Urban Confrontation; 34; The Woman's Liberation Movement in America

It is no more second class status for women complete equality and now and give us the childcare centers that are necessary to make equality real and give us a backbone finally. If I don't feel the right to control our own body. They oppressed majority a special report on the women's liberation movement

produced by the National Information Network at Northeastern University. Your program narrator is Provo. On August 26 1920 an act of Congress gave women in this country the right to vote. And the suffrage movement began a struggle for many women to be released from what many believed with their limited roles in society. The Suffragettes make one mistake however. They believe that if they gain the vote their fight for equality will be over. Today 50 years later the women's liberation movement in America and abroad has gained a new momentum. Strikes at many of the institutions which make up today's society. During the next half hour you will hear such people as Betty Friedan founder of the National Organization of Women author Kate Miller. Senator Edward Kennedy.

Human rights activist Dick Gregory and Congresswoman Louise day hear us all talking about the problems and effects of the women's movement. Feminist Betty Friedan author of The Feminine Mystique describes the most recent breakthrough in the unification of women. We can see what is giving us all now the courage and the strength the confidence to break through not only the feministic but the barriers the unfinished business of our equality the barriers of sex discrimination education and employment the very criminal abortion laws that they don't allow us to have control of our own bodies and our reproductive process. The three are these are institutions like your universities here at our companies in professions that are structured completely in terms of man's world. So there aren't metry leaves in child care centers you know so that women in. You know we should not have to bow out of adult life for the years when there were children out but we have the courage to face and break through this you know because there

we are together. BLOCK Dr. Ozzie Davis wonders what effect freedom would have on the family and on the institution of marriage. I would say that women's rights come far too slowly. By that I mean that I would welcome the time when the institutions that we know could either be shelved or substituted a regenerated I mean marriage I mean home I mean the family if in all of these stupidities that we call family and marriage and home we could manage to have enough Spock after 20 years to still speak to each other. What would happen if we both were free. Congresswoman Louise day Hicks disagreed explaining her philosophy on the role of the woman the very highest position that ever a woman could

attain if you're going to use the word position is to be a mother and a good wife. There is nothing that is higher in my estimation. And when you speak of those that don't even want a husband and have children they have an even smaller minority. There is nothing great about finer and there's no greater institution than marriage and motherhood and children. This is exactly what women were made for Lagaan Brandon a film producer describes the conflict modern women face when they have to choose between a family and the career of the most provocative and upsetting discussions that Moon's group ever had was when the question came up why women have children and whether the option not to have children. Is in fact an option. The question was was a very threatening one. You know most women never even think about the question of whether or not they'll have children. They often think about they assume they will have children and what do I do. Once I have children I would not

choose to have a child because given the way the social structure is now it would take me away from all the things that I do find fulfilling and the kind of work that I do find rewarding and I work with kids a lot and it seems to me a very selfish thing to spend all of my time and energy raising one child when in fact I'm working with 30 40 different kids you know throughout a year and I feel that that's that's very fulfilling. And yet when I say that I still get all of those sort of funny looks from people what there must be something wrong with you that you don't want a child. I believe that any woman who can sit is. A woman's liberation movement necessary in today's world should re-examine her own mental faculties. I firmly believe that people are going to fight. On the other side. And yet all the women I know who have children are so. Frankly tie down they love their children you know. No

I'm not saying that I don't love children I do. But if I had to weigh the rewards that I get from the work that I do with the what I feel are minimal rewards from having one child and spending most of my time with that child I would have to choose to not have a child. And yet that still is a very difficult thing for most women to to to express or to say feel. You have. Two things to look out for here. The first one is the loss of the famine and the second one which I think this is a subversive idea is the subjugation of man to woman. And I don't believe in this. I believe that and that woman can dominate man and at the same time let him know that she retains her femininity and it can be done in such a sub rosa manner. I think still the words for women who don't have children I have incredibly negative

connotations in a barren child less as if you know these resent that mean that you are unfulfilled as a human being and women. And I think will be a long time before women are able to feel confident enough in their own ability in their own fulfillment to say I'm not sure that I want to marry. I'm not sure that I want to have a child and I'm not saying this is what women should aspire to. I just think that these are things that women have to have as options and to feel free to say maybe I will marry. Maybe I don't have a child whereas now to see those things brings and credible barrage of negative comments to be of a member in standing of the women's. Liberation really you have to watch it. And then female and I think there's nothing love not just in the world today than in Daum and then Hawkeyes a tip overbearing female you can gain your same ends by using altogether different words.

And as each woman avails itself and May says well enough known to herself she won't have any problem with domination of the male author and feminists Kate Millett explains that she does not want to threaten the lives of some women but only seeks a better life for all women. I think this kind of woman is threatened and it's not what movement intends to do. We don't move to threaten this morning. We don't mean to say look you wrap your life in a garbage can. No we don't mean to say that it's a crummy life. I want to say could we fit the circumstances. You can add to it and have more for your Congresswoman Louise Hicks I have been able to combine the Comelec make the combination of being a wife and mother and being an attorney and I certainly have achieved many heights in the law.

Members of the militant women's liberation group talk of the crimes and degradations that women are subjected to. Do you see any woman that her native hasn't really made it you see because we're all subject to the same kinds of things as women the same kinds of discrimination where it's very it's very interesting you've got to analyze it this way we are oppressed and we are discriminated against because of our physical characteristics you see. So a woman can be the president of General Motors although it's not likely that that would happen if a woman happened to be president of General or more likely the wife of the president of General Motors is subject to the same kinds of attacks in society as all the rest of us are no matter what our backgrounds are. Now we realize that different women from different backgrounds suffer different kinds of oppression according to that like black women like working women like the women that find themselves in in various situations might have special problems unmarried women have different problems the married women with children are different than women without but we all come up against the same kind of physical oppression when we walk out onto the street. If we were to go look for a job when we're dealing with men in any kind of social situation.

The only way that a strange man will not come up to a woman on the street is if she was with if she is with another man that's the only way a woman can walk down the street and not be harassed by men is long she's alone whether she's with children or not whether it's a group of women any man feels right that he can say anything he wants to a woman and that that clearly shows that she is public property that's an attack on her person. Why did we have when men are attacked. I mean you don't hear about male bodies being found mutilated and cut up in pieces and then murdered dismembered and vile and you know horrible crimes being committed on them you just don't hear about that. A man may be murdered you know because another man's got it in for him or because another person wants to steal his wallet. Or you know for any number of other reasons but they are not. I tacked in a vicious sexual way that women on 21 physical assault on a woman every 28 minutes that doesn't happen in one of the issues most often vocalized by members of women's rights organizations is that of abortion and

birth control legislation. Many women such as Betty Friedan feel that women should have the right to control their bodies. Senator Edward Kennedy however disagrees. Today in this city in Boston in New York in Chicago in Atlanta in Los Angeles and in smaller cities across this country women are to gather confronting their unfinished business of equality. And they are saying yes we affirm our Her story but we recognize that we haven't come a very far way baby at what price the vote when there's only one woman out of a hundred in the Senate where 53 percent of the adult population is represented by one percent of the Senate. What price that we have. The right to jobs and yet we are doing almost all of us the meal housework jobs of industry that we get paid if we graduated from college. What a man gets paid and with an eighth grade education that we get paid on the average about half of what men get paid.

That weird that we were are somehow sexually segregated in the in the secretarial filing clerk type jobs and only a few of us read through at what cost and what paying you know 2 to 8 a decision making voice or doing to our own voice in any field or profession. And so that we are all of us today so many millions of us giving each other the strength to say no more. Second class status for women complete equality and now breakthrough to complete equality in education and employment and give us the childcare centers that are necessary to make equality real and give us above all and finally the fight over the right to control our own bodies our own reproductive process and therefore the access to abortion and birth control. Many people feel that in times of. Mission that women ought to have an absolute right that the question of if we permit children to be born unborn children into this that they're going to be ignored and abused and that all

of the kinds of problems that are suggested by these social problems and that rich women can get abortions today poor women can't they are the ones that are really kind of discriminated against. The measure of our society when they look back over a period of time in terms of the America of the 1970s I hope that they look back not on how we were able to exterminate individuals even in Viet Nam or our fetuses. I hope that that isn't the question of our standard which is important to us but that we are able to challenge which is presented to us is in terms of were we able to really care about these children that are born in the US 10000 women died this year of illegal abortion. And so not everyone is willing to concede to all of the demands made by women's liberation ist's Ozzie Davis talks of the need for communication in all

forms a sort of revolution in communication is not to think it not to read it not to wish it not even to will it. We must do it. If a revolution has any value in virtue it is that place in which men and men redefine themselves and become something other than the limited thing they were before revolution. In that sense is what we are about. And we were able to establish communication one with the other group with a group of men with men women with women etc.. All of these things and when we do we have a story. I'm sure it will be eminently worth telling. Congresswoman Louise day Hicks points out that not only the minority groups in this country need assistance.

Well there's a great deal of talk in this country about minority groups. Now we hear speaking of a majority group that day the women outnumber the men. And if we're going to speak and take care of our minority groups then certainly we have to take care of majority groups also. And one of these majority groups happen to be women and I certainly think the climate is now for women to go ahead and to show that they have the capabilities and that they will no longer be restrained simply because they are women that we are oppressed as women. You see we're not particularly oppressed as workers although female workers are certainly bear a greater burden you know than than any other layer of the society in black female workers specially. But we think that primarily our movement is based on the idea that we are oppressed as women in this society that what we find that confronts us on the street every day there are elements of that in every woman's life no matter how different her background is and that that's why I'm a Minnesota broad. Broad enough even to include the blue collar workers. Gusty trainer points out that women will also be pushing for union leadership positions

more women are coming out to fight for women's rights and women working class women in the factories are going to be fighting more for their rights and the unions are going to be fighting for more positions and the leadership is still its voice in the contract. I think this is one of the primary sources where there is discrimination in employment in the opportunity for women to progress very often that a man is selected over a woman who has the equal capabilities the very same background. But she is set aside because a man is selected. I don't believe this is right and is not the question. Also there's clearly a larger influx of women in the workforce. There is a large number of women in the workforce already. The thing is that the percentage of women that have meaningful jobs in the workforce is minimal. You know this is the same or you know a lot of people this country thinks of the slaves didn't get paid. You see that's wrong. They don't get paid. Certainly they get paid the same way women get paid the society they've got their own clothing and they

got their room and board our form of slavery is wage slavery now we have you know now we get paid for a little bit more but we're still working a certain number of hours each day for somebody else in order that companies make profits if they don't make profits there'd be no point in them being into business so we all know that as long as profit is a motive. I.e. in a capitalistic society man's concern is never going to be for the man it's going to be for making money. And very simply interpreted that sort of means that people have to be exploited in order to make money. To make profit. Many men and women have criticized the women's liberation movement choosing to categorize its members as dissatisfied females. Filmmaker Leon Brandon explains that there is much in the life of a woman today to be dissatisfied with another song a drag of a movie. Sometimes I wonder who makes the point graphically. I guess the reason I made it was because I became very involved with the

women's movement and the more ardent I became about them as women the more I found that other women had been completely turned off by what they'd seen and heard in the media really on television. So I decided that what I was going to do is produce something that was non-threatening non-rhetorical non-dogmatic not terribly political on the surface and something that spoke to women on an emotional level which is where I feel most people feel anything before they take any political action. So I tried to pick up what I thought was how a housewife must feel in the house all day long with with only a child for her company. No contact with the outside world. Feeling guilty alone ambivalent longing Oh all of those things. And I think I tried to to

make a statement that didn't force people to agree or disagree but to just show one woman in a situation. And if women were could identify with it they would. And if they didn't. Well all right they just accept that as being someone else's reality. Sometimes I wonder why. When I was young I always dreamed of being an artist or designer as well as being a wife. Now that I have a family there are questions of conflicts that I never thought of. I feel tension. Here sometimes I think of having a career but I'm afraid that would prevent me from being a good wife and mother. But so often I'm bored frustrated and irritable.

I feel like a failure anyway. I wonder what I'll be like if. My husband tries to be you know. But he really doesn't understand. He never had to choose between being a father and having a career. He wants me to have a wife. I think he's afraid of change too much. I wish that we could share the housework. But that makes me feel guilty even though he kept an apartment before we got married. I think you used to caring for a house and baby is woman's work. Anyway. I guess any job I could get would be less important than it seems the jobs of two women are even less rewarding than staying

in the hours. So. Before I got married employers saw I was a risk because I guess. After I got married. They were afraid I'd have a baby. Now that I have a baby they expect me to stay home. I get the feeling people only see me as my husband's wife my baby's mother. But I feel I'm more than. I feel so cut off and alone sometimes. I find I have nothing to talk about except my husband the baby of the house. I could have been so many things

alone fragment of what I dreamed of. I really worried about what's going to happen. I think you have to show people there are two sides with that. When you get married it's not happily ever after. And I think that's the line that most women have. I've been you know tossed all I mean most women feel that the minute they get married the problems are going to be over and all that we're trying to say and I don't think the film is negative either I think is just saying that one of the aspects of being a housewife and having a small child is this. And it's far better for a woman to be prepared for it than to have it come and hit her. But I think it also raises the question for me I don't have children. And the question is the real kicker and that is why do women want to have children. Is it absolutely necessary that you have children. You know if you cannot deal with this role. And I think that most women have to. I have to ask themselves that before they even have children instead of having a child they will suddenly

be questioning whether they want to be a housewife and a mother because the humanist Dick Gregory leaves a college audience with a suggestion for all of the men in the audience. And Betty Friedan proclaims the unity of women leaving tonight I say you got a big job. You fell of the house when you go to bed one night before you go to sleep. Close your eyes. And think about all the women out here in the peace movement whereas you know damn well they're not out here cause they worry about going to Vietnam someway fellows we got to say thanks to the ladies. There's no better way of saying thanks to the women in America and getting behind the women living. Out of it. Thanks. But the most important part about today is that we're not just sitting even alone in our houses are even rapping you know in each other's kitchens or living with that we are on the street together that we are visibly showing our strength and our power that women can unite across the lines of a

generation and class and race and old women young women women who even differ in terms of man made politics able to unite as women in our own interest for the first time and this is a day a glorious day of her history as a lot of people to a women's league is a joke. You women you got a big job you got an understanding nature puts you in the face of this earth as a human being first and a woman that whenever you spit in money we treat you as a human being but when you come looking for a job or promotion we treat you as a woman some wrong something wrong. Let me say to you ladies this is very important. There's not a woman alive today on the freezer that can get this world into World War Three There's only me and in positions to do this and we're want to be going after. After them. Start world war 3. We got to come back and get you women babies to fight it or we could buy some wrong you know it's not wrong to grieve later.

You got to tease them little babies into Korea but you are not reason no murderous. You reason help was and then to look around and affirm your sisters our sisters despite our differences to feel feel good about ourselves as women. Well of course we are going to be able to love men better if we are able to feel good about ourselves whereas you know I do not feel that man is the enemy of this movement. Matt is a fellow victim of the bind that we are in as women. But I say you know to the women out there. Come march with us. You're the views and opinions expressed on the preceding programs do not

necessarily represent those of the program narrator Northeastern University or this station. From Northeastern University the National Information Network has brought to you the oppressed majority a special report on the women's liberation movement. This program was produced and directed by David Brown with script direction by Jeffrey M. Feldman technical supervision by John Barr. This special documentary The Oppressed Majority was produced for the office of educational resources at the communication center of the nation's largest private university. Northeastern University comments on this program or request for a recorded copy of the special report may be addressed to the Dept. of radio production. Northeastern University Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 1 5. This program was produced by the Department of radio production. Joseph R. Bader director your announcer Dave Hammond. This is the national educational radio network.