THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER .

(Part Two on Women’s Lib)
By THELMA CARTWRIGHT

It would be the easiest thing
in the world for women today

to become completely
schizophrenic. They have
always been expected to do two
jobs at the same time if they
happened to be married with
children and worked outside
the home too. Now they are
being fed with so much con-
flicting advice that it’s no.
wonder the number of women
in need of psychiatric treat-
ment is rising rapidly.

On the one hand women are _
being told that the earth is’
over-populated, that they are
contributing to the destruction
of the world by continuing to
have children. Countless
conferences and innumerable
experts tell women to stop
having babies in such num-
bers.

National Disgrace

On the other hand govern-
ment refuses her the means of
controlling the number of
children she bears. It has been
a national disgrace in Canada
that until a short time ago,
birth control was illegal. Even
now there is no well organized
network of easily available
birth control clinics open to
women of all classes and in-
come levels. And abortion is
still unavailable to women who
find themselves trapped by a
pregnancy they do not want.

It’s not only women’s
biological role that is being
called into question. Her
ability as the best person to

Members of Office and
Technical Employees Union,
Local 15 employed by
Ladysmith and District Credit
Union at Ladysmith, B.C. have
approved terms for a_ first
Agreement.

The settlement provides for
minimum salary increases of
$100 per month by July 1, 1971,
i.e.

$60.00 per month increase
retroactive to July 1, 1970

$15.00 per month increase
effective January 1, 1971

$25.00 per month minimum
inerease effective July 1, 1971.

The settlement also provides
for a 34 hour work week and
three weeks vacation after
three years service, plus one
additional day’s vacation each
year thereafter.

eare for her children, once she
has them, is constantly being

challenged. Women who stay

home with their children are
told that they are depriving
them of a good start in life by
not sending them out, at the
age of two or three to a good,
progressive nursery school.
Home Atmosphere

Head start programs are
often run for children who have
never had the advantage of
nursery school experience
before entering public school
— advantages that have long
been evident to educators. But
let a woman start to work and
place her child in a nursery
school environment and she is
made to feel she is neglecting
her child by depriving him of a

normal home atmosphere.

In view of these conflicting
opinions many women today
are in a serious state of doubt
about their own identity and
the place they should take in
society. Must they feel guilty if
they do stay home and raise a
family or ought they to be
spending every spare moment
outside work at Women’s
Liberation meetings?

Two Extremes

The answer, it seems to me,
lies somewhere between these
two extremes. The fact is that
old attitudes and beliefs are
dying and changing very
quickly in society today. More
and more young people are
rejecting the life styles of their
parents. They don’t want the

DON'T TAKE FOR GRANTED
CELLOPHANE PACKAGES CLEAN

Just because food comes in
a clean-looking package or

cellophane wrapping, you
can’t take for granted it is
really “clean”. The wide-

spread occurrence of salmo-
nella infection, a form of food
poisoning, has been traced at
least in part to the increasing
use of so-called “convenience”
foods requiring little or no
heating at home.

Ironically, one of the justifi-
eations claimed by the food
industry, and: the Agricul-
ture Department propagan-
dists for processed foods with
their extra cost, is their
“cleanliness” in contrast to the

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mythical “open cracker bar-
rel” of old-time grocery stores.

But it turns out, cellophane
can hide a multitude of orga-
nisms. You know whether or
not your hands and kitchen
are clean when you prepare
food. You don’t know the sani-
tary conditions in the food
factory.

The facts are that over two
million people get sick each
year from contaminated food,
and the chief culprit is the
salmonella organism. Food
poisoning is second only to
colds as the most frequent
eause of illness, government
authorities say.

HOPE YOUR SEASON'S BRIGHT AND JOLLY!

isolation of the nuclear family.
Young women and men, too,

are beginning to refuse to fit .

into the mold society would like
to cast them in.

Some of them are turning to
life within a shared community
where such things as domestic
chores and child rearing are
done by all members of the
community whatever their
sex. In this way, men, as well
as women, may be liberated
from the rigid definitions

society has, up until now, laid
upon their lives.

Those of us who are,
perhaps, too old and set to
change our own lives can help
by keeping an open mind on
new patterns of living and by
encouraging our own children
to sample them. The very first
step, though, is to stop scoffing
at Women’s Liberation. Most
of the things they. are saying
need to be said. Most of them
are true.

SET]

New statistics from the
Federal Labor Department
confirm the complaints of
woman’s liberationists that
females are squeezed out of the
best jobs. =

Although a rising percentage
of the work force is female —
35.2 percent in 1969 -- women
shared just 12.2 percent of the
better-paying managerial jobs.

Accompanying the growth in
the female sector of the labor
market have been significant
increases in the percentage of
women in clerical jobs. Five
years ago 63.3 percent of the
clerical jobs were held by
women, today it’s 69.8.

The service industries are
almost 60 percent women.
Manufacturing, the second
largest sector of the industry,
is 22.5 percent female. The
biggest job market is the

Lg Gb °°

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British Columbia’s UNIQUE Family Shoe Store

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Bis Ni Ni Ni Ss a iia Laid aa ai a ae ia ai an

“DECK THE HALLS
WITH BOUGHS
OF HOLL.

community, personal and
business services group, in-
cluding teaching and nursing.
Women hold 59.6 percent of the
jobs in that group.

The population at large
traditionally has slightly more
women than men, 50.4 percent
females in 1969. But one million
more women work today than
10 years ago, compared with
900,000 additional men . The
bigger increase in working
women pushed the percentage
of females in the labor force to
35.2 percent, up 8.5 percent

over 1959...
(ee

LIGHTER SIDE

Sawmill Sue says that a gal
who marries a man to help
him mend his ways is apt to
find that he isn’t worth a
darn.

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