Sunday Forum; Women In Communications

I want a national organization is a valorous prior unerring group of over 6000 women with chapters in some 80 and 80 university and college programs mock awards thinks of us primarily as a newspaper woman because she started her career as a reporter. She's well known today as the director of public relations of Middlesex County Hospital. She is a. Dedicated to the overall hopes of women in communications to raise the status of women in this field. Martha is the shining proof that someday women's voices will be listened to. With all the respect. That their ability and title soon to thank you Miss. The

aa of thanks. Welcome to the third Matrix banquet of the Boston branch of women in communications women in communications is the newest professional society in the field in the Boston area. We have been an official branch of our national organization just two years although there was a small group who have been meeting for the past seven years. However we are the oldest national organization having been founded in 1999 at the University of Washington in Seattle. As fate is signified the matrix banquet on an honors that founding and the program we have planned for this evening symbolizes the goals of our organization to encourage professionalism through quality performance and training to overcome job discrimination

practices to race the self image of a woman on a professional and a personal level to extend professional record recognition and membership to women of all racial minorities to combat attempts to undermine the First Amendment guarantee at this point I'd like to throw in a plug for support for Centrepoint LUNs version of the reporters. She along our organization is backing in the state legislature right now. Our membership includes both men and women who have proven their professionalism in one of the phases of the communications industry advertising radio TV newspapers freelancers teachers authors and poets public relations technical writers and editors. And our diversity is our strength. To Debbie I see-I

we have a chance to cross pollinate ideas and information. And as I reviewed our membership roster this past week I realized that our members are also deeply involved in community activity and social movements as well as within their profession. And I think this is one of the reasons this group is so dynamic. Why it has a reaching out and an interest in the world around us. I would like to thank the members of Debbie ICR for the honor of being their president for two terms and the support they have given me during that time. A special thank you to the members of the matrix banquet committee who have made this evening possible. Camille Roman our general chairman friend Herman our tray sure and Doris were nice and Edward Bernays who have been our program chairman. Thank you very much. And also thank you for coming this evening. At this point I'd like to turn the program over to Edward Bernays.

Thank you. Madam gentleman gentleman. There's Jenna unlike others has a purpose. It furthers an idea whose time has come for Advancement of Women in communications. Equal opportunity for them in their field and of course the advancement of communication itself. Ever since I joined my wife in a professional and personal partnership over 50 years ago we have both tried. To advance these causes. I'm pleased to be the first male elected to membership in your group. I did so on the basis that I didn't have to did so on the basis that I didn't have to change my sex.

For outstanding speakers. Here tonight women do achieve in an androgenous world. They will discuss the subject with you representing distinguished communicator group leaders and opinion molders. I see my young friend Marjorie males. I see Rose walk out. I see Mr Prescot Lo I see Marilyn Salinger in the audience I see Mel Bernstein and many others in the order of speaking the speakers will be missed. Elma Lewis founder director of the National Center of Afro-American artists Dr. Mary part of a rowe special assistant to the president

and chancellor of MIT for women and work. And we are particularly fortunate to welcome to newcomer women to the Boston scene who will talk to us tonight. Miss Burney's boorish Boston bureau chief of Newsweek and the only woman bureau chief of that publication and Ms. Sandra Burton the and also newly appointed bureau chief of time in the Athens of America. I am sure they will say will ignite inspire. And accelerate social change the spread of the meat boycott. It seems to me proves dramatically the validity of the adage that it is useless to

send armies against ideas. It was interesting to me that the Boston communications community leadership gave the cause a mighty push forward. Many of the patrons are here tonight with their wives. They have accepted patronage of this event and they support its goals. I think that to personify them and the idea it might be of value to you and to them to identify them if they will stand up as their name is called alphabetically. You can withhold righteous applause till the list is over. Mr. Richard Burdick vice president creative vice president W.

Seavey B and Mrs. Burdick miss Bernice brash Boston bureau chief of Newsweek Miss Sandra Burton boss chief of time Mr. Onil see Koda general manager of WB You are FM and Mrs coda. Mr Arthur a choke vice president and station manager UK B channel 56 Kaiser globe broadcasting and Mrs ho for Mrs Miss Barbara Newell president of Wellesley College. Miss Suzanne Gordon is here in her place. Mr Lamont L. Thompson vice president of Westinghouse Broadcasting Company Inc. WBEZ WBEZ TV Mrs. Thompson.

Dr. Gary Hart D We B who is dean of the school of public communication. Will he please get up and Mrs. of Boston University and Mrs we are our sponsors and Mr Howard AMS if Professor of journalism's of the University of Massachusetts is somewhere around the floor over there. Mr Borenstein the editor of The Boston Herald Americans unfortunately is away on a vacation. Mr Irwin canim and Mrs. canim sent their regrets. They had a previous engagement. So here we are. I. Was. Fooling.

Oh my. My my. Also a more than a touch. Mr. Paul Winship and Mrs. Winship on the committee. And he and she are personified in 10 women senior writers of the globe who are seated together with their male console oughts. Our spouses. Won't they get up so that we can see the power of women on the Boston Globe. In Atl. I think mention should also be made of the fact that the proceedings will be broadcast by W. GBH Mr WGBH is here

somewhere. Well you may get upset. And. In addition to WGBH Apparently the news value of the event penetrated the social consciousness of the head of W H R B big station and they too are recording the proceedings. Where is Mr W H R be outlawed. You say you see this. This proves that this is indeed an androgenous world. I told somebody that the women in communication had accepted me as a member and they said female

chauvinism calling it women in communication. To put your fears at rest. I had intended to bring along one of those little timers that clicks a minute before the speaker is through. I'm now looking for something to tug at in order to fulfill the equivalence of a timer but I assure you that the talks will not be more. Missed. Mr. M. Thompson just said that he would talk my wife and she will talk to me and I will talk. And now let me introduce the first speaker. Miss Elma Lewis. Mr. Lewis has very good press relations man because he sent me fifty

two pages of Hartley. And I told Mrs. Lois that that was a very good idea because it permitted the Toastmaster to extract. From the 52 pages the most pertinent points at issue for the evening. Miss Lois I think it is safe to say is a legend in her lifetime not only in Boston but in myriad circles of the United States. She is the founder director of the National Center of Afro-American artists and has been able to lure some Ford money to her activity which is not to be sneezed at. And she has communicated all through our life. Not only through her own

vibrant words and personality but through the inspiration and the meaning that she has given to the artists that she has worked with. And certainly I know from my work with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the State Department that. Music is indeed the great international communications medium and there is no area of communication as universal as music. It is fitting that she should lead off the discussion of women in communications this evening. For what other woman in this Harvard Great Hall has received an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. Miss Lewis I know is

imaginative and she is practical. She is dedicated and she is courageous. And possibly she has had more difficulties to overcome to reach our present state of achievement than anyone I know. Mr. Lewis will talk on The View from my bridge and 11 minutes from this moment. I will tug. On YOUR be 80. Mr. and Mrs. Burton a distinguished head table communicators and so many impressive women communicators in the audience. I am truly impressed with this organization

and it makes me wonder why women are as concerned as they are with male oppression. Because if in fact so many women are sitting in this room who have been in communications whose organization has been around for 67 years I think wow I really know. If we are. In that sense downtrodden you know when Mr. Burnett asked. Us to suggest what had been our greatest accomplishments and overcoming being oppressed female if I had a little problem because I can't really imagine any man who would be rash enough to oppress me. And as I look out here I think the same could be said of you. I don't really know what we're talking about.

After thinking about it for five minutes of course Larry Blong who is our PR director came and said You do write two three sentences on this paper. I missed telling about your great depression. And I looked around the office the other woman looked at me because we run the place you know. And I said to tell you the truth I have to talk from a different bridge because from my bridge it was much harder to overcome the problems of being black in this society than of being female in this society. Now certainly if you are a poor black and you come from a family that likes to achieve there's a lot to do and people don't quarrel about who does what. You just do it. So mothers and fathers both go to work and mothers and fathers both come home and clean the house. And mothers and fathers both listen to homework and washing their clothes.

So I didn't know anything about all of that until I came to places like Harvard and. Saw a great many leisure class women I didn't even know there were any. And as I look around the community in which I live all of the women go to work and some of them go to housework and some of them go to professional jobs but they all go to work. I think that it would be very difficult for me to name you for women who sit at home so then I said well I got to talk about well maybe I have to tell. The women in communication how much power they really have because maybe they just don't know that they don't have to sit around and be oppressed they just have to get up and go do it. After all you are the opinion makers as you say in this room and as I stand before you I am one nervous than I usually am in fact I'm not at all nervous with most people. But if I look at women I see people with a lot of clout. And as I look at women in communications I see an amazing

amount of clout. And I stand here and say these women can change my life overnight. The stroke of the pen. And we have to spend a dollar they don't have to leave their desks and they can change my life. So then why do we have to worry about people oppressing us why don't we exercise the power we have. And then as women we have had a great deal of moral suasion over the years. So if we combine both. Aren't we an amazingly strong position. I notice that the climate in the country is of such a law that. People in the communications media threaten but I don't know why they would be. I remember a period not so long ago when one of two reporters kept Bette Davis from working for five years. The five lines in a column

and I then wonder why you would accept. The dictum that you will be told what to write when to write it how to write it what to say and when to say it. I don't care from whence cometh that dictum. And I am mindful of the fact that even if your editor or your publisher says that you are not constricted. Because there are enough of you to work together not to let that happen. I am therefore discouraged a little bit when I see that with a great number of women who have come into communications I can still see a change in what happens on television and what I hear on the radio and what I read in the newspaper. And I know that you are not exercising the power you have and that you are being persuaded that you are powerless and subject to someone's oppression

which you are not. And I would then think before I get pulled that I was warned before I got up you know I think that before I sit down I would like to exhort you. To be as strong as your numbers in this room would suggest you are and strong in the right. Because if in fact the society will survive in any decent manner you are among the people who will make it happen and ever doesn't survive and a decent man it won't survive at all. And every time you think about the about being fearful of white what might happen then wonder what would have happened to many of us who have had to overcome that much more urgent problem of being black in this society. If we had feared.

In conclusion I would like to say that it is more important now than at any time in the history of this present civilization that women of accomplishment women of education women of Basically great intelligence organize their thinking organize their direction and organize their morality to stand for the right and keep us growing in the proper direction. Thank you for asking me to come. We thank you for your statement of truth which undoubtedly will

be acted on by the people in this room and people outside of this room. I wanted to make the announcement that Simmons College is having a group that is to be a new university chapter of women in communication and I understand from Mrs. O'Beirne that there are already 33 members of petitionary members. That is a no semantic journey but I'm sure you know what it means. Dr. Mary Roe is the next speaker. We chose her because of the depth of her studies

in the field of women and economics. She was recently appointed special assistant to the president and chancellor of MIT and title is special assistant for women and work. She is a contemporary woman and she will discuss a subject that is not only temporary but I would say has been with us a long time to be able to love and to work. From a woman's angle she is an eminently fitted for this role. She has a wife a mother of three children a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia a Bachelor of Arts from SWA small and she has a full time job

in a new area academic activity with one of the great institutions of this country. Am I key in which I am very proud to say that I have a son in law professor of psychology. Her experience is both personal academic and practical. She directed a Carnegie Corporation program to help senior women faculty and members and women students in New-England institutions. And recently she was affiliated as a research scholar at Radcliffe as an example. Hope practicability she and her husband Dr. Richard are row director of the graduate program in clinical psychology and public practice at Harvard.

Split the housework and the childcare duties. She talks from a sense of intense reality in discussion of to be able to love and to work the world. I. Thank you very much like Elma Lewis I'm very impressed by this large group of women in communications. A week or so ago I was invited to a dinner for women economists and I went very gladly thinking that she and I would have a lovely quiet evening. All evening. The women in that room kept going around saying my goodness there's another one there's another one. And when I got home I said to her friend you know there were 47 of us. And he said I didn't know it was a

world conference. In any case I greet my sisters it is also a rare species and I wish you very well in your own profession. I'm here to talk tonight about the joys of being androgynous. For those who don't know the term very well I want to be clear that this has nothing to do with the joys whatever they may be of being a. Hermaphrodite hermaphrodites are people who are physiologically male and female not very much is known about them because they are so few and hardly everyone hardly anyone advocates hermaphroditic ism for us all now androgynous folk are spiritually both masculine and feminine to the degree that they choose to be. Actually not very much is known about them either because our society has made

options in this area very difficult. However lots of people are beginning to advocate androgyny for everyone. Androgyny means personal choice. It means that what people do in areas that are now sex stereotyped shall no longer be determined by sex type thing but by personal choice. It means permitting men to cry to be nurture and to care for children and colleagues. It means permitting women to be assertive. Financially independent and giving them wide career options. Now you may ask why does this funny talk make a rise just now. Haven't we been getting along just fine. Women are passive adaptive patient reactive and assertive and dependent. Haven't we been doing OK with the men aggressive competitive hard working and powerful. Then others may ask even if we haven't been getting along all right on our old stereotypes.

What makes anybody think we will change. I am reminded of a distinguished university administrator who was explaining affirmative action programs. He said there really something like the mating of elephants. It goes on at high levels. There's lots of trumpeting and nothing happens for four years. I should say parenthetically that when I told my husband that story he said what a male chauvinist view of pregnancy. I think in fact that things are changing. Once upon a time upon a farm men and women were both working more or less without a salary. Side by side in a joint enterprise for survival. Their status was pretty equal in most families certainly as far as their friends were concerned. Neither had many grown ups to talk to but both had some. The woman had four or five pregnancies and she

nursed each baby for 10 or 15 months. She was more or less time by biology to her home for at least five or ten years. But both parents raised and trained the children and both worked more or less. Dawn till dark then men left the home workplace. They earned money they gained status and some gained power. They delegated the education of their children they found more and more callings. The first pup was born. The women took on more responsibility for home and children. Little by little in modern factories and offices it is the paid employment of men became completely separate from home excepting only business entertaining and men got used to being personally taken care of. And delegated new caretaking duties to a new female occupation. The office wife. Women got used to being financially supported and for the first time in history we saw adult women who were concerned with nothing more than one or two children.

The right to salaries to status to power. Has remained predominantly with men. Little by little work. That is to say paid work became a male right caring and nurturance and loving became a female right. Objective processes rational scientific thought became a man's pride. Subjective intuitional processes became women's problems unpaid where was left predominantly to women. In a society which came so to value money that now a full time homemaker with five children and all her husband's business entertaining will tell you that she doesn't work. Now things are changing again. I have in any case of course only outlined a stereotype and that stereotype itself is falling. Many social changes occurred simultaneously. The textile factories and were Old World Wars 1 and 2 brought many women back into the paid labor

back in to work back into the paid labor force. The pill came along to make sure at the time when biology for women is destiny and the birth rate has dropped to fewer than two children per family. Many men and men and women are not now marrying and many do not have children and daycare has become more acceptable. A tremendous need for workers in occupations now 60 area types for women have created a strong demand for women in the paid labor force. By 1973 nearly half are paid labor force is women and nine out of every 10 young women will enter paid employment. These are not easily reversible trends. This is not a fad which again could change. It is rather a tremendous source of energy for change and sex stereotypes. Suddenly women have asked why are we paid 60 percent of men's wages. Why is the wage gap still

widening across all educational classifications. Iranians are paid and unpaid work week on the average 10 hours a week longer than that for men in families that have children. Why are we basically restricted to 10 or 12 women's occupations out of so many. By the same token Of course men have some questions why should we fight the rat race. Why should we go to Vietnam. What did I spend my life for anyway. If my children don't know me or care for my values why should we die five or ten years sooner than our wives. Women now are tired of being asked why they want a career. Men many of them would like to be asked. Men are tired of being asked why they would like to play with children and women. Many of them would like to be asked. Many women would like more opportunities to be assertive. Perseverance self-confidence

creative and independent. Many men would like more chances to be tender nurturant warm hearted sensitive and expressive to have their needs to be taken care of overtly rather than overtly. The labor force participation rate of women has been rising steadily. Women want equal pay for equal work. The labor force participation for men is steadily dropping or conversely the unpaid activity rate of men is rising. Men want equal satisfaction from hours lived. So where do we go with this. We must break stereotypes in men's and women's heads. For instance in my new job at MIT one morning I went to the Sloan School of Management to ask them to accept more women a student a nice Dean there said it was a pity that he couldn't recruit more qualified women. I went back to my office that morning to listen to three secretaries. Molly

has a high honors degree in math from Vassar. Joan is thirty eight with a good college degree and 99 percentile on her graduate records. Annette has been a top assistant to a top Dean and runs a lab with five hundred forty people. All were right there at MIT and all were accepted at Sloan last week. It was. Our stereotypes start early. I've been helping to supervise a study of men watching their firstborns in a nursery. The interviewer says What do you think of your baby. And the replies are either look how vigorous how angry how Affleck how active or oh look how dainty how cuddly how cute. Guess which sex elicits which comment. Even though the new

father obviously doesn't have any objective knowledge of what his child may be like. We must break stereotypes in children's books in movies on TV in the office in our newspapers. We are beginning to get serious studies showing that the use of the generic man the use of heat to mean all of us truly biases our thinking. For instance there is a new study where students were asked to select pictures they would use to illustrate a textbook. Half the students read chapters using the generic man which means person half were written without the generic use of man. Thus the title of one was industrial men and of the other industrial life. In a significant proportion of responses the so-called generic man was not generically interpreted. Many more students brought in pictures of men to illustrate the chapter on industrial men than the identical chapter on industrial

life and many similar studies show how systematically we buy ass and restrict our options for both men and women. The androgenous life also requires new options for work. For instance share jobs in and out of the home. At Hampshire College the first couple to share an appointment was really I just can't. Nobody was sure it would work. A year or two later which is now there are eight shared appointments. Husband and wife work about three quarters time each in one and a half jobs and they share the homemaking in the childcare. One nice feature of the half your college situation is that home and work are nearby. Another aspect of work that needs to be reinstated. The androgynous life requires support of extended family structures that work. This should mean small child care centers and apartment centers at work centers and high schools near foster grandparents and in Veterans Administration hospitals. Federal funds to pay

retired persons in child and youth programs are among the most important age reintegration that we could be supporting. And finally I believe that tax advantages should be made available to new family styles which endure over time. Under a legal contract. But all of this will take time. Why are we so resistant to change in our sex rules. I believe that our understanding of male illness and of femaleness and of the relations between the sexes is among the most primitive potentially painful areas that we could consider our status money security are at stake as we reorganised toward androgyny all of us are at times deeply ambivalent thoughtful cautious and very concerned. We have been socialized from birth that adult men and women shall not compete with one another and all of us suspect that cooperation may

easily turn into competition as androgyny spreads. Why would that be so scary. Many a man may say women can have a baby can create a nurse can love. Are they to create can become powerful at work as well. Or Good grief. Growing up and going to work meant at last I got out from under my mother. Perhaps many men believe that if women become equal work partners once again that there will be no one left to take care of them and perhaps start to lose against competition between men and women are launched in fears of promiscuity competition and aggressiveness are very closely linked to sexuality. But whatever the case of our fears of competition I believe that both men and women are finding they have much to gain from androgyny men who are deeply involved with their children learn that just learn that just station by itself

is not all that important. You love them but you take care of. And children learn to love and take care of men who are involved with them. Men learn that there are options to sing to be angry to decorate to garden to play and to cry. Open up huge areas of self soften once blocked off their relations with women become much deeper much less scary and their women complain less as they too see what financial responsibility and paid employment are like. Men on the whole gain options to love. Women stand to gain equal pay for equal work to gain enormously Wider Opportunities for work they gain companions at home who know what measles on top of diapers on top of leaky plumbing can mean they gained sleep that priceless precious gift to young parents. They gain opportunities for independence and status and creativity.

Women on the whole gain options for work wider opportunities to live and to work mean more variety more interest more companionship and more joy in the 24 hours of the day. Freud once said something like a mature adult is one who can love and who can work androgyny means wider choices of both love and work for both men and women. In closing I will tell you another MIT story on my new job I met a woman Corp member at an evening meeting. I liked her enormously. The two of us instantly took off on green castles of the ideal world for women at MIT. A vice president nearby got more and more uneasy and he said finally all ladies. I hope you don't feel that all of this is going to happen all at once.

My new friend turned to him gently and said please don't worry too much about social upheaval. Those of us who have spent our lives as women know that there is no chance that progress in this area will be too swift. I was. I'd like to add a footnote if I may get what you said. It seems to me that she might make as one of a recommendation. That men and women are fitted for each other. Both work together in the same field and my 24 hour wife have done for over 51

years. It seems to me that that might be two solutions that you have presented. Also to make common in arranging this whole hearted support of all the women. One of them is community affairs director who has a fine mind. The big idea is meticulous about detail. I am a technical

writer. I don't in Webster a distinguished engineering firm who applied to the mathematics of the take of a building. Our. Next speaker has achieved what few women have so far achieved in this and Rogers world. We have been hearing about. She is the only woman bureau chief that Newsweek has. We have as I said both women bureau chiefs here of the two important news weeklies Time and Newsweek by her record

his record. It appears that courage a rare quality in our social society has brought her to her present position. For three years she was a correspondent in Newsweek's Chicago office before all that. She was a dynamic reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel no one of America's great newspapers. She specialized in civil rights coverage and demonstrations and riots in cities and campuses and before that she was for one year a reporter and columnist for the Milwaukee times. She received her B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and was managing editor of The Weekly newspaper. She also attended Mexico City

College did graduate work on a professional journalism fellowship at Stanford University. I find that courage is there a very rare quality in our society as an indication of her courage. When she received the co-winner award of the Milwaukee Press Club for the best news story of 1966 because of our extraordinary work on the father Robbie story which you recall. She refused. She will interpret the last of Miss Bernice will speak on women. Was. I think I'd better tell you why I refuse the award. It was because of the

Milwaukee Press Club did not admit women to membership. Was. Permitted. Ladies and gentlemen it's an honor to be here after coming in Boston just two months ago to hear such profound speakers and it's especially a pleasure to be here because this is my first official meeting with my counterpart Sandra Burton. Time. Actually we ran into each other at City Hall today covering the story. So that was the first time really met. As a indication of how distinct Massachusetts really is it. It does happen. That both Newsweek and Time each have one woman bureau chief I think that's true for time. And it does happen that we are both here in Boston and it happens

that I came here at the end of January and Sandy came here I think about a month later. So I'm going to use my 1 months seniority in the city to welcome Sandy. And because of the Newsweek bureau is made up entirely of women who are a sitting table there. I'm going to welcome her in a kind of special way from from all of us. There's been some comments in the city about the fact these two women bureau chiefs here and I once heard Sandy Burton quoted as saying yes we're rushing headlong into tokenism. Like. You.

I am I am. I am. If there are NO them in Boston there really seriously is a lot of curiosity about the state of affairs at the Newsweek bureau and turned out to.

Consist of three women. At first some of the women in the Newsweek the office in New York at the editorial headquarters thought it was a great plot to shove all the women together in one bureau and put them nowhere else. I don't think that's true. And the situation will change this summer. When we will add a man but. But so far it's been something of a revelation to me. After I came to Boston I received a note from a friend of mine in the Washington bureau who wrote You are a credit to your race. I wrote back to him and told him that if he would ever like to let his hair down. He could come and visit the Boston bureau. Because in our bureau it is not considered a sign of weakness to cry. As a matter

of fact it's often considered an intelligence therapeutic and entirely appropriate response to the situation. That situation. Hasn't come up very often in our bureau. But the whole fact that I can joke about it or even be serious about it for that matter. Is something I think fairly new. It wasn't like that when I started at 10 or 11 years ago. In this business that time. When I went to work for the walkie Sentinel I was the third woman reporter to go on this city site staff. And someone was so incensed about all of this about this great on slot into the city room that a sign appeared on the bulletin board reading Ladies Home Sentinel. Of course it didn't matter how many women there were on papers as long as

they were in the women's sections and not on city side. And as long as they were doing what we knew as human interest stories. On the city side. That's where the important work was being done. Of course it was an entirely different matter. So as a result I was quickly assigned to the social welfare beat which along with education is frequently considered a woman's beat. There were not many papers I knew of then or even now for that matter that even thought of providing women with the same kind of training as men. Women did not serve a term at the police station as almost all young male reporters do. Women did not generally go to city hall. They did not go to the courts. They do not go to the federal building. They were not business reporters. And in too many cases today the same thing still exist women are not provided with the

same kinds of journalistic training that men are provided with. For instance how many women reporters do you know. Who are doing business reporting or investigative reporting or political reporting for that matter. This last year around the time the times that I was on the campaign trail. Covering Mr. McGovern because there were too many of us who were covering Mr. Nixon. And Mr. Nixon was in the period in very many places. But. In each of those trips I recall. There would be at the most two or three women in the entire national press campaign plane and often I would be the only woman or I'm sure when I was in there there were no there were often times when there were no women at all. There was one breakthrough however the New York Times is Jim Naughton. Covered

Eleanor McGovern. Which made him the only man. Covering the wife of the candidate and we welcomed him warmly. But when he was a particular incident when he was splitting off from covering George McGovern to covering Mrs. McGovern one time we were all in Chicago and a campaign aide said to Jim. Remember Jim and I have to watch your language. I always had trouble watching my language when I heard that. But to go back a bit I think I was lucky enough to get some pretty diverse experience which as it turned out was absolutely crucial in covering the civil rights beat for instance. There is no way in the world you could cover. A riot or a demonstration without knowing something about the structures of police departments and about the National Guard. And about government and about a lot of other things.

But to get that kind of background. Unfortunately many of us felt that we had to mimic men because the standard of excellence if that's what you want to call it it was male. My peers and I. Soon mastered the technique of growing out of the sides of our mouths when we were working Please rewrite. And I think we were encouraged in doing that. I remember one time when as a young reporter I was out on a police story. I wasn't supposed to be the police there right. I got out on the police story was that I was sitting around looking at the ceiling or something when a police call came in. Saying that there somebody was shooting up a neighborhood. So since I was the only reporter there a young desk man who didn't know any better sent me out on the story much much later chagrin of the city editor. When I arrived at the story there was indeed a man shooting up the neighborhood.

But as I approached the detectives who at the time were describing the situation in rather colorful terms when they saw me they just stopped talking become politically and they wouldn't talk to me. Finally the Bruiser man was cornered in a in a house. And the other reporters were being allowed into the house. But when I tried to enter the police and I I couldn't go into the house. And they explained to me it was because the man didn't have any clothes on. So I stood there as I recall and chomp down my gum a couple of times. And growled out of the side of my mouth. I seen naked men before that and the boys were so startled they let me in. Well. Thank goodness that kind of passed through

today looks every bit of ridiculous is ridiculous as it really was than it was asinine then but today we know it and that and that's the difference. Women no longer I don't have to assume the roles of man. To appear confident and intelligent and even better yet I think a lot of men have realized that. They don't see women assuming the roles of men to be confident. The situation is better but it's not anywhere. To the point where it should be. For instance Ellen Goodman and I were talking about this the other night that I've been in political stories and even now if you're one woman among a group of male reporters often you have to fight just to get a word in just just to even say anything because they're so

busy talking to each other they they ignore you and think you have nothing important to contribute. You know all of this I think there's a very funny twist of fate and that is while women were off doing their human interest stories they really were delving into more different dimensions of life. Than a lot of the male reporters who were doing the formula stories in the accepted forms of journalism. And the funny thing about it is now that most major publications see their own reporting as changing. They see the forms as being soo limited and they want reporters now who do have wider perceptions who can tell more about why a story is occurring and what's Will involved in it and who the personalities are and all the extra dimensions rather than just what happened. So in a

sense women who have been doing this all along are sort of the journalists of the hour. Thank you. For Iraq. Now. We now come to our last speaker and this Senator Burton the arrow chief this time. It is interesting to me to remember that 19 23 or 24 two young men just out of Yale Britain had nine and Harry Luce came to me with the idea of a news weekly a new idea at the time. I told them with what I thought was impeccable logic that this was an unsound idea. Because there were two hundred and seventy gaily

newspapers in this country at the time and that the public would not want news that was a week late. I also told them that there were 10000 weeklies in the country and I told them that they carried the local news and that it is doubtful whether they would want. Other news a new week late. But I was wrong. And they were right. For years however women on time did not advance beyond what I might call checkpoints. They we used to put dots about every fact. In a story written by a writer and any fact that did not have the guard showing its accuracy would be.

Looked at by the editor and they would the writer would have to go through it again only occasionally for years on time. Women occasionally substitute reporters at domestic and foreign or foreign bureaus but time and times have changed. Miss Sandra Burton a woman is bureau chief of time in Boston. She is a native of California. She was graduated only a decade ago from Middleburg College in Vermont. First a reporter on a New Jersey Weekly. She went to time in 1965. Eight years ago served first as a secretary then advanced to a researcher and finally

became a correspondent in the Los Angeles bureau. Last month. She was appointed to high office in Boston recently. She did a cover story which you may remember on an anthropologist who spent an apprenticeship with an Indian saucer. She will regale us with some pertinent observations drawn from that experience which bear upon communications and women in music and communication as well as many other matters. I misspoke or didn't I. A little help here from Los Angeles. I haven't had time to yet just a word to you about our. We have

presently two women and a man and he can't be the other woman is here tonight. Our male reporter couldn't come because he's out covering women's team. Women's tennis. So things are really really getting and getting mixed up. My last assignment as mister said was a cover story on Carlos Kasten 8A west coast anthropologist and author of. Three books about his alleged experiences with an Indian sorceror called Don Juan as Don Juan's apprentice for more than a decade and cast an eye to learn that the that the world of a sorcerer is a separate reality from the one that Western man recognizes and a separate reality which he was finally able to penetrate. When he managed to penetrate and actually experience the sorcerer's reality cast an ADA or so he says became convinced that reality is not an

absolute. It exists in the eye of the beholder. From the moment of birth he concluded the world has been described for us what we see is only a description. Western man has made a special agreement to perceive the world in a certain way. The world of the Sorcerer was not easy or easy for him to describe. It was a world which was experienced directly with no interpretation. It wasn't those who gained membership into this world merely saw. They didn't divide what they saw into things they thought about things they felt they didn't have metaphors or similes. Everything was real. They just responded to what was there. At one point Kasten Ada swears that he talked to a coyote out there in the sorcerers reality. At another at another point he is certain that he flew like a crow but his Western mind could not accept such actions as possible. And the books are full of

dialogues between him and Don Juan. Such as casting it would ask Did I take off like a bird. Done one done one would say you always ask me questions I can't answer questions like that make no sense. Birds fly like birds and a man who has taken the devil's weed smoke. A man who has taken the devil's weed flies as such then castigated would think for a moment and reason that I didn't fly down one I flew only in my imagination but where was my body. And they go on and on with these discussions of what is reality. Whose perceptions of reality are more real. Primitive the primitive man Don Juan was able to accept a reality which encompassed a great many forms the western man's world was much reality was much more limited. A week of interviews with this man which was certainly a provocative experience

and cast in aid his newfound perceptions were very powerful and set me to doing a lot of thinking which I'm still doing. A week after the interview as a photographer and I went off to the desert in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico where I cast an ADA and Don Juan had reportedly wandered around and talked to coyotes and flown like crows and things like that. And we went to look for Don Juan. We were aware that this was an absurd thing to do. That if we found him we'd never know if it was him or not. Or we could find someone who said they were done won and who would we be. To say that you know that wasn't so. The name Don Juan is the equivalent of John Smith in English said that there were there could be millions of Don Juan's out there but we thought that if we if we went to the desert we could at least get an idea of the environment in which caste natives perceptions of a separate reality were or were shaped. So we crossed the

Arizona border into Mexico to skeptics and. Discussing the books and what we really thought of them and how they were really fascinating reading but they really couldn't be real we couldn't quite fall for this. The desert was totally lacking in color as far as our eyes could see. It was just sand on one side and lava man's On the other. No towns no manmade structures except for a road. Very interesting but rather static and not very mysterious. Then gradually the desert began to the barren Sandy Desert began to give way to the desert studded with the giant Organ Pipe Cactus is this tall wind. And as the sun began to sink. And the shadows speak of the cactus began to grow longer and the sun began to paint that the Lava Man spiri its colors. We had to concede that

yes a primitive person who couldn't understand science he didn't know the scientific explanation for why sun turned lava man's colors and why shadows grew longer might think that sorcery was being done out there but we were too sophisticated to think that. Then darkness came and we pulled the car off the road. The photographer got out his tripod and was going to take some time exposures of cactus with. And he wanted to place the moon right over the cactus and the moon wasn't really right over the cactus so he was going to do a little fancy photography trick photography and put it there and he fiddled around with his cameras and started putting the moon where he wanted to and as he spoke to the moon telling it to get in the right frame on his film we had to laugh. There was something fairly weird about talking to the

moon and your film and your camera. What else was photography but sorcery in a way. And talking to his camera. It's a little strange. Gradually in the course of this long night day and night in the desert we became more receptive to our rational explanations of things to such a point that when all of a sudden out of the darkness and quietness a man stepped out we were terrified frozen. We mustered enough courage to shine a flashlight on him. He just kept walking and we followed him with our light not knowing what else to do hoping he'd just keep going. There'd be no confrontation and abruptly and what we later thought was a moment of absurd comic relief. He called out to us in Spanish asking for a cigarette. No

we gave him two cigarettes and he walked on out of our beam of light and off into the desert. We were so paralyzed We never asked to ask him if he might be down feeling what we promptly BAILDON a more basic question we wished we had asked him was was he really a human being but that would have been too ridiculous. We packed up the camera gear headed for the Arizona border and went through the whole rigamarole of the marijuana check at the border. Sat there while the customs officials put our identification into a computer somewhere in Washington to see if we had any business being south of the border. And while we were waiting around an old timer told us that this whole this no man's land we had just passed through was where the astronauts practiced for the moon landing that it was very this of all the places in the world this was the most similar terrain to move to the moon scape by the time we caught our separate jets back to L.A. and New York that night we were totally disoriented and when I got to L.A. and found myself on that moving conveyor belt sidewalk in

the terminal I I had to. Realize and admit to myself that I didn't know which what was real and what wasn't. My perceptions were totally skew. Certainly in a desert where a man can communicate with coyotes and fly like crows is not is no more fantastic than a desert where men practice walking on the moon. In the context of that desert anything seemed possible. And that brief suspension of rationality that I experienced out there has been a US a source of contemplation ever since Los Angeles was a place which reinforced such contemplation the inhabitants there deliberately cultivate the extraordinary the extrasensory the area has has a reputation of being a wack to me nutty place as well as a sociological green house where new perceptions are encouraged by people

who thrive on newness for newness sake and new perceptions are encouraged there by the air by the lay of the land the desert the San Andreas Fault shaking all the time reminding you that nothing is known nothing is certain. It's a it's a place where new perceptions are easily are encouraged and easily shaped. Two weeks after this whole set of experiences I was transferred to Boston and talk about separate realities I really have still not quite recovered from it. From the terrain I mean the solid rock of the Plymouth Rock the symbol the solid credentials of people the academic community. It's really a total a total change. And once here I had the feeling that to admit even the slightest belief in casting it is experiences might mark me as a nut. To tell you the truth I felt more self-conscious here about being a Californian than being a woman.

But to get to the point of this occasion I think the two have a lot in common. Both are outsiders and since I've arrived I've given a lot of thought to what makes an outsider an outsider. Obviously circumstances geography where you were born what color you are what sex you are but also perceptions an outsider is someone whose perceptions have been shaped by an environment different from the one he or she finds herself in. There are advantages and disadvantages to being an outsider. In the case of women the disadvantages are obvious poor pay have been obvious and still are to a great extent poor pay for opportunities in a man's world. Lack of power the advantages though which I don't think have been stressed enough are a different way of looking at the world.

You know Bernice got into this and I find we have similar thoughts on this. This different way of looking at the world that women as outsiders in the man's world of journalism in the man's world of work of professional out of the home work. It should be apparent these these perception should be a powerful advantage and especially for journalists because journalism is really all about new perceptions. It's hard to think of another time when such a volume of new perceptions has bombarded the population is now. I mean the events that the news media has conveyed in recent years are have caused millions of people to see themselves differently. The Vietnam War is a key example the longer it went on the less able we were we were able to think of ourselves as the spotless champions of freedom. Do you believe that the best interests of mankind were always at the forefront of the country's thinking. The opening of relations

with China caused us to change our our way of viewing the Chinese almost overnight from an enemy to at least lukewarm friend. It opened up a certain appreciation of totalitarian efficiency communal harmony in the practice of medicine without anesthetics. That's that's a lot of a lot going in a couple of weeks there. The moon shots gave us literally a new view of the earth which environmentalists are. Fond of reminding us recent recruiting of minority groups and women into the workforce is bringing about a change of perception of what is beauty and what is power what is masculine and what is feminine. How much of an individual is genetic and how much cultural the perceptions of the whole society are being shaken up. And journalists are doing a lot of that shaking up by translating all these events into the news the way we look at the world the way many of our readers and viewers will look at it to assure ensure that we ask the crucial questions and deal with the vital issues we need to view those issues with a

sharp critical eyes of outsiders and then we need to relate what we find to our readers in such a way that they can identify with what we were are telling them. What better way to do both those things than to infuse the journalism of the profession of journalism with new blood with honest to god outsiders namely women and blacks and Chicanos and even a few political conservatives from time to time I think. Recent attempts to recruit. More and more ethnic minorities more women and more political conservatives into the profession of journalism are absolutely necessary at a time when the issues are so complex and there's so much data bombarding us today I think that the debate over equal opportunity has tended to focus on the damage to the woman or the black or the Chicano who has not been able to get a job in journalism not the damage to the readership or the viewership which misses these

views but a lack of fair represents and Haitian in the media is a loss to the audience and an abundance of such reparation representation would be a benefit to the audience. Just a few examples from my own experience. First one we regard involves a lack of black representation on my own magazine time. Several years ago well one thousand seventy one time did a story on the riot cover story on the riot at Attica State Prison. A very good male reporter cover male white reporter covered the riots and a very good female white researcher checked the story. The dots we're talking about. The story referred at one point put to some lines of poetry found in several prisoner cells. This poetry was described as quote a poem by an unknown prisoner crude but touching in its would be heroic style. The following week time was daily

with letters. Most of them from blacks decrying our ignorance. Those lines were the work of a of a fine recognized black poet unknown to no one apparently but us. It was bad business and bad journalism for us not to have had blacks on the staff. To make us aware of that mistake and also to to make us aware of this poetry which obviously was something that was missing from a white person's anthology. Another example I worked on a story about a group of Chicanos who challenge the license renewals of a number of TV stations among them several owned by Time on the grounds that the stations neither hired nor program for Chicanos. One Chicana who was active in contesting the license of a timing station in San Diego told me the only Chicanos we see on TV here are the guys being arrested by the cops on the evening news is that the view of us we want our children to have. I watch TV there and he was right

and his group later won a suit which would ensure adequate programming and employment within the near future and I'm sure San Diego will benefit from that and certainly the time stations. Well actually one has been sold but they would they would benefit from the matter who the owners were. You're all familiar with the warped image of women conveyed by the media in photos and lists descriptions of women's appearance is fact the gold in my hair is a grandmother all of those descriptions that we read every time we read about a woman personality and where the the relegation of women's news to the women's pages it's already been discussed. The Boston Globe. Women are not I understand challenging some of these stereotypes and these practices themselves. Now the women at Time Inc and Newsweek also have sued. In the past year or so ago about unequal hiring and

employment policies and there's a lot of a lot of movement I think that the results are beginning to show in journalism. I think most obvious is that the coverage of the women's liberation movement often it's unsympathetic distorted full of stereotypes hidden deep inside the paper. But at least the coverage that that there has been and much of it by women has crept into the minds of readers the perceptions of readers. It's a start. Beyond that subjects which were once treated on women's pages have gained some new status so much so that men often want to cover the stories which used to be just handed to us and which we didn't feel too grateful for at certain times. Some things that come to mind at a time anyway. Stories that were Women's that women developed and made into stories that were

bigger than simply women subjects and are now being reported eagerly reported by men are new substitutes for marriage arrangements couples living together communal living group marriages that sort of thing. We were street which were first reported in time anyway by a woman several years ago. A cover story that was once suggested by a woman and reported by two women was a story on the shaky state of the nuclear family the husband wife and two point two children that we've heard so much about since other trends which were picked up early and reported on by women it time included the anti-growth philosophy surfacing in a number of cities around the country. People in these cities began to question whether growth could really be equated with progress. Don't California cake Colorado was the slogan that sparked a story in time suggested by a woman who was concerned about the quality of life in her

own city. She noticed for a number of years that subdivisions kept springing up in politicians every year and their New Year's Day addresses would talk about how growth was good for the city's tax base. She didn't know much about the tax base says she never questioned that until she noticed that the schools were bulging with a surplus of children it was going to everybody was beefing about the money it would cost to build a new school. And finally when this California Kate Colorado movement came to her attention you know other words don't do to Colorado what. People did to California she seized upon it and did a story and I think social trends in the whole area of quality of life are areas which which women have been conditioned to devote their thoughts and energies to from the time they were children. And there are areas which now is as upper and he says said encompass far more than fashion in home decor. If the war is ever over these areas will certainly be the primary areas of concern for Americans

and the great thing about them is they're not women's topics anymore and I think women have had a lot to do with that by seeing by being able to relate these things to to the larger world. Partly partly a matter of bringing their and their perceptions into a man's formerly men's field. Even assuming such a seemingly female subject is abortion is no longer just a woman's issue it's it's a complex legal question with very broad implications. Women raise the issue of their right to control their own bodies their right to control their own bodies should be of equal interest to men especially in times of war in the draft and I think there are certain women's issues which have such broader implications that. I don't think we have to worry terribly about getting assignments in traditionally women's women's areas but that doesn't mean that should be our only

area of reporting. I think women's perceptions as the outsider as outsiders should be called into play in areas where they have have traditionally been outsiders such as politics. Interviews by women with politicians have made news recently because they touched on new facets of the politicians personalities. I think primarily of Oriana for Laci's interviews with Henry Kissinger who revealed a tremendous ego and with gold in my ear who revealed tremendous guts and I think rather a reversal of stereotypes when you consider those two stories together is a very good reporter obviously and I wouldn't want to take away from her skill by suggesting that some of her that her perceptions as a woman might have helped. But I have a feeling they probably did. Bringing fresh eyes to. What had traditionally been a min subject politics.

I think some of you might relate to an experience I had a couple of years ago interviewing a politician I had interviewed a number of them before Barry Goldwater Jr. Reagan some some of the western governors. But this particular interview with the newly elected Montana state representative was different. I understood the issues better and my questions were more basic and cut through the rhetoric more sharply and the interview was more relaxed. On my way back to Los Angeles from this politicians log cabin outside Bozeman Montana it hit me. I had interviewed my first female politician. The mystery of politics disappeared. We were simply discussing a subject which was new to both of us. One about which we had formerly been a bit all odd. We could both admit this we could get right to the problem right to the problems and the issues. I think we found ourselves in a situation analogous to a male reporter interviewing a male politician. Of course we were at home with the subject it was simply a subject full of human interest. I'm not saying that to discomfort I

realize that I felt in interviewing male politicians was the fault of the male politicians it was probably my own hang up but it was there and I think that one site. Saw this it became far easier for me to go back and interview male politicians and feel at home with the subject. I think we are outsiders in the politicians world in the powerbrokers world and thus these worlds have been shrouded in mystery. Both two female reporters and two female readers and viewers. I think that's on the way out. Cassie makin's reporting of the nine hundred seventy two conventions on television I think was a milestone to seeing her up there handling it as she as she should have as something that she was very capable of throwing out good hard questions not looking all wide. I think that did a world of of good for a lot of women

viewers who realized that politics is simply a human subject. I think the trick we're going to be increasingly faced with is to work our way inside the business and inside every subject the subject area that journalism covers. Without however. Losing the perceptions of outsiders which are very important and probably one of our best tools. Q thankless. Of thanks. Thank you.