green eyes and after we had been of artistic or cultural activity and only wife/mother role dominated these girls' going together for six months we were three any kind of hobby. They were expectations. Three girls chose to married." This story is unusual only in then quite realistic in their anticipation answer as a man. Of the remaining that Jim is a less shadowy figure than that when their children left home ninety-one, sixty-four projected the usual featureless "Mr Right" whose their lives would be frighteningly emp­ typically feminine jobs for themselves only concrete characteristic was his ty. As one girl predicted: "At fifty my while twenty-one chose non- career prospects. "He" was important life just about stopped". Indeed the traditional jobs. Girls in the traditional less for his personal attributes than as girls' projections were noticeably ly feminine jobs outnumbered those in a means to their ultimate occupation joyless. They hid behind the traditional the non-traditiolnal jobs by three to MOTHERHOOD. props of marriage and children. It is the one. Taking careers as a whole, there Along with courtship and marriage, easy way for them to choose because were only eight who mentioned gain­ children took up the most lines in the it takes no effort to mindlessly follow ing distinction or promotion in their essays, with details of names, ages, ap­ set pattern. Yet the girls were aware careers, and only one aimed at a posi­ pearances, careers, and their marriages of the limited satisfactions such confor­ tion in management. These expecta­ and children! For most, life after mar­ mity offered. The traditional tions show up the enormous lack of riage consists of vicariously living stereotype is so deeply entrenched that desire for achievement in the other through the children and their achieve­ these girls cannot see their way out of eight-two girls. For most of them a job ment includes the production of grand­ it. □ was a means of providing access to children. This student's comment Phillida Bunkle

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 23 FUNNY MUMMIES

Christine Roche from Sour Cream

i r t Tvsr fc*P /\ p ^ e y . . -

T c u t u

eft coorse, lr\avC ti»ne "for my aft.-

Jean Kamins, Room of One’s Own, 1980, Canada, from Pork Roasts

24 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 Lynn Johnston, Hi Mom! Hi Dad!, 1977, Canada, from Pork Roasts (jJhcj it, rt i\]dh a fte r vifoe month®, H- hours labor, an episiotomy and hemorrhoids... still ffod fir hard to believe you're really here.!

Pork Roasts: 250 feminist cartoons shows some of the cartoons from the exhibition of the same name organised by Avis Lang Rosenburg for the UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Vancouver, Canada in 1981. It is available tgr $4.00 plus 50 cents packaging and postage from Broadsheet. Sour Cream was published by Sheba Feminist Publishers in 1980. It is on order to the Broad­ sheet bookshop. The Jo Nesbitt cartoon is available from Broadsheet as a postcard for 35 cents, along with a collection of other Sour Cream cartoons.

Betty Swords, Male Chauvinist Pig Calendar, 1974, USA from Pork Roasts

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 25 A DAY ______IN THE LIFE OF______A POLISH WOMAN ______Poland exploded in I960. It started with strikes over meat price rises, and gave birth to a movement whose demands range over the economic, political and social. Solidarity, the organisation formed in the struggle calls itself an "independent trade union", though its aims go far beyond those of conventional unions in The West. It is the first such movement in the Eastern bloc, with some ten million of a possible 12 Vi million workers in membership. Its existence has called into question not only all aspects of Polish life, but also the country's relationship with its neighbours. The USSR, GDR (East Germany) and Czechoslovakia are watching warily a process of reform that is still unfolding, a break from submission to an unresponsive Communist Party. How has the movement affected working women? How do they see their role in Solidarity? This article by Barbara Szczepula appeared in Tygodnik Solidarnosc (Solidarity Weekly) on April 24, it describes "24 hours in the life of a woman", who is' a Solidarity member. Her name is Wroblowa. (In Polish, it is quite normal to refer to someone, male or female, by their second name alone.) Wroblowa's name ending indicates she is a woman, and married, without needing a separate title. Wroblowa supports wide political reform, but the most crucial issues for her are those which touch her daily. She wants a better working life now, and would be prepared to take a pay cut to get more control ovqr terms and conditions in her factory. She works the physically and socially disruptive rotating three-shift system in a Czestochowa cotton mill, while bringing up three children. She's convinced the system should be abolished as are some progressive managers. But not all workers and Solidarity leaders agree — yet.

fter the wedding, Wroblowa Things worked out so that one of them dow.’ Then she'd wake up screaming, moved in with her husband’s could almost always be at home with the even though her husband had nailed up Afamily. Her in-laws and her children. She would leave for the second the windows after the near-miss. sister-in-law with her children had shift the at one, while her husband would be She leaves the factory at six in the smaller room. They got the bigger room, back from the factory at half past two, morning. By the time she gets home, the snag being it was a thoroughfare. so the girls were only on their own for an buys bread and sometimes some cheese, Everyone got on one another’s nerves. hour and a half. But one time her hus­ it’s after seven. Her husband will already Her sister-in-law was the first to decide band came home to find the girls on the have left. She wakes the children, gets she couldn’t stand it any more. One day window-sill. His heart stopped; they liv­ the breakfast, takes the youngest, Mar- she vanished. Then she took the ed on the fourth floor. He can’t cin, to school. Then she takes a nap on children, and later her mother too. remember how he got up the stairs, but the sofa, with her clothes still on. Things got a lot easier. he slipped into the room and managed to There’s no point getting undressed, stop them coming to grief. It was her because soon she has to collect him. When Jola turned three and nightmare for years. She would be stan­ After Marcin’s' back home, there’s no Marzenka one, Wroblowa started to go ding by her machine. The boss would chance of any more sleep. It’s mum this, out to work. They just couldn’t manage call her to the telephone. She would run mum that, give me some bread and jam. on one pay packet. She went to the cot­ to it in a panic. No-one ever rang her at ‘Where on earth am I supposed to get ton mill, working the three-shift system, work. It would be her husband: ‘Jola jam? Go away and leave me alone.’ She while her husband was on the two-shift. and Marenka have fallen out the win­ starts snapping at him, but soon relents.

26 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 He’s only little, and has just been poor ly. They have either soup or a mair looking after children, and because of course, on alternate days. She onl) the pay cut they’d have to take. We’ve cooks two courses on a Sunday; she doe? calculated that there’d have to be a like to do things properly. 600-800 zloty a month drop in wages. In the afternoon she’ll wash some And production would fall by 20 per things, do some sewing, or go to join a cent or so, so the transition won’t be easy or straightforward.’ Personally, the queue. Sometimes the shops get rid of director is for the plan. He’s travelled, food cheap at the end of the day. She and knows that there’s hardly anywhere seldom manages to get washing powder, else in the world that women do night shampoo or meat, but the day before work. ‘Besides, you only have to look at yesterday after queuing for four hours our women workers to see how it affects she got some shin of beef and half a kilo them. ..’ of sausages. Marzenka was so thrilled she kissed those sausages. She doesn’t ut Andrzej Glinski, leader of the send the children to do the shopping. Solidarity commission, who Some women send them to stand in Bhasn’t travelled, and is very busy queues instead of going to school, but organising the sale of vegetable oil at the she’d never do that. She does almost all moment, doesn’t actually understand the shopping herself, as her husband why Lodz is so against the three-shift says he hasn’t got the patience to wait in system. He thinks it’s the only way queues and would rather not eat than do families with children can cope. Do peo­ it. In the early evening she lies down for ple suddenly expect creches and nursery a bit, but the children mill around, turn schools? He and his wife have been on the telly, and her husband goes working the three-shift system for 15 around grumbling and slamming doors, years and don’t complain. On the con­ cross about having to make his own sup­ trary ‘If you went out and told women per. She’s never been on a proper holi­ they were only going to get two shifts, day. At her mother’s it’s hardly what they’d eat you alive.’ ‘Rubbish,’ says you’d call a rest for her. She just goes on Wroblowa. ‘Go and see what they’re do­ doing what she does all the time: cook­ ing at the Warty cotton mill.’ ing, washing, cleaning, the only bonus At the Warty cotton mill in being she isn’t having to hurry off to Czestochowa there’s a working party on work afterwards, and can sleep. She the three-shift system, with represen­ hadn’t been to the cinema for years, and tatives from management, supervisors, rarely watches television. Until August, the union and the party. ‘Of course, she’d sometimes watch ‘Family Circle’ we’ve made a lot of progress and we or American films, to see how others know we’re setting an example,’ the live. Now she always keeps an eye out director says proudly. ‘Since the end of In the cotton mill you can’t ever sit last year, we’ve been restricting the for news about Solidarity. ‘I’m in­ down, not even for a moment. The spin­ terested in everything that happens — in number of people doing the night shift ner wheels on, sweat pours into your wherever possible. We’ve compensated Bielsko,, in Radom,2 whether they’re eyes, you have to look after 105 spindles in other ways. For instance, we’ve got getting anywhere in negotiations with and push trolleys full of yarn, 220 kilos machines back into action that had; been the powers that be. And I pray they’ll apiece. Some say work in the mill is as win.’ lying idle for years, for want of spare hard as mining. She’d never been in a parts. We moved heaven andga&h to get he joined Solidarity because mine, so she couldn’t say. But the those parts. I won’t go into details, but she’s for fair play and wants a women at the mill were agreed it finished better deal for workers. up to April 1, about 300 out of 1,500 S you off. They almost all have varicose workers have gone over to a two-shift ‘Everyone at work and in the queues veins, some are deaf, some have system.’ talks about bringing the people that allergies. Some get all the possibilities. ruined the country to justice and ‘We can’t abolish the three-shift Now Wroblowa works on a carding system for the time being, as production punishing them. I’m all for that, but I machine. She has to make sure they think that if Solidarity were to do would really drop — unless we were don’t snag. If they’re going all right, she given funds for re-equipping with more nothing but get us frjee Saturdays, can even sit down sometimes. But the abolish the three-shift system and give us modern machinery. Some of our machines wear out with time and get machines date from the end of the last paid maternity leave, that wouldn’t be unreliable. Today, for example, there bad going. It would be real liberation for century. But there’s no hope of that at was a breakdown and 750 threads got the moment. So we proposed that only women. We’d start to lead proper lives dropped. Each had to be caught and at last.’ She continues ‘I’ll be frank: I’d women who found it convenient should drawn back with a hook. A dreadful work the night shift, that is, until 1985.’ even take a 1000 zloty pay cut to stop day. But it’s much better on the carding nightwork. It seems there’s quite a lot of T wouldn’t want to exaggerate the vir­ machines than in the spinning room and tues of our management,’ said Maciej women at our factory against abolishing she can’t really complain, except about the night shift. Usually the ones from Pedzich, vice-president of the working the night shifts. party, ‘but I think a quiet word of praise the .countryside. They’re not properly The director of the Wigelen, would be in order.’■ conscious of the issues yet, and besides Czestochowa, cotton mill where she they’re worried that when they start lay-. works confirms that they’re just coming ing people off, which they will, they’ll be round to phasing out the three-shift the first to go. You know, in January, system and are preparing a transition to Translated by the Polish Women’s Group in when we were fighting for free Satur­ two-shift working — within the next five London. days, they signed a declaration that they years. They haven’t put the plan to the This artielg is reprinted from the August, wanted to work six days. You should see 1981 issue of Spare Rib. workers yet, but they’ve done a survey, 1 Bielsko is in Southern Poland. how happy they are now we do have that which showed that 80 per cent were extra day off.’ 2 Radom is in Central Poland. against the idea. ‘That’s because of 3 Czestochowa is in Central Poland.

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 27 This is Simone de Beauvoir speaking

In the great drought that separates the first and second waves of feminism one voice spoke loudly and insistently of the oppression of women. Simone de Beauvoir's The Se­ cond Sex, published in 1949, has become a classic text of the movement for the libera­ tion of women. Today, de Beauvoir, now in her 70s, continues to write, talk and fight for women to this day and her views, insights and analysis continue to illuminate the way ahead. The follow­ ing is an edited transcript of an interview with Simone de Beauvoir, the first she gave after she came out of seclusion after Jean-Paul Sartre's death. The interview was played on two recent programmes of the Coming Out Show in Australia. It was conducted by,research­ ed and translated by Rosie Bardottie. The programmes were transcribed by Lyn Hovey, edited by Vashti. Published in Vashti, Spring '81, No. 30. Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex in 1949. continue nonetheless to exist for him. Also mutually The book is a profound analysis of the position of recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for women in Western society which, by and large, still the other, an other. stands today. In a world where starvation and hunger play such an im­ As de Beauvoir says herself, the philosophical portant role, I would think it is important to stress the fact framework of some of her analysis grew out of the that the dominant sex, the male sex, has every interest in work she and Jean-Paul Sartre were engaged in during the world to eliminate the particular vindications of its op­ those years, developing ideas about “being” and “con­ posite, the female sex. sciousness” which later became labelled existen­ Today, I would choose to emphasize this aspect of the tialism. / ' problem because when I think back to the history of women, to the Chinese who mutilated the feet of their De Beauvoir says of her book: women, to the other sorts of physical multilations, to the As a matter of fact, what I really wanted was a book physical massacres and physical elimination of women in about myself. But as I was doing that, I realized that I the world — when I think of all this, it would seem to me couldn’t write about myself without taking into account the much more important to point out that the opposition of general condition of all women. In other words, I was keep­ male and female is not just a spiritual, theoretical point, ing silent about the most important thing about myself, but there is a real murdering of women that is going on. which is that I am a woman. Is there anything that you would change about your So, I asked myself, what does it mean to be a woman? views of female sexuality? My life conditions at the time were very privileged. In Maybe a little, but actually, I didn’t talk very much about fact I had been privileged at a very early age because I female sexuality in my book. One of the things that I’d like was allowed to study... I was a teacher at a high school to change probably is the notion, which turned out to be and later on, had a position of lecturer. I never really had to quite profitable for the phallocrats, that all sexual inter­ struggle very much to succeed. I didn’t have to fight very course is some way or another a form of rape. Because I hard to establish myself and to prove my talent. Conse­ think that some form of co-operation and harmony is possi­ quently, I was rather detached about the whole aspect of ble and can exist between men and women today. female oppression. I wasn’t aware of many aspects of the I wouldn’t want to say anything as drastic as that all sex­ condition of women which became clearer to me while I ual intercourse is a form of rape. I don’t feel that way was writing the book. anymore. I started off by talking about what men saw in women I wouldn’t want to say anything as drastic as that all sex­ and how men saw women. In other words, all the myths ual intercourse is a form of rape. ! don’t feel that way surrounding femininity in our culture. Later on, I took into anymore. account the real aspects of the concrete difficulties of real It seems to me that women today are real subjects of women’s lives. decision when it comes to sexual intercourse. . . To begin with there will always be certain differences I had believed, rather naively I guess, in the beginning between man and woman. Her eroticism and, therefore, that women could succeed if they worked hard enough — her sexual world have a special form of their own and, that equality was possible. therefore, cannot fail to engender a sensuality, a sensitivity It became clear to me, while writing The Second Sex of a special nature. that only privileged women could really have an equal This means that her relations to her own body, to that of chance, and that equality was a rather dicey concept from the male and to the child will never be identical to those the the very beginning. male bears to his own body, to that of the female and the From the outset, de Beauvoir allied herself with the child. French Women’s Movement as a militant. It was she In sexuality there will always be materialized the ten­ who 10 years ago helped mobilize leading French sion, the anguish, the joy, the frustration and the triumph of women writers and artists to sign the Manifesto of the existence. 343 who declared they’d had illegal abortions. To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the She instigated a column on everyday sexism in the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her. . journal Le Temps Moderne. In 1977, the journal Ques- Let her have her independent existence and she will tione Feminists began, edited by de Beauvoir, which

28 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 I have a general hope for women. I think the oppression of women by men will not continue because, among other things, it is a contradiction in the whole .development of mankind.

now appears in an English language edition. even though it has enemies, and because of its enemies And still, at 73, she writes for, lends her name and everywhere. And because of all the political and social her stature to militant feminist journals and actions, obstacles that it meets with. while yet retaining her own critical and theoretical It is true that today our ideas are being vulgarised — stance. they’ve spread so far into society that they are being I think the greatest problem is perhaps the sort of inertia simplified and vulgarised. that seems to have come over French society. For instance, think of the feminine press. Magazines such as Elle, or Dolly I guess in Australia, that have It seems to me that men want women to remain their in­ forever spread the cult of the eternal feminine, the myth. feriors so their willpower constitutes a problem. But it’s Just look at the way that they have evolved due to the im­ also the will of some women to lead a totally conventional pact of feminism. Look at the letters that are being sent to life, to still choose a marriage and beauty and seduction as the editor today. The women of today talk about contracep­ a woman’s role in life, to resist and even be antagonistic to tion, whereas up to 30 years ago it was the myth of the Women’s Movement where instead women are putting romance and eternal love etc., etc. These are small forward a different view of a woman's life; where women changes, but indicative of the impact we’ve had in the last are striving to achieve, to express themselves, to impose 20 years. themselves as women, to work hard economically and in­ Problems remain but there is a real progress for women tellectually and to establish themselves as full human be­ overall. There is still prejudice against women in some pro^ ings. fessions, but women in France have been admitted to the very exclusive, very male institution of the Polytechnic. In this context, what do you think are the political In fact, the integration of women into the system, which and social conditions that threaten the progress of is a very widespread phenomenon, is in itself a problem feminism and of the Women’s Movement, both from because it creates a new category of women that are the within and from without in the general social political token or alibi women. context? A token woman is a woman who, by virtue of the position There are all sorts of advances being made by women. she has gained in the masculine system, can be used by But theory remains one of our stumbling blocks. This the government and by the social/political system as an ex­ seems to me to be a danger in the long run. Also, this anar­ ample to discriminate against other women. chy seems to me to threaten the unity of the movement. The problem of token women is a complex one because, We are forever facing the possibility of disintegration. on the one hand, it shows a real progress on the part of Nevertheless, feminism still continues to affect our reali­ women, but it creates just about as many problems as it ty. It continues to effect changes in the lives of women, solves. No amount of token women, no amount of suc- Continued page 32 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 29 "You always feel alive" SARAH CALVERT talked to senior activist MARY THOMAS about feeling positive after a lifetime of struggle, and what she's been along the way. For many feminists a source of inspiration and courage have been the activities and words of older women, suffragists and political women in particular. Mary Thomas of Hastings has been one such source for women all over New Zealand in the last 10 years. Mary is an intensely political woman, a brilliant organiser, a gifted writer and reviewer, and a warm and loving friend. She has sparked the feminist movement in the Hawkes Bay, but her ideas and her^energy have given courage to women everywhere.

Mary Thomas was born in Plymouth, Devon. ed her to go to hospital. Mary Thomas speaks She was one of 5 children born to a working slowly of these events, they left a lasting legacy, class family. Her father, a sergeant in the Royal a belief in the absolute need for safe, legal abor­ Marines, was away in China for long periods of tion for all women, and a hatred for a social time. Her mother had a baby to mark his leave system that so oppressed women. Her own per­ periods, one every two years, and was locked in sonal experience, and the memory of Olive the traditional homemaker pattern of the women Schreiner’s book, encouraged Mary to visit Marie of her class. Looking back on her childhood, Stopes, a founder of family planning, at her Lon­ Mary remembers the sea, fresh air and plenty to don clinic and to try to work for the provision of eat; she feels it was a privileged- childhood family planning in her own area. because of the healthy free environment. During the 1930s Mary Thomas became active Politics were not discussed in her family and in the anti-facist movement. Slowly political Mary has no recollection of a “political or a understanding became a part of her life as she feminist’’ consciousness until she was 17. It was marched against Mosley’s Black Shirts. She 1926, the year of the General Strike in Britain and took part in the Papel St march which barred the Mary tried to learn about politics. Then, as a Black Shirts from moving through an East Lon­ young and naive woman, Mary Thomas don Jewish area and remembers the stirring cry discovered Olive Schreiner’s classic novel Story “ They shall not pass” as people moved against of an African Farm, reading through the night to oppression. finish the book. “ I knew I had made some con­ However it was the war that radically changed scious choice that was of great importance to Mary Thomas’s life. It was the war that forced me.” her into employment. Before the war married It was to be years before Mary Thomas realis­ women had been unable to get jobs. ed her political views and became a feminist ac­ tivist, but the issues raised in the book “ Women were penalized for getting married,” dominated her life. This book which seems old- she says. But the war changed that. Mary fashioned today, written as it was by a Victorian Thomas left Plymouth and finally found work as feminist, dealing with the oppression of women an aeronautic engineer. Again the oppression of who are unable to control their fertility; it was women was forcibly brought home to her when this that was to be the crucial connection for she had to give that job up because of lack of Mary. In the story the woman dies after becom­ childcare. Finally she found a job as the ing pregnant to a man who didn’t want her and superintendent of a school meals service. It was this image remained with Mary Thomas. at this point that active political activity entered Mary Thomas followed the traditional mould Mary Thomas’s life; she became involved in the of her class and married in 1929; she had one trade unions movement. Mary says it was the son. The problem of fertility control became a war that made her fully aware of women’s posi­ personal issue for her. Her husband was out of tion and the need to find active ways of challeng­ work and they did not have a home, yet Mary ing the system. Mary began to recruit women in­ found herself pregnant immediately after the fo the union. birth of her son. She and her husband sold their “ They (the employers) were very antagonistic land to get the money for an abortion. Again she to unions, there was absolutely no organisation conceived, this time there was money only for an for women. Finally they gave me the sack — it injection which left her haemorrhaging and forc­ sticks in my mind because it was Friday 13th.”

30 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 Mary continued this work after the war, form­ review books that wouldn’t otherwise qet a qood ing branches of the union in Devon and Corn­ review.” wall. She became the only woman on the com­ Coming to New Zealand had been a shock for mittee of the National Union of Public Mary. There were no militant trade unions, as Employees. However, even in this work she felt there had been in Britain. “ I had never met such helpless since real change for women still a non-political country — the Labour Party seem­ wasn’t being achieved: ed dead.” “ I realised quickly that to do things for women The Wall Bill in 1974 changed her life yet I would have to join a political party. I joined the again. Mary saw this as the struggle for women’s Independent Labour Party — I didn’t know very rights and plunged in to change the situation, much about them but I thought they were initially by establishing the Hastings Abortion radical. I found out that they weren’t, so I joined Reform Association of New Zealand branch. the Communist Party. That was good for Mary put all her organisational skills to work, developing political skills like speaking and constantly lobbying the anti-abortion M.R. Fen­ organising, but the party was obsessed with ton, organising meetings and eventually suppor­ Hitlerism and Facism.” ting the liberal candidate David Butcher. Mary Once again Mary Thomas found that women’s Thomas then became involved in the Repeal position was secondary: “ We had to do all the petition: “ We had huge meetings with hundreds work for the dear comrades — I learnt about the of people and collected large numbers of womanside of things.” Mary Thomas left the signatures and a lot of money. The Hawkes Bay Communist Party in 1956 — angry over the inva­ collected one of the largest number of sion of Hungary, but she never gave up her marx- signatures in the country; we also established ist approach to things. Sisters Overseas Service at this time.” After the Mary Thomas felt a need to see the world, she Repeal petition Mary Thomas helped organise travelled first to Canada where she taught Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in the Hawkes English to immigrants and then on to New Bay. She felt that women had to become Zealand where she settled in Hastings. Here she political if they were to achieve their aims. found a job she loved, as a librarian, and began “ I always felt motivated politically by seeing writing. Writing is one of her great talents, her through the promises of the politicians and feel­ work has appeared in many publications in­ ing helpless.” At that stage in the Hawkes Bay cluding The Listener and School Journals. many women had become involved in feminist Mary’s writing has a special quality about it, a activities and were going off in many directions, gentleness and elegance that shows her love of lobbying, health groups and so on. Mary saw language. She has been a member of the NZ WEL as a unifying group for women. She Women Writers Society and a reviewer for the organised meetings, made speeches against un­ Herald Tribune in Hawkes Bay. satisfactory verdicts in court cases, organised “ I specialized in political books and those that marches, and got the City Council to provide a related to women and women’s interests. I was Speakers Corner in the city centre: “ It was a free able through this to put across a feminist forum for protest and many women who spoke perspective and to promote feminism. I could out here did so for the first time ever.”

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 31 Her own personal experience of inability to ‘‘One of the most important things of the last control fertility also affected Mary’s activism. decade has been the Working Women’s Charter. She worked to establish a Family Planning Clinic It is a most politically important document for in the Hawkes Bay. She felt that women had to women. All the freedoms, desires and important have free access to both information and con­ things for women, all in one document.” traceptives. She also joined the Labour Party. Her fervent belief in the political process “ I particularly wanted to work for women’s reflects those early years as a political activist, issues but it was very difficult and I met much her belief in the unity of working class people, opposition. It was politics that got us the Con­ especially women, against injustice. All causes traception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act so we are women’s causes; but Mary believes that it is have to work in politics. I’m a good organiser, I not enough to elect a woman just because she learnt that in the Communist Party — it’s one of is a woman, she nrust be part of the feminist the values of the party political system, learning movement. Mary believes that the feminist those skills M movement must work for unity, it must develop Mary worked for the election of a liberal clear goals and objectives. Her idols are Rosa Labour candidate, David Butcher. While at the Luxemburg and the Suffragettes because of beginning the men had been totally uninterested their ideas and their success. She believes in and lacking in knowledge about the issues that working within the system: ‘‘You can alter things particularly concerned women, Mary was even­ within the system, so I heartily disagree with tually elected onto a local electoral committee those who say you can’t change the system.” where she continued to promote women’s con- I can’t finish this interview without remember­ corns. ing the warmth of Mary’s personality. Hers is a Mary Thomas is one of the most interesting life marked by strong friendships with women of women I have known; talking to her you range all ages and backgrounds. Some of her most across many issues. When we came to the end moving pieces of writing reflect those relation­ of her life story we talked more generally about ships. Mary says that it is only with feminism issues and ideas. Mary believes passionately that women are freed to meet each other on this that you have to have a cause to believe in and level. She says that to succeed you must build fight for: “ I would advise any woman to take up those relationships that help to sustain and sup­ port you. You must win others to your point of politics if she wants and interest in life.” view. Mary Thomas is a woman whose life has As she comes to the end of her life Mary is full been full of the joy of living and working to ac­ of excitement about new issues for women. tively change the world.□

Continued from page 29 did; not at the time of writing The Second Sex nor do I cessful women in politics or in the established professions, wish to do it now, but I think that whatever differences no amount of women who make it in a masculine system there are, they are due to cultural conditioning and not to will change the condition of women until we alter and the natural biological factors. modify radically the education system and the expecta­ So there is no use in trying to turn to nature to justify our tions it arouses in people. struggles for equality. On the contrary, if we do that, the / would like to ask you, how do you see, historically, moment we do turn to nature, w'e will simply find male- the development of a trend in feminism that favours dominated categories and we find ourselves faced more the specifically female creativity, particularly in clearly than ever with male prejudice against women. If writing? there is anything universal in women, it is their status as I believe it is a'very recent phenomenon because after oppressed people, nothing else. all, the W omen’s Movement in France is hardly 10 years Finally, what is your hope for the Women’s Move­ old, but maybe due to the dispersion of the Movement, a ment today? lack of organisation, due to a general dissatisfaction of the One of the reasons why feminism evolved is that it was a more political aspects of women’s struggles — the result of an historical contradiction in advanced capitalist hardest to bear — a lot of women have regressed to the society — the condition of women was still sub-human and old notion that there is a feminine nature which is fun­ oppressed. This contradiction will continue to develop in damentally different from the masculine one. the years to come and it will constitute a serious historical I don’t deny that there are some deep truths in this cult division between man and woman. of feminine specificity and in the belief in difference. At the We cannot continue with the discrepancy, this con­ same time, I think this is very dangerous for feminism tradiction between democracy and progress, on the one because the moment we talk about difference we talk hand, and the oppression of nature on the other. The op­ about male-dominated, male-created notions of a dif­ pression of women, which is part of the general oppression ference which is always devaluing women. There is always of nature, will find its own resolution historically. a minus sign put next to women. It is men who invented dif­ But in saying this, I am not basing my hope on the good­ ference and they have invented it so they could squash it will of man as subject in the historical development. If the out of existence. So the moment feminists start cultivating oppression of women is ever to be overcome, historically, a difference, they play into the hands of men. it can only happen through collective action. I am absolutely against any notion of a specifically You have to believe in something if you are going to feminine creativity or attitude to writing or anything — a undertake radical action to change the world. And it is in trend which is called “femininitude” , as opposed to this militant sense that I have a general hope for the strug­ femininity and to feminism. I am strongly opposed to any gle of women in all the centuries to come.D question of specificity at this level. I think that the only universal factor in the life of women

is their oppression. No one ever tries to deny that there are Recently arrived at the Broadsheet bookshop: Carol A seher’s Simone de Beauvoir: A Life of differences between men. and women, I certainly never Freedom, published by Beacon Press. Costs $31.50 plus 50 cents postage and packing.

32 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 EVENTS PUBLICATIONS HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD, NGA RONGO KORERO, co­ Broadsheet Seminar, Saturday operatives news. For news, infor­ March 21. mation, and contacts etc, of co­ PACIFICA conference, ops. PO Box 39-136, Auckland Christchurch, 26-28 February; if West. you can billet contact Louisa EVERTHING A SINGLE PARENT Crawley, Ph 554-969. NEEDS TO KNOW, 4th edition CHRISTIAN WOMEN IN HISTORY revised 1981. Written and revised SEMINAR, Sandringham Com­ by the Council for the Single munity House, 20 Kitchener Road, Mother and Her Child. Available off Sandringham shopping centre. MEETINGS 7.30 p.m. ‘ ‘Women and Work” , from Broadsheet, PO Box 5799, Talks and workshops on Teresa of WORKING WOMEN’S COUNCIL, various women speakers, eight Wellesley Street, Auckland. Avila, 16th century mystic, Wellington, meetings planned for Thursdays from March 11, 7.30 $2.50, plus 35c postage. reformer and writer, and on Jan/Feb -but no dates yet. Ring p.m. "Feminism and A SHORT GUIDE TO NEW Suzanne (Mother Mary Joseph) Irene Brorens, Ph 851-242 for Christianity” , Judith Dale and ZEALAND FAMILY LAW, Aubert, French-born social in­ details Rosemary Lovell-Smith, ten ses­ describes the main New Zealand novator in pre-welfare-state New FEMINIST LIBRARIANS, Well­ sions, from Wednesday 3 March, laws which apply when two people Zealand. Bring food for a shared ington, Monday, February 1, 5.30 7.30 p.m. ‘‘Obscure Lives, split up, and is addressed to lunch. $2.00. Saturday, March 6, p.m. at National Library tearooms. Women and Fiction” , looking women. Booklet compiled by the 9.30 a.m. - 3.00 p.m. For further Ring Caroline Brooks to confirm, especially at Virginia Woolf, Battered Women’s Support Group. information Ph Carolyn Moynihan Ph 722-101. Dorothy Richardson and Katherine $3.00, including postage and 872-686, or Anna Gabb 762-274, RAPE CRISIS CENTRE meetings, Mansfield, taken by Linda Hardy, packing. If ordering five or more Auckland. Christchurch, Ph Debbie Hindin, eight sessions, beginning Thurs­ copies the price drops to $2.00 a WSA AUCKLAND 1982 PRO­ 852-162. day, 11 March 7.30 p.m. For copy. Write to Law Booklet, Bat­ GRAMME: March 7, The Politics of WOMEN WORKERS IN HEALTH details and enrolment forms, Ph tered Women’s Support Group, PO Clothing, May 2, Teenage Women, AND SOCIAL SERVICES, Well­ 758-677, Wellington. Box 5227, Christchurch. July 4, Women and Words, Oc­ ington, Friday, 19 February at YWCA Wellington. Women’s tober 3, Feminist Theory. For fur­ Crossways, 7 p.m. business; 8 recreation classes start February. p.m. feminist films and social. CULTURE ther information about these For details Ph 850-505. ANA AND THE MAURI OF seminars Ph Claire-Louise WOMEN IN SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION, Wellington. Meeting THAW COURSES, in full swing, Ph TANGAROA, a children’s play, by 605-774, or Candis 799-501. 796-970, Christchurch. Waireti Rolleston, Maggie Maxwell WSA AUCKLAND, Annual General Saturday, 20 February 10.00 a.m. For venue Ph Lyn Cattermole AUCKLAND NON-VIOLENT AC­ and Margaret Blay, music by Glen­ Meeting and Social. Ph Claire- TION, will run weekends, or da Keam. Presented by Summer Louise 605-774, or Candis 288-882. WELLINGTON RAPE CRISIS CEN­ ■workshops, for established groups Theatre, a new professional com­ 799-501 on,’ non-hierarchical organising, pany, at Metro Theatre, Mangere NZWSA FIFTH ANNUAL CON­ TRE is keen to have new members. Come along to one of dealing with group conflict, plann­ East. Twice daily January 20 to FERENCE. To be held in our meetings, 5.30 p.m., January ing campaigns, etc. Contact Karen 24,1982. Watch papers for times. Palmerston North. Ph Claire-Louse 7 and 21 and February 4 and 18, Johns 601-162, or Caril Cowan CLEARING OUT, song drama about 605-774, or Candis 799-501 792-287. Ai irUanH 2nd floor, 6 Boulcott Street. We battered wives, words by are also running short of funds. Margaret Blay, music by Penny WOMEN IN NELSON, Annual Dodd. Little Maidment Theatre, General Meeting, Hearing House, Any donations welcome. Phone CAMPAIGNS 898-288. WAITANGI ACTION COMMITTEE Auckland University, February 16 Trafalgar Square, Nelson. Hope to wants support for Waitangi Day to 28, 1982. Watch papers for screen film Scream From Silence . NELSON WOMEN’S HEALTH GROUP hopes to have regular action (February 6, 1982). Ph times. (See story The Feminist March 8,1982. 274-6633 or write PO Box 61140, Eye, this issue). UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY meetings soon. Ph Thelma 83695 SROW Wellington. Meetings Otara. Auckland FREEDOM FLYERS, a group art STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION is project for Auckland women, (see organising for the weekend of resume February. Contact Shelley Forest, 727-430. The Feminist Eye, this issue)^ March 6 and 7, a two-day festival Write Carole Shepheard, 359 Rich­ of workshops, seminars, and mond Road, or come to potluck displays based around the theme meal meeting at Outreach, 1 Pon- of "Urban Alternatives’’.. COURSES sonby Road, Auckland. February Although the festival is for both TRADITIONAL FRENCH PAN- 3, 1982, at 6.00 p.m. men and women, there will be a THE WOMEN’S PLACE bookshop. section especially for women. For TOMINE WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN, includes down, mime, 289 Cuba Street, Wellington, is further information contact Jane now on the phone, number Keenan, University of Canterbury and movement. Taken by Louie Brandon. $10.00. Saturdays 851-802. Students’ Association, Private THE WOMEN’S GALLERY has Bag, Ham, Christchurch, or Ph 10.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m. Ph 867-442, Auckland. moved info a building with studio 487-069 space and workshop facilities, at WEA WELLINGTON, enrolments OFFICIAL INFORMATION BILL. underway for ‘ ‘ Finance For 323 Upper Willis Street, Well­ Time to get submissions in has ington. For information Ph Women’’. Topics include: been extended to 29 January, understanding the share market, 723-257, 12.00 p.m. -4.00p.m., 1982. Concern has been express­ Tuesday - Saturday and 12.00 how to read a balance sheet, bor­ ed’ at Clause 52, about ‘ ‘prejudic­ rowing money, investment in pro­ p.m. - 5.00 p.m. Fridays. ing New Zealand's international WOMEN BY WOMEN, a multimedia perty, lending money, life in­ relations” . (Behind The News). surance. Five sessions beginning exhibition, February 8 - 26, Send 30 copies of your submis­ $3.00. Outreach, 1 Ponsonby Tuesday, 2 March, 5.30 p.m. sions to Official Information Select VICTORIA UNIVERSITY WELL­ Road, Auckland. Committee, Parliament Buildings, WOMEN’S PERFORMANCE INGTON CONTINUING EDUCA­ Wellington. A copy of the bill can TION, enrolments underway. AFTERNOON, AT Outreach, be obtained from any Government Auckland. February 14, 2.30 p.m. Courses include, ‘ ‘Who Should Bookshop. Support the Family?” , taken by $1.50. APPRENTICESHIP FOR T0MM0R- WOMEN FILM MAKERS EVENING, Vivienne Ulrich and Claudia Scott, ROW, Department of Labour six Mondays, beginning 8 March. at Outreach, February 21, 8.45 report, needs submissions poin­ p.m. $2.50. 5.30 p.m. ‘ ‘Sociology of the Fami­ ting out ways to encourage women ly", Louise Harvey, eight into schemes. See In Brief this Tuesdays beginning March 2. issue.

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 33 Once there was a beautiful, strong, gentle, spirited and speed horse, and a black horse with flying wild young womin, who, by some beastly misfortune hooves and a magnificent hide which was also high- was born into a royal family. She was disliked by all her spirited and fast. For food, the kitchen maid stole plenty ladies in waiting and even by her own father. She had no of fruit and vegetables, and a small loaf of bread for each interesj at all in her courtiers,- but to the disgust of the of them. Both of them were disgusted with the idea of King fell in love with a young kitchen maid. She was eating animal flesh and did not wish to take any such beaten into wearing corsets and poisonous face powders thing on their voyage. They took two good swords and that ruined her natural beauties. She knew, though, that plenty of arrows, along with, of course, two bows. her father’s hate was really fear and awe, as she was They had travelled many ways out of the palace stronger by far than he himself as a young boy. grounds into the city, but knew of one way to go straight into open country. This road they took. As they travelled, She loved archery, arm wrestles, running, and most of they talked and picked fruit, and practised archery with all galloping dressed in armour and with sword in hand distant targets. They swam across deep rivers, (not on a fine black horse, and she insisted on the kitchen wanting to cause extra swimming weight for the horses, maid coming on all the expeditions. The young maid and also because they enjoyed swimming). They built forgot her weak ladyness and was swept into wild fires once they had got far from the kingdom, and talked enjoyment and excitement, becoming happier and stronger and told each other of solo adventures from before and each day. The King tried to stop his daughter from doing after they had met. They arm wrestled together, danced this, but she was firm and strong and demanded her together and played sports together. The sun smiled on rights. Each womin she met was immediately turned into them by day, and the moon by night. The moon they a true womin, happy and strong. Finally the King beat the loved wildly, and she loved them too. But now and then kitchen maid and his daughter and shut them both in a they were lonely, hoping and wishing to have more womin small dingy room. Together they planned to run away. joining their two womin band. That night, after they had been led to their old rooms, They walked through a forest merrily one day, and they met on the curving stairway that led to the door when they came to a clearing, they found a beautiful opening at the rose garden, next to the stables. They large camp, full of laughing womin, and they ran, full of were last seen by a stable boy who was briskly told to joy and excitement, into its midst. The womin welcomed shut up and given a few'gold coins. They took a wild palace grounds into the city, but knew of one way to go fiery chestnut which was known by all to be a high straight into open country. This road they took them as if

34 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 them as if they’d known them for years, and pleaded with the sacks, up to the tower. He beat them, and then them to join them. Among the womin were musicians and .questioned his daughter. She would say nothing, except artists, archers and singers, blacksmiths, leatherworkers, that she wanted to go back. The king beat her again and hundreds of others. The princess and the kitchen saying that she would be starved and the kitchen maid maid happily embraced them, like long lost friends and hung if she did not speak. joined them willingly. Daily, as they shifted merrilly across the countryside, more and more womin joined them. His daughter made a last plea. “ If me and the maid But all the while, the King grew more and more furious, can beat all your best archers, may we both go free?” sending hundreds of his “ men” daily around the The archery competition was swiftly organised, and it had kingdom, and little by little they caught up with the been decided that if the two womin could get the best womin who had forgotten all thoughts of being found. shots, they should go free. Each man boasted that he One day a messenger of the King’s heard the hooting should win, but the two womin were confident. Each man laughter of hundreds of wonderful womin, and charged had his shot, and some hit the bull’s eye, but the centre madly into them. He grabbed hold first of the kitchen was left and smooth as new. The turn of the kitchen maid maid, who gave him several aching punches, one of finally arrived, and the King’s daughter was to go after. which knocked them both off his horse, and then kicked Her shaft was let loose, and sailed high. Each man let out him furiously. All the womin laughed, and the king’s a loud gasp as it sank deep into the centre dot of the daughter roared up to her and clapped her on the back. bull’s eye. But another group of the King’s archers caught the noise and galloped into the clearing. Unfortunately, this group The King’s daughter’s shaft was the next to fly. It flew was larger than that of the womin, and unfortunately straight and high, landing point to point, feather to again, all on horseback. But they only just managed to feather, with the kitchen maid’s. They embraced joyfully grab the two womin that they wanted, and that was all. and were set free. They were carried, punching and kicking, back to the The two of them left that day, and this time, zoomed kingdom in sacks on their horses, with gags of coarse straight through cities, picking up amazing womin all the cloth stuffed in their mouths. The King, when he saw his time, and finally reaching the place which all the womin daughter, thrust a large bag of gold coins into the injured had wanted for their return, knowing that some time they finders hand, and dragged the furious womin, still in would be sure to turn up.D

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 35 FEMINIST FATHERS Or Under the Gooseberrybush and Down the Garden Path With Freud and The Phalleocrats

A review of Nancy Chodorow’s book The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender by Phillida Bunkle

“ They are young when it begins; their words, like their veins, are hot and full of passion. They share a double bed, and have children. One day an ageing man looks around, and finds himself wrestling with an ageing woman, her face seamed with tears.” Robin Hyde, The Godwits Fly, NZ, 1938. “ I, as a woman, ask in amazement and what about motherhood? And the blissful consciousness of bearing a new life within oneself? And the ineffable happiness of the increasing expectation of the appearance of this new being? And the joy when it finally makes its appearance and one holds it for the first time in one’s arms? And the deep pleasurable feeling of satisfaction in suckling it and happiness of the whole period when the infant needs her care?” Karen Horney, “ The Flight from Womanhood”, USA 1926.

“ Look at the sky, I said. Look at the green earth. How could it be that I felt so good? So free? So full of the sort of day it was? How? Why the good feeling, with a lightness in me causing my arms to stretch out and out? How blue, how green, I said into the quiet of the moment. But why, with the sharp nick of bone deep in my back and the band of flesh tightening across my belly? How strong and well he looked. How alive and strong, stooping over the trunk steadying the saw. I’d hated him for days, and now suddenly I loved him again but didn’t know why. When he looked up I put my hands to my back and saw him understand...... Not you again, they said taking my bag from his hand. I put my cheek to his and felt his arm about my shoulders. Look after my wife. He was grinning at them. Course, what else? Go on. Get home and milk your cows, next time you see her she’ll be in two pieces. I kissed all the faces poking from the car windows then stood back on the step waving. Waving till they’d gone. Then turning felt the rush of water. Quick, I said. The Water. Water my foot; that’s piddle. What you want to piddle in our neat corridor for? Yes Sister. Reverently. The doors bump and swing. You are at the end of the table, wet and grey. Blood stains, your pulsing head. Your arms flail in these new dimensions. The draw mucous and bathe your bead, alone and give it here, I say. What for? Haven’t you got enough kids already? Course. Doesn’t mean you can boss this one around. We’ll get them to bring you a cuppa. Be good. The doors swing open. She’s ready for a cuppa. The doors bump shut. Now. You and I. I’ll tell you. I went out this morning. Look, I said, but didn’t know why. Why the good feeling. Why, with the nick and press of bone deep inside? But now I know. Now I’ll tell you and I don’t think you’ll mind. It wasn’t the thought of knowing you, and having you here close to me this glad feeling, that made me look upwards and all about as I stepped out this morning. The gladness was because at last I was to be free. Free from that great hump that was you,free from the aching limbs and swelling that was you. That was why this morning each stretching of flesh made me glad. And freedom from the envy I’d felt, watching him these past days, stepping over the paddocks whole and strong. Unable to match his step. Envying his bright striding. But I could love him again this morning. These were the reasons each gnarling of flesh made me glad as I cameinto thatcradled moment.Look at the earth, I said. See how blue, how green. But I gave no thought to you. Soon they’ll come and put a cup in my hand^and take you away. You sleep, and I too am tired, after our work. We worked so hard you and I and now we’ll sleep. Be close ” Patricia Grace, “ Between Earth and Sky’ ’ , The Dream Sleepers, NZ, 1980. I like men. The only thing I like better is babies. Such an affliction demands explanation. Father Freud knows why.

36 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 As those of us who have been pushed by our lesbian for motherhood come from, and how is it perpetuated? sisters into confronting our heterosexuality know, there is something in the Freudian scenario. We pay an extraordinari­ Chowdorow asserts that within our peculiar “male ly high price for heterosexuality and motherhood yet few dominated but father absent” family structure it is exclusive­ women relinquish either. ly women who mother. The very earliest infant experiences of There is then, something to explain. Are we simply delud­ girls and boys are different because it is WOMEN who ed, seduced by the rewards of “ heterosexual privilege” into mother. The mother, just because she is a woman, identifies collusion with Patriarchy? Or is there more to this stubborn more closely with the girl. Her empathy extends the period of persistence in seeking fulfilment through men and babies? the infant girl’s experience of “ primary love” . As a result the On the one hand motherhood is an oppressive institution On girl has greater difficulty in establishing a separate identity. the other, it is the source of my most authentic satisfactions She is propelled into her oedipal struggle to assert her I am not, I think, alone in this ambivalence and this is why autonomy. Her substitution of men for “ love objects” is although feminism is the politics of reproduction never unequivocal however, and she retains her attachment motherhood has only now emerged explicitly as the central to her mother. The psychological consequence is that she re­ topic of feminist debate. Motherhood is the hard one- the mains people and relationship oriented, and capable of decision that cannot be undone. We can, as Alice Rossi multiple affiliations. She is unlikely to be fulfilled by an in­ noted, have ex-spouses, but not ex-children. Whatever we do dividual man, because the earliest experiences of men have decide we shall never know.... led them to repress their capacity for intimacy. Many women, even feminist ones, seem obtuse about the “Women come to want and need primary relationships to issue; but there is real pain behind the apparent perversity. children. These wants and needs result from wanting in- tense primary relationships, which men tend not to pro­ There is a sense in which the decision can never be rational vide.” since the relevant facts cannot be anticipated. Perhaps this A woman will experience the drive to recreate her early ex­ is why so many women evade the choice, talking of “ ac- perience of intimacy with her mother through mothering a "> and “ surprises” . The Reproduction of baby of her own. Mothering “ involves a double identification M o th e rin g , is an examination of the origin and power of this for women, both as mother AND as child” . ambivalence. It asks the crucial question, why is it WOMEN who mother. Why on earth, in a patriarchal society, should women WANT to mother?

The process Chodorow describes is not a straightforward response to socialisation, but the result of the girl’s ex­ The feminist debate has reflected this ambivalence. In the perience of relationships as they are transformed by the sub­ conscious. Chodorow presents her theory primarily as a con­ early 1970s feminist theory was dominated by the view that tribution to Freudian psychology, and it is in this context that women’s role in reproduction was the prime cause of female it must be understood. She is attempting the intellectual inferiority. Motherhood was asserted to be the key to sexist coup of answering the Big Questions of feminism and Freu- oppression, it was the guarantor of women’s universal dianism simultaneously. There is no fight quite like a fight powerlessness. Lee Comer’s The Myth of Motherhood measured the realities against the romanticization. The em­ between Freudians (even a fight between feminists), for they phasis was on an honest evaluation of the price women pay, have some rather special sort of dirt to throw at each other; implying that the promised satisfactions of the madonna but this one is worth sorting out because the feminist criti­ myth were illusory. Betty Friedan argued in The Feminine que of Freud cuts across, and greatly complicates, the feminist debate about motherhood. M y s tiq u e that expectations of motherhood were deliberately inflated to con women into accepting a devalued and despis­ Freud and the early analysts were attuned to oedipal ed reality. Both Friedan, and Firestone in The Dialectic of gender differences. For them, the major oedipal task was Sex, argued that “natural” childbirth idealised the ex­ preparation for heterosexual adult relationships. Given this, perience, to mask not just the pain but its inherent oppres­ a girl’s major task is to become oriented to men. In the tradi­ sion. “ The truth about childbirth is” said Firestone, “ that it tional paradigm, a girl must change her love object from hurts”. Friedan thought women were socialised and mother to father, her llbidinal mode from active to passive, manipulated into accepting the role, and Firestone that they and finally her libidinal organ and erotism from clitoris to were coerced. Either way, “shitting a pumpkin” was not vagina. A boy has to make no such parallel changes. ecstasy. There have been a variety of feminist responses to the Freu­ More recently feminist thought has been dominated by dian paradigm of feminine personality development. writers, led by Adrienne Rich in Of Women Born, who have argued for the other side of the ambivalence. Far from being an oppression imposed on women, reproduction is the source of women’s most profound power. The superiority of 1. The simplest is outright r e j e c t io n . F e m in ist female values is implied to lie in the nurturant qualities in­ psychologists like Naomi Wienstein in Psychology Con­ herent in maternity. Feminism is equated with the worship of structs the Female, or Phyllis Chesler in W o m en a n d the Great Mother. Oppression is not inherent in the M a d n e s s , indict Freud on four main counts: the emphasis on biological reality, as Firestone argued, but in the fear that heterosexuality as the norm and all else as perversion; the men have of this original creative life force, which leads them emphasis on passivity as the characteristic female mode; to repress and deny its power. the nonsense of the “transition” from clitoral to vaginal The issue is of both theorectical and alsq practical eroticism; and above all, for the notion that “ penis envy” is political import. It is urgent, not just as an issue of policy in central to the feminine character. The Freudian account of the face of the new anti-feminist backlash, but because girls “turning to men” for their love object, implies that many feminists currently face it as a real personal dilemma women never pome to seek sex, let alone babies for Feminist activists were mostly recruited from the flip side of themselves, but only as poor substitutes for the penis, the the “ me generation” . That generation is now aged 28-36 If longing for which arises out of the girl’s recognition of her you were conceived as soon as your father was demobilised, “genital deficiency” . For many feminist psychologists the you are about to have your 35th birthday. For many women idea that what is most uniquely feminine should be asserted who put off having children for the last decade, the rewards to rest upon thwarted masculinity is the worst of the bad they anticipated from that choice seem less than overwhelm­ jokes of patriarchal ideology. Such writers see nothing in Freud but phallic pride, raised, so to speak, in defence of ing, while many women who did have children find they are patriarchal myths. alone. An alarming number of feminists now seem determin­ ed to pursue motherhood, even when it seems to contradict ration self intererst.... •2- Wor? b Envy> the Matriarchal Reversal. As Homey noted although Freud devoted so much attention to sexuality he The Reproduction of Mothering sets out to explain the power of this drive. Chodorow asks, where does the desire had little to say about motherhood. In The Flight from W o m a n h o o d , and The Dread of Women, Homey suggested

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 37 that Freud’s mysogynistic devaluing of maternity had its Since then a number of feminist writers have developed origins in male envy of women’s reproductive power. Inver­ the idea that Freud was not justifying a universal biologically ting the notion of penis envy she postulated a “womb envy” determined pattern founded in our inevitable make-up as in men which accounts for the violent cultural assertion of human beings, but the psychological effects of the authority male supremacy. of the father in patriarchal society. This implies that it is The idea that mysogyny is explained by men’s fear of culturally specific and could therefore be changed by women’s maternal power has recently been developed by political effort. In particular a number of writers have found Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born, and by Dorothy Dinners- the Freudian account of the way a boy represses his attrac­ tein in The Rocking of the Cradle, and implicitly in Mary tion for his mother and turns to an identification with his Daly’s work especially Gyn/Ecology. These writers interpret father under the threat of the father’s authority, a useful way the whole technological nightmare of modern society as the to explain how the development of masculine personality cultural expression of men’s fearful attempts to repress and provides the psychological roots of mysogyny. Such writers control feminine creativity and the realm of emotion within reject Freud’s valuation of masculinity, and agree that his themselves. emphasis on the genesis of masculinity was part of the It is an attractive thesis because it does reverse the phalleocratic viewpoint, but they nevertheless find in it an ac­ cultural devaluation of women, making a positive asset of curate description of how the psychology of male dominance those very things for which women have been put down. is reproduced. Unlike Friedan or Firestone, many women have come to link the issues of “ natural” childbirth and feminism. The current orthodoxy follows Rich in tracing the destructiveness of mechanised society to medicalised childbirth and debased This is the context of Chodorow’s work. There are two maternity. Adrienne Rich gives a most coherent account of elements to Chodorow’s argument; a theorectical examina­ how male anxiety has repressed and distorted the institution tion of the relationship between psychic structures and of motherhood. She explains mysogynist culture as bqsed on social forms, and an examination of the psychological a pervasive matraphobia arising from male fear of women’s significance of the relationship between mothers and real power. daughters. In emphasising mother-daughter interaction This theory provides not only an explanation of mysogyny Choderow greatly modifies the Freudian account of the but the basis for a positive assertion of women’s identity. dynamics of the oedipus complex, resting it not on the Maternity, (or the female virtues of the Great Mother), is a authority of the father, but on the intense relationship to the source of power and pride. In contrast to the equalitarian and mother that occurs in families where one isolated woman androgynous vision. Matriarchal theories invite women to has exclusive responsbility for child rearing (and very little celebrate their difference and to build a shared identity upon else). If she is right that the dynamic of the oedipal struggle it. Women’s nurturing power is seen as the source of in­ is the relationship to the mother rather than the authority of herent female superiority and ultimately as the only thing the father, then this would explain why the pattern has been that can save male society from its headlong(?) destruction. reinforced rather than reduced in our increasingly “ male I am suspicious of any explanation that derives culture dominated but father absent” families. from the conditions of motherhood. Not only can it Part 1 of The Reproduction of Mothering is a useful criti­ boomerang, but such theories invite a fateful self-deception que of the debate about whether sex differences are innate about the nature of power and the arenas in which it can be or learned through socialisation. Chodorow rejects both; her confronted. Power and powerlessness are not states of major effort is towards defining a third alternative. Within mind. Neither, alas, is power located in the ovaries. psychoanalysis the form of this debate has been about whether difference is inherent in the genital anatomy or in their culturally determined valuation. Chodorow argues that experience of our anatomy derives its meaning from the 3. Feminist Freudians — Betty Friedan’s “ the sexual solip­ relationships with which it occurs. Her theory (called object- sism of Sigmund Freud” in the 1963 The Feminine Mystique, relations theory), is about interaction not endogenous drives; was one of the first, and remains one of the most useful it automatically links psychoanalysis to social factors. feminist critiques of Freud. She points out the Freudianism Social learning is modified by the unconscious transforma­ gave an aura of scientific authority to sexism. Freud was pro- tions of the oedipus complex. The oedipus complex does not pogated throughout the educational establishment so that arise from the inevitable recognition of anatomy but is struc­ women’s “ own respect and awe for the authority of science . tured by the relationship between the child and its caretaker . . was made to keep them from questioning the feminine within which that recognition occurs. In this way the social mystique” and moving into the technological era. relationship between parent and child comes to be struc­ The first thing that theorists of the second wave of tured into the child’s psyche. feminism had to do was to extricate themselves intellectual­ ly from Freudianism, not least because as they began to ar­ Chodorow emphasises the importance of relationships from a very early age. The hinge of her theory is that the ticulate their feminist deviance many had experienced earliest experiences of girls and boys are different, just psycho-therapeutic “cures”. The most original of these because the caretaker is a woman. She argues that the pre- theories was Shulamith Firestone’s 1970 “ Freudianism. The oedipal phase is longer for girls than boys because mothers, Misguided Feminism” , in The Dialectic of Sex. Firestone being women, identify themselves more closely with argued that Freud’s description of the psychological conse­ daughters and extend the period of empathetic unity with quences of patriarchal society was correct but his explana­ them longer. As a result boys find it easier to differentiate tion of it was wrong. Firestone argued that women do in fact envy men but it is their power not their penis that they long themselves from their mothers, whereas girls’ separation takes longer and is more equivocal. This is the essential for. Men do devalue femininity and repress the feminine precondition for the different eodipal experience of girls and aspects of themselves, but this she says reflects the realities of power within the patriarchal family and is not inherent in boys. . In the traditional account, “ Penis envy - the feminine form the genital anatomy itself. In fact Freud’s work so intertwines descriptive and nor­ of the castration complex - leads a girl to turn to her father mative statements that it can be read either as an analysis of exclusively, and thenceforth to see her mother only as a sex­ the psychiatric effects of patriarchal culture or as providing ual rival. This account stresses the completeness of the girl’s a theorectical foundation and justification for the inevitabili­ turn to her father and rejection of the mother, and the depth of her hostility”. This supposedly accounts for the weak ty of patriarchy. bonds between women and the lack of female solidarity. Juliet Mitchell’s 1974, Psychoanalysis and Feminism car­ ried the argument that Freud provides a politically useful Chodorow rejects this, arguing that the girl has a strong analysis of the psychological results of patriarchal culture ongoing relationship with her mother which is modified but about as far as it would go, claiming not only that it is possi­ not obliterated by the oedipus complex. The girl remains in ble to interpret Freud descriptively, but that was what Freud an emotional triangle, and never fully “ turns to men” for love himself intended. She seemed to have some urgent reason objects. This is the basis of the feminine concern with a of her own to rehabilitate Freud as the founding father of facility for rfelationships, feminism. The strength of Mitchell’s work is that, unlike Chodorow gives an account of the oedipus complex in which the relationship with the mother is the central Firestone, she deals with the fact that psychoanalysis is a dynamic, especially for girls. There is a powerful push/pull ef- theory about the unconscious.

38 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 feet in this relationship. In our type of family structure it is Chodorow’s critique of the assumption that better mother­ women who mother. The mother is omnipotent for the young ing means MORE mothering is important. Rejecting mothers child. Chodorow stresses that the child loves its mother and have often been blamed for mysogyny. Chodorow implies wants to retain this love, but at the same time wants to that matraphobia has its roots in the child’s fear and resent­ separate and establish a separate identity. This fits into the ment of the omnipotent mother. “ Children of both sexes, conventional account of a boy’s oedipal situation but even with kind mothers, will maintain a fearsome un­ modifies it for girls. For girls, the primacy of the relationship conscious maternal image as a result of projecting upon it to the mother makes separation difficult. The mother’s iden­ the hostility derived from their own feelings of impotence.” tification with the daughter and her tendency to perceive her (Just get it straight once and for all You CAN’T do it rig h t....) daughter as an extension of herself makes if difficult for the I find this account of the origins of matraphobia more daughter to experience herself as an autonomous separate plausible than “ womb envy” , because I see much evidence of person. Chodorow argues that the girl “ turns to” her father men’s resentment of their mothers (even kind ones), but little partly to secure this separation. The father is the “ only of their envy for maternity. available adult” with whom she can identify to differentiate Laying mysogyny at the feet of Too Much Mum may seem, herself in the face of the overwhelming presence of MUM. "... however, like yet another example of psychology’s favourite a girl’s father is likely to become a symbol of freedom from pastime of “mother-blaming”, especially if Chodorow is this dependence and merging ... A girl is likely to turn to him, understood as describing the cause of sexism rather than as the most available person who can help her to get away the mechanism by which it is perpetuated. Chodorow seems from her m other... ” But as Chodorow stresses, the girl loves to me theoretically vague on this point, probably because her mother and wants to retain that love. She comes to want her feminist and psychoanalytic assumptions are in conflict. a penis not because of any perceived injury or genital defi­ Certainly her solution of shared parenting seems rather ciency but because she sees that her mother loves her limited in the face of the enormity of the problem. Involving father. To retain the primacy of the mother’s love she wants the father in baby care from the beginning is seen as a way of to become the object of that love, to become the sort of per­ limiting women’s investment in exclusive mothering, while at son the mother loves. The “ turning to ” men, then, serves the same time equalising the crucial pre-oedipal experience both the girl’s need to retain the mother and her need to of girls and boys. The failure of men to move into parenting is separate herself. implicitly proffered as an explanation of the limited gains I( What is important in this account is that what fuels the feminism has achieved. “ turning to men” is not an angry rejection of the mother; the Chodorow’s thesis has received a great deal of attention. It girl is striving as much to retain as to repress her love for her is the latest vogue book on the American psych-soc circuit. mother. “The oedipal situation is for a girl as much a mother- Given its extremely theoretical nature, what accounts for this daughter concern as a father-daughter concern” . The girl’s acclaim? change of iove object is then partial, and the heterosexual There are a number of reasons why this book might appeal outcome more equivocal. The girl’s choice of love object is to the intellectual establishment. The account of the genesis tentative and not exclusive. The girl does not definitely of sexism does not blame men. The problem is comfortably resolve the emotional triangle. Chodorow gives a most impersonal, it lies in the mother’s place in modern family recognisable account of the oscillation between “best structure. If the mechanism that reproduces women’s role friend” and “boys” in the adolescent replay of the oedipal lies in the mother-daughter relationship, then it is a safe complex, in adult life this vacillation underlies the desire for distance from male self-interest. Chodorow’s discussion of a baby to complete the cycle, and determines the generally the emotional incompatibility (she calls it asymmetry) bet­ open personal relationship orientation of women. ween women and men is useful and sympathetic, but it The emphasis on the problems of separation and in-\ avoids the issue of fundamental conflicts of interest bet­ dividuation are the most useful aspects of Chodorow’s work. ween them. There is no discussion of gains and loses from Maternal inadequacy has been equated with rejection and this system. Chodorow never asks in who’s interests the deprivation, but the more prevalent problem for middle-class family structure operates, or what constraints in the women is the enormous over-investment they make in their economic structure prevent people “choosing” to change children. parenting patterns. Chodorow is not focussing on the relationship between Chodorow is aware of the impossible demands tjiat tradi­ women and men so it all seems comfortably distant, lying in tional psychiatry makes of “good mothers” . Good mothers what happened to us as children or what will happen to us in are supposed to devote themselves totally and unselfishly to the next generation. In my experience men are never more primary love, only to relinquish it equally uncomplainingly in sympathetic to feminism than when the solution to sexism is face of the child’s growing need for autonomy. Unlike most to be found in the next generation. One can almost hear the shrinks (Laing for example) Chodorow is aware of the situa­ delight that at last they have found a “ balanced” feminist, tion of the mother as well as the child. She sees, therefore, one who doesn’t “ exaggerate” or ACCUSE. The ideal can­ that the woman who has had to give up work to become the didate for the rewards and prizes of sympathetic liberals. baby’s exclusive caretaker, makes an enormous investment Within the terms of the academic establishment the in this relationship. Even her other roles within the home achievement is deserved. Chodorow has addressed herself have been largely stripped of their significance; increasing to the issue that the male establishment has defined as im­ the salience of the emotional care of children. Women for portant, and her grasp of theory really is impressive. whom this is the only significant role may well try and hang Chodorow has a confidence and competence with theore­ onto it, and come to recognise the child’s autonomy only tical issues that allows her to be wide ranging without the slowly and reluctantly, especially if that child is a daughter. pretentious language or exasperating convolution of Once turned on, how is maternity to be turned off? Especially psychoanalyists like Juliet Mitchell. The theoretical achieve­ if one infant is not automatically replaced by another. ment is genuine. But is it a contribution to Feminist Theory? Chodorow addresses three problems pf personal impor­ tance for many feminists struggling to understand where they are at now; why, with ail the effort of the last decade has Chodorow’s discussion is a welcome change from the nor­ it been so difficult to build lasting and satisfying equalitarian mal psychological wailing about maternal inadequacy. relationships with men; why is the conflict over child bearing Feminists in particular can do with a careful examination of so persistent and unresolvable; and what are the legitimate the investment they make in their daughters. Do they have to gratifications of motherhood? succeed to vindicate our choices? If it all sounds familiar it’s because you haven’t heard I found weaning myself from my pre-oedipal daughter one women talk about anything else for so long. I recently had of the most difficult tasks ever. On the practical level the lunch with a group of mothers bemoaning the impossibility dependence remains and is insistent enough to make in­ of re-establishing careers, and then afterwork drinks with a volvement with other schedules difficult. Psychologically her group of successful “career” women bemoaning the growing autonomy appeared as an afront not just to my absence of children. It all seemed too obvious and intrac­ mothering, but to the womanhood we shared. Her evident table and “ I told you so” . And the pain was real. Meanwhile desire to get Super-Mum off her back seemed like a rejection. Super Woman’s effortless ability to be everything taunts us This “ rejection” stirred something it took me a long time to from the billboards with the ad-man’s fantasy of “ liberation” . recognise as anger. An anger resolved (?) only in a reasser­ Here we are in Adidas, looking down the other side, eyeball tion of my pre-maternal sexual identity — O Electra! to eyeball with defeat.

Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 39 Chodorow’s account of these issues is useful. In her equally severe repression in girls as it currently does in boys. chapter “ Oedipal Asymmetries and Heterosexual Knots” she The result would be therefore a re-education, not just in the directly addresses the frustration and disappointment many girl’s desire to mother but also in her capacity for intimacy. women have experienced in attempting to establish Moving girls toward the male mode of behaviour is hardly a equalitarian relationships with men. As a result of being feminist goal. The evidence for Chodorow’s thesis is very parented by women and growing up heterosexual ... women weak, even by the standards of psychoanalytic speculation. situate themselves psychologically as part of a relational If parenthood is shared because of the expected gains for triangle in which their father and men are emotionally secon­ children then the result may well be disillusioning. dary, or at most equal to their mother and women. In addition Women must evaluate such a proposal in terms of their the relation to the man itself has difficulties. Idealization own interests. At the moment mothering is the one thing growing out of a girl’s relation to her father, involves denial women DO have. If it is to be relinquished women must make of real feelings and to a certain extent an unreal relationship sure that they get an adequate trade-in. The advantage of to men. The contradictions in women’s heterosexual rela­ role separation is that at least it gives women one area of un­ tionships, though., are due as much to men’s problems with disputed autonomy and control. My own experience with intimacy as to outcomes of early childhood relationships. shared parenting (where the necessary changes in job struc­ Men grow up rejecting their own need for love, and therefore ture had been made to make it genuine) is that there is a real find it difficult and threatening to meet women’s emotional danger that women will find themselves dominated in both needs .... relationships to men are unlikely to provide for roles, so that they are primary in neither. I have still not dealt women satisfaction of the relation needs that their mother­ with the threat to-myself in the discovery that my partner ing by women and the socialisation of gender have produced. was, in some ways, the better parent just because he was What of shared parenting as a solution to the perpetuation more distanced from the task. Role sharing may not combine of inequality that this pattern entails? Shared parenting is a the benefits of both roles so much as intensify the conflict. thoroughly heterosexual, androgynous, moderate pro­ There is no guarantee that in shared parenting we would not gramme. Will it work? / end up as subordinate in motherhood as in everything else. Shared parenting is a solution “ tacked onto” Chodorow s Chodorow gives no reason to believe otherwise. main thesis and it does not follow logically that androgyny In my mind the only reason for shared parenting is that the will result from it. Chodorow is not arguing that adult men only men worth loving are those who want to be mothers would learn a new repertoire of behaviour, but that the out­ ....but that is a personal - och! oedipal - consideration. come for children would be improved by the father’s involve­ Reading books on psychoanalysis is rather a specialised ment. It might dissipate some of the intensity of maternal form of vicarious living. If you are currently have a bout

BROADSHEET HOLIDAY READING Buy from the bookshop, 1st floor, 43 Anzac Ave, Auckland, hours 9-4, Mon - Fri, or mail order

The m agnificent Dinner Party Calendar 1982 ($10.95), □ tions of her paintings) of this little known but ac­ put together by Judy Chicago, features large-full-colour complished painter. photos of highlights from the Dinner Party project. The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in Simone de Beauvoir: A Life of Freedom ($31.50) Developing Societies ($14.25) by Barbara Rogers, takes by Carol Ascher is a biographical and interpretive look the lid off “development" and exposes how >t at this inspiring woman’s life — has been welcomed by discriminates against women. overseas fem inist reviewers. Population Target: The Political Economy of □ Mandarin Summer ($16.95) is NZ novelist Fiona Population Control in Latin America ($8.95) by Bonnie Kidman’s newest work after her widely read A B reed of Mass, shows how the “population issue” has been used W om en. to screen the real sources of underdevelopment and The Butcher Shop ($9.95) by Jean Devanny was p o v e rty — capitalist imperialism. banned in Australia and New Zealand when it appeared W om en an d A lc o h o l ($14.50), Camberwell Council on □ in the 20s. The author takes a socialist approach to her Alchoholism, is a rare book tackling this neglected sub­ theme of sexual politics on a New Zealand sheep sta­ je c t. tion. This book hasn’t been available for decades. Me Again: Uncollected Writings of Stevie Smith HOLIDAY SPECIALS Freedom for Priscilla by Joyce Nicholson, long on the □ ($29.95) is a delicious collection of stories, essays, lists of non-sexist books for teenagers, and we’ve got it poems and letters (with funny drawings) from this highly for the astounding price of $1.20. Priscilla lives in original writer. Melbourne in the 1800s and wants to be a doctor, but Civil Wars ($21.95) is a collection of writings from she has to fight for it. black activist/poet/lesbian/mother June Jordan. Also The Facts of Love ($6.95) by Alex and Jane Com fort □ just arrived, her latest book of poetry — (authors of The Joy of Sex) is a large, beautifully illus­ Passion: New Poems 1977-1980 ($8.45). trated, straightforwardly written hardback book for Any Woman’s Blues ($11.45) collects short stories teenagers. Covers topics like: having sex, bodies, by black women writers like Alice Walker, Ntozake masturbation, homosexuality, sex roles, diseases etc. Shange, Toni Cade Bambara and Toni Morrison. My Life: George Sand ($5.95), her fascinating Cuban Women Now ($6.75) is Margaret Randall’s autobiography in hardback. exciting collection of interviews with Cuban women, with photos. Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge Against ORDER FORM N a tu re ($19.95), Susan Griffin, a long-time writer about violence against women, has produced an inspired and Please send the books ticked above to: visionary book. Pulling Our Own Strings: Feminist Humour and Satire D Name______—----- ($14.95) written by Gloria Kaufman and Mary Kay Blakely compiles selections, both written and graphic, from Address______—— women like Flo Kennedy, Gloria Steinem , C la ire Bretecher, Rita Mae Brown, Lisa Alther and many others — a great book to dip into. Gwen John 1876-1939 ($35.75) by Susan Chitty, is a □ Send money to Broadsheet, PO Box 5799, Auckland. Add comprehensive biography (with photos and reproduc­ 50 cents postage and packing per book.

40 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 B R Ī E F visory Council on the Employment of IN Women (NACEW) points out that the ap­ Reclaim The Afternoon prenticeship system has so far, not serv­ Ban Against Depo ed women well. Until 1972 women could Recent police research in New The government of Zimbabwe banned not take up apprenticeships, and even Zealand showed that 42% of sexual the use of Depo Provera in that country now they only make up 9.3% of the total assaults in 1980 took place on Fridays after being supplied with evidence of its apprenticeship contracts (76% of these and Saturdays and that peak times were harmful effects by the Boston Women’s are in ladies’ hairdressing). between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. and from mid­ Health Book Collective. Women’s groups are able to make night to 3 a.m. The greatest number of Depo Provera (marketed by Upjohn submissions early next year; copies of attacks took place in bedrooms. Corp. of Michigan) has never been ap­ the report are obtainable from the And on the subject of rape a Broad­ proved for use in the US. The drug can Government Bookshop. NACEW par­ sheet reader rang to angrily report of cause heavy bleeding, weight gain, ticularly draws attention to: having heard a radio announcer state headaches, nervousness and depres­ • The need for accurate and up-to-date that a woman had been raped “ but not sion. Women using DP also risk infertili­ market statistics in order that training is injured” . ty, diabetes, or breast, cervical, or en­ provided in areas with employment dometrial cancer. The injections are potential (paras 34-37 and 61-65). given once every three months by a doc­ • The call for more flexible patterns of Fraser’s Razor Gang tor. “ It totally eliminates control on the training (paras 41-46). part of the woman” (BWHBC). • The need to improve the recruitment Australian women are asking for sup­ The Boston Women’s Health Collec­ and selection of apprentices (para 58) — port through the International Feminist tive got involved in the Zimbabwean con­ measures to encourage women into ap­ Network in their fight to get funding for a troversy when contacts in Salisbury prenticeship should be spelt out to the number of women’s projects reinstated. heard that a decision was about to be review committee. The Federal Government has stopped all made. The sent information directly to Send copies of your submissions to: funding of women’s services; this in­ the Minister of Health. His press Review of Apprenticeship, The Training cludes women’s refuges, health centres releases subsequently used statements Division, Department of Labour, Head and rape crisis centres. Women and taken directly from that information. Ke­ Office, Private Bag, Wellington. children protesting the cuts were nyan papers have picked up the con­ violently thrown out of Parliament troversy and have cited the ban w.ith ap­ House in July. Women have continued to proval. Kenya had previously restricted Pill Disabled Women organise a Defend Women’s Services the use of DP for “ only women with more Campaign and 1,000 women marched in than four children, and who are over for­ An Australian group of women called Sydney on July 19. The women are ty.” the Pill Action Group is bringing an $8.3 demanding not only reinstatement of Depo Provera was banned by the Zim­ million class action against distributors funding but an increase in it, while the babwean Minister of Health on the 13th of contraceptive pills in the US. Ms government says such funding is the of July. He said “ Depo Provera may at Helen Cains, the coordinator, is herself responsibility of state governments who this moment be posing a threat to the paralysed on the left side, while other. show no inclination to do so. Send let­ health of our women and children”. He Australian victims have suffered severe ters of protest to: Malcolm Fraser, Prime also condemned the discriminatory disabilities from strokes and blood Minister, Parliament House, Canberra, distribution of the drug: “ It is racism: clots. ACT, Australia. white women don’t use it.” Promotion of DP by international “aid” agencies is evident in both coun­ tries. The African Regional Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation declared at the IPDF con­ ference at Nairobi that DP is “ safe and reliable” . The US Agency for International Development is also pro-DP. AID has “mentioned” Depo Provera to the Minister of Health in Kenya. But most women leaders in Kenya strongly con­ demned the use of DP. Dr Ushewokunze (Minister of Health, Zimbabwe) said, “The official position of international agencies on Depot Provera is not necessarily scientific or well- informed. It clearly reflects the political orientation, male domination, and perhaps undue influence of the phar­ maceutical industry at policy-making levels.”

Jobs for the girls

The Minister of Labour has recently produced a report called “Appren­ ticeship for Tomorrow: a Government Statement on Directions for Trade Train­ ing in New Zealand.” The National Ad­ Cartoon: Helen Courtney

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 41 A MORNING AT MOTHERS Elizabeth Eastmond discusses the Wellington Women’s Gallery MOTHERS exhibition currently touring New Zealand

‘World Cup’: a child’s plastic football, this message and intimacy (Mary Cassatt), of utter anguish (Kathe printed on it, rolls across the foyer and under my crimson- Kollwitz, Frieda Kahlo). Only recently with women’s evolving catalogued table at the entrance to the Mothers exhibition at a feminist perspective have women begun to approach this the Freeman’s Bay Community Centre. Children playing in area from the base of our own experience and begun to ex­ the hall area squeal and shriek. Mothers keep a mother’s wat­ plore some of the vastnesses and complexities of an only chful eye on their kids, play with them, comfort them, yell in partially imaged territory of human experience. Partially imag­ exasperation at them ed in Western art, that is:2 other cultures pay special tribute A man polishes the foyer floor, another wipes dishes in the to the birth and mothering processes. For the traditional canteen: paid “ mothers’ work” . women artists of Borneo, Indonesia and India, it has been Two women friends who have driven across town especial­ stated “Of special significance ... is the traditional use of ly to visit Mothers tramp downstairs to the cramped, darkish birthing images (as in the Iban pua or Dayak beadwork almost underground “ gallery” space. An old woman gingerly designs) which depict a basic life experience seldom ex­ makes her way down and emerges twenty minutes later; she pressed in western art. While women are often depicted in tells me she particularly likes “ the old woman and the hill” — western art as seductive, submissive sexual objects, in many Robin White’s Florence at Harbour Cone, “ ...just you look at traditional art heritages the female is venerated as a creator the droop of the shoulders ... children ... you love them un­ of life, significantly and symbolically linked to the continuity conditionally, don’t you ... but they bring a few grey hairs of all life” .3 ; . .” She is Florence’s age. A young local woman holding a These kinds of images of women begin to give an audience baby wanders over from the hall, goes down for a “ squizz” . of women a new experience; because the images are based But there’s no time for the briefest of squizzes; baby begins on a major on-going process for the majority of women, there to bawl. is the sense that the works are addressed to us (which Pop Even in a community setting not everthing goes for the art­ artist Tom Wesselmann’s Great American Nudes series eg viewing mother. Certainly everything’s not going for the art- arguably is not). Interesting and insightful as these Mothers mothers downstairs. Given that the City Art Gallery is cur­ images may be to men, the shock of recognition-the woman rently unable to hang touring shows and that the Freeman’s felt when she looked at Florence at Harbour Cone (and realis­ Bay Community Centre is the only available space, on first ed Florence at Harbour Cone could be Art), confirmed that in consideration this alternative setting had exciting potential: our culture in the past art has for the most part been both it seemed in keeping with feminist concern with community consciously and unconsciously addressed to a male au­ interaction. And for a brief few hours on the YWCA Open Day, dience. Seeing and experiencing this work validated her ex­ you got a glimpse of the possibilities of art operating within perience. the context of the local community, in the context of women’s community and in the context of the Women’s Florence at Harbour Cone in the past might also have been Movement — the centre buzzing with stalls and activity. But placed several rungs down the ladder of Significant Art, with on other days it seemed to me that the sheer lack of visibility, the heroic Davids, the Creations of Adam by God, the accessibility, of Mothers in Auckland only confirmed the pro­ crucified Chris Burdens and the Great American Nudes at blems still surrounding the recognition of “ women’s art” . For the top. Robin White’s painting of her mother is a work of “women’s art” , so recently emerged from underground in great clarity and compassion: form and content are bound New Zealand, with the Auckland Mothers only retreated back together here to produce a stark image of an older woman’s underground again. Underground (basement), poorly lit and lifetime of “ servitude . . . and hard slog” , when she finds, at badly hung. And sponsored by the Auckland City Art Gallery. long last, that ‘it is good to be able to sit down, relax (just a An exhibition with a challenging theme, strong works, an little), and say, “ Well, I’ve done my bit” .4 (Mothers don’t ex­ informative, instructive and well-designed pect World Cups). The image conveys the minimal amount of catalogue/resource book, cum collection of moving poems, self-satisfaction her mother allows herself, setting this poig­ Mothers was put together by the Women’s Gallery, Well­ nant, crisply-aproned and tired figure against a tautly ington. The theme required women’s exploration of this cen­ organised and clear-cut landscape, with its “ trimmed and tral, universal experience. “The Unrealised Theme” Juliet polished hills” . Batten names it in her catalogue essay.1 Not that it hasn’t Women’s Art Movement art, as expressed in a work like been realised enough times — we must have Madonna della this, is largely a content-oriented movement, unlike many of Sedias by the million (and their later secular sisters) im­ the style-centred modern movements. Women’s Art Move­ printed in our minds: mothers defined as excruciatingly pa­ ment art is at the same time located in the context of the tient, passive, protective, eternally self-abnegating and, as seventies to eighties art mag “ pluralism” of styles. But its the woman said, unconditionally loving. Mothers imaged content is constant. Constant in the sense that its concerns mainly by male artists. Women artists, until recently have ad­ are with the experience of women and the perspective of ded only variations to this stereotypic iconography. There women, whether the themes have been/are being centred have been only a few exceptions: extensions of sensuality around the physical, sexual, social, psychological or

42 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 spiritual aspects of female experience; around the critique of dividual works, out of context, to a focus that centres on con­ our male-dominated society; around the creative renewal, re­ text, overall theme and its implications, content... and style, assessment and re-involvement in traditional women’s arts; or individual works, in that order. around forays into alternative approaches to art-making, That being said, the variety of response and style of the often collaborative; around community interaction. Women's Gallery’s Mothers is clearly revealing and engaging But the intentions of the Women’s Art Movement are often although it is impossible to discuss many works from this mis-understood and mis-represented. Mothers, for instance, large exhibition in a shortish review. The works delve into is not a show of work by women artists on a theme they hap­ many of the facets of mothering. Jo Cornwall’s quilt Mothers pen to have chosen, to demonstrate “ look — we can do it as are . . . suggests some of them, in grid format, ironically well as you can” . I see the intention behind such a show is following the children’s picture-book formula “ Happiness is . rather to explore and express in visual terms this uncharted . .” in both style and concept. Her mothers are . . . loving yet central area of women’s/human experience. An explora­ tender warm creative tired thrifty cross home giving busy tion that is interlocked with the group presentation: the varie­ down lonely blue devoted happy. Most of the works centre on ty of individual response plus the shared basic perspective one of these aspects, ranging from the celebratory image of are significant. Of course the more stylistically individual or Claudia Pond Eyley’s Woman with a Child, linked outlines innovatory certain works included in such an exhibition are, fusing the two figures, vibrant internal streams of colour the greater the impact on the “ art world” . But the concerns animating them, to the anguish of Jill Stewart’s expressively of Mothers are not pointed only in that direction; there is a painted Madonna — child screeching — and Helen Rockel’s strong commitment within the Women’s Art Movement to moving drawing of a woman’s face set against a spikily reach out and involve a wider sector of society. Had it been creased pillow, her expression describing both pain and joy possible for the show to have been more accessibly at the instant of birth. displayed in a setting like the Freeman’s Bay Community Centre (not its basement), then something of this ideal may Mothers can also be our mythical mothers, as Robin well have been realised. Many women felt that local com­ Kahukiwa so forcefully demonstrates in her remarkable, munity showings as well as gallery context showings would iconic image of Hinetitama. A reclaiming of the goddess have been the answer. The quality aspect, it follows, must figure from indigenous Maori culture, the goddess of Maori then be understood is one among other concerns. Which creation myths, this work affirms the power of this awesome doesn’t mean quality isn’t important: most of the works in female force. The clarity and precision of the artist’s techni­ this exhibition obviously “ measure up” to more traditional que, the rich colouring, the frontal, hieratic positioning of the understandings of this concept. But quality must also been figure, combined with the significance of the interwoven seen as a flexible concept, concerning itself with the exigen­ symbolism (Tane as sun and skeletal being, Maui as lizard cies of intention and context. The kinds of quality I venture to . . .) make this a work whose associations are both various suggest as applicable to this particular stream of post­ and powerful. Like the Byzantine Madonna Hodegetrias, this modernist art are to be found firstly by considering what archetypal female figure contains and exposes to view deity might be called integrity of content. “ Integrity of content” for Fathers and sons. Unlike the Christian mother figure, Women’s Art Movement art should express a revealing ex­ though, the woman in not the passive vehicle of creation: ploration, with a theme like Mothers of some of the many Hinetitama in this image is expressive of assertion and facets of a largely un-imaged experience. In terms of presen­ power. As the symbolism of the early Netherlandish artists tation, style and technique, I feel works should draw on an leads us through time past, present and future (within the engaged consciousness of their context in post-modernism. Christian cosmology), so Robin Kahukiwa’s use of sym­ These considerations, with a group exhibition, should be ad­ bolism extends the Viewer’s imagination — selected aspects dressed to the exhibition as a whole, (bearing in mind the ob­ of a myth which unfolds in serial form in the writing or telling, vious: that it’s made up of individual works). What I really are here encapsulated in one image, with its visual cues poin­ mean here is that we need a slight but important shift in our ting to the flux of transformation and change in the mythic focus — from priority given to stylistic discussion of in­ process. Style effectively draws on both European and Maori

Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 43 >**4 f />

art traditions. Bearing in mind the various contexts of the between the conflict of languages, the two women, is a “ Dic- current renewal of Maori culture, of the relationship of our tionnaire de la Langue Francaise” ; close to the artist’s head dual cultures, of the Maori Women’s Movement and the is a tight clustering of tiny red and green blooms and scatter­ Women’s Art Movement, this work, it seems to me, makes an ing freely into her space, her home, are the delicate white extremely important statement in our society now. and pink blossoms of her mother’s summer dress. Details The reclaiming of our heroic (and of our un-sung) like these add marvellous imaginative depth to the treatment ancestors and of our goddesses has formed a vital aspect of of this subject. the new women’s literature and art. The American, Mary Beth Other artists’ mothers are shown in calmer moments. Bar­ Edelson’s Great Goddess series is another in this category of bara Strathdee’s Woman with cup of tea twinkles wisely at works; Judy Chicago and collaborators’ homaging in the Din­ her daughter portraitist (and us). Face, and hand clenched on ner Party place settings and runners is more widely known, cup are painted with careful attention to characterization, and, in New Zealand, Claudia Pond Eyley’s series of draw­ the rest of the figure and canvas area only roughly sug­ ings of herself with ancient fertility images, with Amazons’ gested. This effectively understated treatment of the subject heads, etc., should, like Robin Kahukiwa’s Hinetitama, be has something in common with the approach of the understood within the sphere of these concerns. American painter Alice Neel in some of her recent Mothers are also daughters and the exhibition includes a remarkably direct and unidealised studies of women: her por­ number of works from this viewpoint: the gently ironic Pic­ trait of Dorothy Gillespie is one. ture of a Landscape for my Mother, an etching by Tiffany Thornley (her mother always wanted her to paint a landscape Besides the paintings, prints, photographs, fabric pieces, — so she does one, framed and hanging against a of diverse styles and approaches, but all sharing some sort wallpapered wall); Anna Keir’s tightly expressive drawings of of figurative emphasis, there are a small number of construc­ children, mothers, dolls, aunts. Here the artist draws on her tions some of which are non-figurative. Two of these are memories of childhood, and pays tribute to the memory and Juliet Batten’s Nurturing and Sharon Alston’s untitled piece. the tricks of time by her imaging of children with their Both use objects that evoke and transform painful aspects of mothers’ faces. In her catalogue statement she cites her in­ mothering and being mothered, respectively. Juliet Batten terest in Nancy Friday’s book, My Mother, Myself. One of the takes the wheels system of an old pram, upturns it and winds most compelling mother/daughter images is Jackie Fahey’s it about and binds it up with tangles of raffia and twine, the Mother and Daughter Quarrelling. This work, like others of outer coarser material joined by a single slender thread to an Fahey’s(Drinking Couple. Fraser Analysing My Words; Your inner more finely spun web: her metaphor for the em- Skirts in my . ! . Room!) draws on an extremely telling mo­ bryo/child tied to the entanglement of emotions connected ment of personal interaction. This approach, strongly with the mothering/nurturing process. autobiographic, is one that forms an important current of re­ The density of emotional content, especially for a woman cent art-making in the work of both men and women artists. viewer can be usefully contrasted with another not dissimilar The difference being that in the hands of feminist artists, the construction made recently by Don Driver: his Yellow Ten­ women’s liberation slogan of the early seventies ’’the per­ tacle Pram is a pram stuffed full of great pendulous yellow sonal is political” can be so devastatingly stated. Drinking plastic pipes. Taking the title into account, the image has ob­ Couple. Fraser Analysing My Words (shown in the Outreach vious associations with the demands of the pram-based “ Images of Men” exhibition) demonstrated this. Mother and child, but beyond that it is his use of industrial material, his Daughter Quarrelling captures an instant of two generations jokey combination of objects and materials that he intends of women out of mesh. This individually chosen con- to be effective, and, as he says of some of his paintings, the tent/conflict is expertly and evocatively expressed in Fahey’s intention for this work is probably not to be “ evocative” , but equally individual style. Combined in this work are “ to be something to be looked at for itself” .5 The differences naturalism of appearances, symbolism and a curiously effec­ in intent and effect of these two works tells us on one level tive surrealist approach to objects, their boundaries and simply the differences in intent of two different artists; on spaces, and the boundaries of ordinary reality: placed wittily another level the comparison can demonstrate how a work in

44 Broadsheet Jan/Feb1982 the non-figurative construction category by a feminist artist in her art-making however, by including in the blank border at is not primarily concerned with the play of objects and the edge of her images of him the xeroxed letter-stamp let­ materials in themselves, with style, but with clearly ters A B and D. Their languages and experiences are both in­ “evocative” content. tertwined and different. As are men’s and women’s in our The making of such an image as Nurturing,can be intended culture. Both need to be understood and valued in life as in by a feminist artist as a kind of exercise in exorcism. Sharon the interpretation and understanding of art.D Alstron’s extremely powerful construction which pays 1 Juliet Batten, “ Mother and Child in Western Art: The homage to her mother’s death, is described by the artist as Unrealised Theme” , essay in Mothers catalogue, The evolving partly out of her desire “to exorcise some of the Women’s Gallery, Wellington, 1981, 11-14. pain and guilt” linked with this experience.6 Like Robin Kahukiwa’s Hinetitama and other works in the exhibition (as 2 The recent major exception to this: The Birth Project, a seen in Auckland) this work cried out for a more isolated Through the Flower Corp. collaborative work initiated by placing, particularly since its intention is to make a setting Judy Chicago in 1980. This project aims to “ ... address the for an offering, a kind of shrine or altar. With its mirror, it absence of images by creating work that would use the relates as well, I feel, to the unrelenting dressing-table altars birth process as a metaphor for the creation of life in the upon which many women put their small arrangements of largest and most metaphorical sense, i.e. the female as make-up, perfume, jewels and beads. Here, however, on the the source of life and the feminine as the affirming life low ledge of this wooden construction are instead empty gin principle’. (Judy Chicago, in The Birth Project newsletter. bottle and the spilt out pills of a final sedation. Above, as if Between 120 and 150 portable fabric works are in the removed from this terrible past and expressive of the new process of being worked. freedom of her mother’s spirit — and perhaps the artist’s? — 3 Betty La Duke, “ Traditional Women Artists of Borneo, a wonderfully eagled-eyed, winged bird/figure/fish being: an Indonesia and Indis” , Women’s Art Journal, image freely evoking the regenerative capacities of the Spring/Summer 1981, 17-20. mythical#phoenix. Lastly, Joanna Paul’s Felix’s Language, A, B and D. This is 4 These quotations relating to Florence at Harbour Cone among a number of other works in the exhibition which ex­ are by Robin White: Islands, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1974, p.388. plore an area largely omitted in “ serious” art — that of a 5 Don Driver, in Exhibition Catalogue, Govett-Brewster Art mother’s sensitivity to a child’s view of the world. Felix’s Gallery, New Plymouth, p. 15, quoted by Leonard Bell in language: A...B...D, is structured by his arranging of his own Don Driver. On the Margins” , Art New Zealand, Summer sequences of letter-stamps scattered on the floor and 1981, p.34 carefully balanced on his leg. The view-point is from above, 6 Artist’s description in Mothers catalogue, abid. as his mother saw and valued his vision. But her medium for interpreting his world, her language, is different: she takes a Available from Broadsheet colour photograph and makes a xerox print of it. Electronics Mothers catalogue, $3.00 versus moveable type. She pays her respects to his language Set of Mothers postcards — $3.00 Freedom Flyers Project

Carole Shepheard, whose paintings and assemblages have excited both her devotees and those not familiar with her works until recently, has conceived an “artworks” project that will take two years to complete, if funding and assembly space are successfully achiev­ ed. “There’s no doubt that Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party and her more re­ cent Birth Project have been highly in­ fluential in motivating me towards beginning a similar project in the Auckland area,” says Carole. “ Ideally, I wish to throw together women from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, in­ terests and abilities to involve themselves with ideas, techniques, con­ struction and assembly of ten fabric banners (more like flags than wall hang­ ings).” Carole calls the ten banners Freedom Flyers, each one being seen as six feet long by four feet wide, having a central image with smaller images around the edges. “ I envisage the project taking at determined at this point. Women interested in being part of this least two years to complete, with each "I want to see the banners creatively project with Carole are asked to contact banner being created around a specific using women’s traditional craft skills: her at 359 Richmond Road, Auckland, theme.” Some of the themes that have patchwork, weaving, applique, em­ and plan to come to the next Outreach already occurred to Carole are spirituali­ broidery, knitting, quilting, crochet, soft meeting on February 3rd, 1982, at 6.00 ty, sexuality, Maoridom, motherhood, sculpture, mola, beadwork, bargello, cut- p.m. to a bring your own food and drink environment, violence, magic and work, whitework, lace, tapestry and potluck meeting, Outreach, 1 Ponsonby politics, though the list is far from being fabric printing and dyeing.” Rd, Auckland. □

BroadsheetJan/Feb 1982 45 Battered Wives Take Centre Stage Margaret Blay reports on a new women’s theatre group and its first two productions, one of which focusses on battered wives

When Maggie Maxwell and I agreed the only piece of hard politics in the early in 1981 to co-direct a women- show — we see victims beginning to oriented theatre company this summer, learn that they are not the only one; also we were developing ideas and techni­ the responses of some children involved. ques that we had started to learn in Mer- The show makes it clear that there are vyn Thompson’s historic production no instant cures. Songs to the Judges for Maidment Sum­ We think this will be the first original mer Theatre. The similarity of our own attempt to present this issue on the New company name — Summer Theatre — is Zealand professional stage. We hope to no coincidence, and we have substan­ change our audiences’ awareness, tially the same policy — to perform only which is one function of any art, and New Zealand material, preferably stimulate them to further action against original, and mainly on topics bf im­ woman-beaters. We will probably be mediate concern to the community. mostly “singing to the converted” , as The main difference is that this com­ one reviewer described Judges, but if pany is run by women, mainly for the experience of that astounding show women. We want to provide work for is anything to go by, the converted are established professional actresses, who very willing to take strength from an are not equally employed by the unashamedly polemical show like this. mainstream theatres; perform only And there will be a few who will come in women’s writing as far as possible, and only passively sympathetic and go out put women’s vision on the professional burning. stage. A trust is soon to be formed that Clearing Out (don’t be too surprised if will enable us to workshop further we change the title before then) will be scripts by women — more on this in a presented at the Little Maidment later Broadsheet. Theatre, Auckland University, between Margaret Blay, writer of Clearing Out 15th and 28th February 1982. We have We are not excluding male per­ and co-director of Summer Theatre. formers, though in future we will do been permitted by the authors to include some all-women shows. The company material from He said he loved me really for each of our first two productions will Council’s school holiday programme at (Halfway House Collective, Auckland) consist of eight women and two men. the Metro Theatre, Mangere East, in and Listen to me please(John and Doris We intend to employ and encourage January. Church, Christchurch). I’ve also had women front-of-house and backstage The main production for the season several long talks with the original staff as far as possible. We have also in­ will be Clearing Out, a song-drama about Halfway House women and some of the herited from Maidment Summer Theatre battered wives. This was Maggie’s idea the women who are living and working a strong sense of sisterhood towards but most of the words are mine; music is there now, and would like to thank them Maori and Polynesian writers, per­ by Penny Dodd, currently musical direc­ for their trust. formers and material; we want to keep tor of Oliver at the Mercury Theatre. the spirit of Songs to the Judges alive. Using black humour as well as an We are now desperate for funds for Our first production will be Ana and emotionally direct approach, the songs this production. It is possible that we the Mauri of Tangaroa, by Waireti show some typical expectations of mar­ may cope financially with Ana but we Rolleston, Maggie and myself, with riage, scenes of domestic violence and understand that our first application for music by Glenda Keam. This kids-play- professional attitudes. After a sequence Clearing Out has realised only 25% of with-songs will be part of Manukau City about feminists setting up a refuge — the amount we asked for.D

Gloria Swenson, ex-showgirl and We rarely see a heroine like Gloria in Gloria, friend to the mafia, is living in quiet the movies — she’s brave, cunning, Dir: John Cassavetes, retirement with her cat on the ump­ tough, clever, funny; she escapes the Starring: Gena Rowlands, Juan teenth floor of a New York apartment most heart-stopping jams without ever Adames. building, which we reach after some losing her cool or her high heels. In an in­ stunning aerial night time shots of the cident in a city street she pumps bullets Despite all my protestations that city. Her cosy menage is shattered into a whole car load of pursuing hoods; liberation for women doesn’t merely when her Puerto Rican mobster the car spectacularly skitters sideways mean the gender equivalent of “ passing neighbour’s number comes up and he into parked cars. “ That was some acci­ for white”, I must confess to often ex­ thrusts on her his six-year-old son Phil dent!” exclaims the awestruck taxidriver periencing a malicious delight at seeing before the rest of the family gets blasted flagged down by Gloria, and unaware of women beat men at their own game. from here to eternity. Gloria’s reluctant her role in the crash. “ We’re not in­ Gena Rowlands as Gloria does just that, to take on Phil, after all, as she says, she terested in accidents, buddy,” retorts and her opponent is not a pifling Bobby doesn’t like children, but she soon Gloria. “ Drive on!” “ Gee, you’re tough Riggs, but the whole mob. What’s more, warms to the challenge, and from then Gloria,’? marvels Phil. she does it with enormous style, in tight on it’s twenty crises a reel as Gloria and spots whipping a tidy little revolver out Phil run for cover, hotly pursued by the Unlike those tough ladies of the tele — Charlie’s Angels and Angie Dickinson of the bosom of her pale blue satin Em­ mob, who want Phil’s head and “ the —- Gloria has no male boss or partner to manuel Ungaro suit. book” his dad gave him.

46 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 consult or tell her what to do, she defers good play which confronts her with her to no man. With the reservation that her own fears of middle age and the diminu­ tools are violent, she’s an admirable role tion of her sexual powers. In the final model. One could even argue (if one felt triumphant sequence, much of which the need) that Gloria’s irrational, was apparently ad-libbed, Myrtle rises rebellious protection of Phil, undertaken above both the alchohol and her lines to not for any cliched sentimental or mater­ deliver a stunning, dramatic perfor­ nal motivation, but simply because he is mance to both her theatre and her there, and alive, represents a triumph of cinema audiences. humanitarian values over that ultimate symbol of patriarchal machismo — the Both these films have been seen in the Family. past few years in New Zealand — single My only real complaint is that despite showings at film festivals. Even in the (or perhaps because of the uncustomary States that seems to be par for the lack of “romantic interest” for Gloria, course. Opening Night, although shown some of the dialogue between her and commercially all over Europe, failed to Phil is loaded with unnecessary sexual find a commercial distributor in the US. innuendo. Gloria, funny, exciting, and entertaining, This is the third movie I’ve seen from lasted a week in Auckland’s Queen the combined talents of filmmaker John Street, and a week at the suburban Lido. Cassavetes and actress Gena It would have made a glorious holiday Rowlands. All have been utterly dif­ movie. Despite the violent theme, there ferent, but definitely memorable. was little blood and gore to be seen, Rowlands’ talent is awesome — in each hence Gloria had a G certificate, making film she creates a monumental it one of the rare movies which can be character, but a woman as warm, real enjoyed by adults and children alike. My and unforgettable as a close, much lov­ 11-year-old loved it. Why is it that films ed friend. You really care what happens which focus unashamedly on strong to these women, and somehow, female characters fail to make it com­ mysteriously, consummately, Rowlands mercially (well, we all know the answer makes you care for her too; you fee*l her to that)? total concern, love and commitment to and the psychiatric establishment. In If any of Rowlands’ films turn up in these women of her heart and mind, her one crucial scene Mable, arms outstret­ your local cinema, break all records to total gift of herself, and, as critic'Judith ched, circles deliriously, despairingly, get there. And I do wonder (wistfully) Thurman has put it, you care about “her like a butterfly in a jar, a heretic on a what hope there is of us ever getting to risks as an actress” . cross, on top of the sitting room sofa, see Rowlands’ more recent TV movie A In A Woman Under the Influence while her husband and the shrink wait to Question of Love, in which she plays op­ Rowlands was Mabel Longhetti, a pounce with the hypodermic. posite Jane Alexander in the story of a joyously expressive but achingly In Opening Night Rowlands dazzled lesbian mother seeking to obtain vulnerable housewife/mother who gets as Myrtle Gordon, a leading lady using custody of her child. crushed by the full weight of conformity booze to grapple with a new and not-so- Sandra Coney

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WALTHAM WOMEN’S SELF SHARE 26,— 28 March CENTRE Cost $12 I would like a woman to share my Birkdale Contact WEA, 21 Princes Street, Open 10-3 weekdays Ph. 732-030 Auckland Drop in and see us when you are in house with me and my 12 year old daughter. Christchurch — 34 Thackeray St, Chch Transport to city daily. $15 for the room. Mixed group, children welcome. Ph 61 089 Phone Auckland 436-162 after 6 p.m.

48 Broadsheet Jan/Feb 1982 AUCKLAND GISBORNE NEW PLYMOUTH Kidsarus 2, P.O. Box 9600, Wellington. Action Council for Women's Abortion Rights (ACWAR), Gisborne Rape Crisis Centre. Ph. 83857. ALRANZ, P.O. Box 72, New Plymouth. Ph. 79-304. NZ Working Women's Council, P.O. Box 27-215, P.O. Box 1236, Auckland 1. Lesbian Women’s Group, P.O. Box 1398. Ph. 4285. SOS, 9 Te Mara Place. Ph. 84-937. Wellington. ALRANZ, P.O. Box 47-169, Ponsonby. NOW, 3 Dickson St, Gisborne. Virago Women's Action Group. 71 Bayly Rd. P.O. Box Wellington Rape Crisis Centre, P.O. Box 2059, GPO Broadsheet, P.O. Box 5799, Wellesley St. Ph. 794-751. SOS, 37 Wairere Rd, Box 1398. Ph. 4285. 4030. Wellington. Ph. 896-288. Council for the Single Mother and her Child, P.O. Box WEL, Box 282, Gisborne. Ph. 81-407. WEL, Cl- Vicki Dugan, 112 Pioneer Rd, Ph. 510-869. Society for Research on Women in NZ Inc., P.O. Box 47-090, Ponsonby. Ph. 760-476. Working Women’s Council, C/- Margaret McQuillan., 6 Women’s Centre, 66 Brougham St, New Plymouth. Ph. 13-078, Johnsonville. Family Planning Assn, Nat. Office, P.O. Box 68-200, Ida Rd. Ph. 88-291. 79-532 SOS, Box 28-099. WEL, P.O. Box 11-285, Wellington. Kristin Jakobson Auckland. GORE PALMERSTON NORTH Feminists for the Environment, Cl- Kathleen Ryan Ph ALRANZ, P.O. Box 639, Palmerston North. (Sec.). Ph. 739-321 (office). 868-399. Juliet Batten. Ph. 696-123. Working Women’s Council. Cl- Sue Crawford, 1 Viking Wellington Feminist Collective, P.O. Box 3871, Place, Gore, Ph. 5370. Palmerston North Women’s Refuge, P.O, Box 573, Ph. Wellington, Feminist Lawyers (Nationwide), Cl- Linda Daly-Peoples 290-845. Ph. 794-104. GREYMOUTH Palmerston North Women's Collective PO Box 1608 Wellington Lesbians, P.O. Box 427, Wellington. Ph. Feminist Teachers, P.O. Box 47-095, Auckland. ALRANZ, P.O. Box 421, Greymouth. SOS, 25 Alan St, Palmerston North. Ph. 75-460. 851-540. 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The following issues are available at 60 cents each No. 83 October 1 980: Apprenticeships for girls, nuclear madness, wages for housework, Donna Awatere on mid-decade Copenhagen conference, No. 44 November 1976: Marilyn Waring, nurstng, Maori women, Tongan women, historical perspective on abortion. more on Depo Provera. No. 45 December 1976: Beginning of herstory series, cystitis, clerical No. 84 November 1980: 1st national black women's hui, tampons, workers union, the pros and antis in the abortion struggle. Anorexia, Leigh Minnitt, reform tool kit, girls school principals. No. 46 January 1977: Day care, your rights if you are arrested, radical No. 85 December 1980: Tampon controversy, problems as an engineering feminism, woman speaks in synagogue. apprentice, school nurses, 3rd World bottle babies, reform tool kit part 2. No. 47 March 1977: Moon madness, male-designed cities, vaginal infec­ tions, sexist vocational guidance pamphlets. 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