NOVEMBER, 1970 | i | & a By THELMA CARTWRIGHT (First of two parts) After writing for two years on women’s need for day care centers, maternity benefits, better opportunities for ad- vancement and promotion, proper retraining to enter the labor force, equal pay and so on it’s quite frustrating to realize that nothing much has changed since those columns were written — two, three, five years ago. ‘True there have been some improvements. There are one or two more day care centers around than there used to be. Equal pay is recognized as not a bad idea by some and ignored by more. And there is still only Grace MacInnis in the House of Commons as the _ lone representative of women. Nothing Changed In the midst of an uneasy feeling that nothing much has changed one ray of light shines. That is the emergence of a new,militant, demanding voice on the women’s scene— the voice of Women’s Liberation. Women’s liberationists can be, and often are, most unappealing. But in spite of the raucous tone of their pronouncements and the noisy confusion of their demon- strations, they are making more headlines, and, in- cidentally, better sense, than a lot of us who feel we have always had the interests of women at heart. Women’s Lib, in effect, is questioning the very roots of our social order. Most of us have been content to go along with the status quo, attempting to change a few groundrules here or gain a few concessions there. That’s not Women’s Lib at all. It wants to change the status quo and I, for one, wish it every kind of luck. She Is Not In the first place women in the Liberation movement want to change the very image we have hallowed for so long in our society of what a woman is. According to Women’s Lib she is not , and never has been the dedicated wife and mother devoted to husband and children and sworn to a life of baking chocolate fudge layer cakes and keeping on tap an endless supply of freshly ironed shirts. Instead, most women are, in the words of the Women’s Lib ‘Mexican grape pickers’ or ‘Black porters,’ or ‘Indian sugar beet workers’. In other words they are locked into class jobs of the very worst variety. Where else do you work with no training whatsoever, in solitary confinement, and for no pay, sick leave, overtime or holidays? In all civilized, highly industrialized western societies — that’s where. That is, if you are a woman. Role Redefined More than any other single thing — and that includes the need I’ve been talking about’ for day care centers, mater- nity benefits and so on, but more than any of these women need to see their role redefined by society and by themselves. At this moment women are going through an identity crisis. Because of new ad- vances in science freeing them from their traditional biological bonds, and because of other deep changes within the structure of society women stand at a crossroad. Fumble Around Whether women fumble around looking for an easy way out of the coming freedom that will be theirs or whether the will accept the impetus of the Women’s Liberation Movement towards a really equal status with men in society is being decided at this teria t moment in the Western civilized world, (Next issue — Conflicting advice — the confusing tug-of- war splitting women into two groups.) HELP SOUGHT FOR OLD AGE PENSIONERS The Editor: In this age of inflation, pensioners have become the ‘forgotten people’ in our community. For that reason I was very pleased to see that the B.C. Federation of Labour passed some good resolutions at their recent convention, where the delegates agreed to become more active in im- proving the well being of our pioneers in their midst. This is the least we can do to show our appreciation for the years of toil that have resulted in a much better life for us all, and we must be sure that these resolutions are carried out. 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Telephone: 684-7758 oy . with ordinating committee to work with Old Age Pensioners and Senior Citizens to ‘‘meet regularly to deal with questions such as pension increases, improved low-cost | housing for the elderly and © us a <} other important points that — should be acted upon.” Without doubt you have | realized the need for action along these lines for some — time. Do you, presently | working or retired have any — ideas on this subject, on how such a co-ordinating com- © mittee could be the most ef- fective? This letter is not written in any official capacity, but only as an individual wanting to know if there is a current in- terest amongst unionists to become more active in doing our share to improve the lot of present and future pensioners in our community. We can all benefit from such efforts, as we all age too quickly, and what we do today can help to bring us happiness and contentment in our leisurely productive years ahead. Hoping to hear from you in this regard, Car] Erickson TRUE ENOUGH A real he-man, says bar- tender Bill, is a guy who likes his whiskey straight and his women curved. GLOVE PROBLEMS? SOLVE THEM WITH THESE WATSON GLOVES AND MITTS “MILL-RITE’ "GREEN CHAIN’ ‘LUMBER LOADER’ wy JOHN WATSON LTD.