Public Affairs; Leo Kanowitz: Women And The Law

This is Kelly McCann I'm talking to Lee our planet who's a professor of law at the University of New Mexico and has written a book entitled women on the law which has just been published by the University of New Mexico press on with the book that I found very exciting. I'd like to ask you first why you run that route before I answer that let me correct the title of a book. Good. I believe that subtitle is Horton and the book is called Women on the law the unfinished revolution. In a sense that's part of the answer as to why I wrote the book. We are all aware of the fact that there was a tremendous amount of activity around the early part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 19th century with regard to the status of women and the struggle for women's rights. Because of successes that were achieved in both of those periods there's a widespread feeling that developed at all was right with the status of women and that nothing

remained to be done. However I was an attempt to demonstrate in the book. That revolution which was started long continued in the periods I mentioned is by no means completed and there is much that remains to be done with respect to the status of women. As to why I wrote the book I assume you mean why I was a male. I was concerned with this matter. I might say that the matter of legal status of women is in my opinion simply an aspect of the general problem of human rights and modern society. I think it's no more strange for Mel to write about the status of women than it is for white people in our society to write about the struggle of Negro people to achieve equality of status and in

our nation and the world. I think the same the same principles that hold true in the area of the struggle for black liberation apply in the area of women's liberation and that is that we have an oppressed group and a Prosser group the oppressor group is very often the victim of its own oppressing. Therefore I think that none of us will be where none of us men until women in this world are free as well. These were the general reasons for my interest in the book who I actually thought about writing. Oh tell me something about your background in law and what you studied. I noticed that a lot of these things were published a lot of the parts of the book were published articles.

Have you also worked on others. Yes I have. I'm presently a professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law and I teach a number of courses there one of which is family law and many of the areas touched upon in the book closely related to the field of time law but I also teach a course in liberal law on the course and federal jurisdiction which deals with the power of the federal courts on all of these things come up in this book. I notice that you labor law certainly as far as women's employment opportunities are concerned and federal jurisdiction and some other particular cases you mentioned about one. That's correct Justice Holmes once said many years ago that law is a seamless web we weave divided into categories because it's administratively convenient to study legal subjects that way but it's really only

one subject that we study namely law. You really can't talk about one field of law without necessarily involving many others. Let me let me say at this point sort of that. Our listeners not be frightened off at the prospect of a highly technical book that I have made every effort in women in law to write it in a way that would be comprehensible to the trained person. I know that you've read the book. I'd be interested in knowing whether you thought I was going to comment that I have no legal training at all and found the book more than comprehensible. In fact it moves along very well. And also one of the things that impressed me the most about it was that you touched on really approached it from a sociological point of view instead of cataloguing what the law says in the state and not state about each subject you tried to talk about what

that meant for people's lives and for the organization of society. I thought that was really important. Perhaps we could get into some of of what that is some of the content of the book itself by the first. Well we couldn't just start with the way it's organized I suppose the first thing that you talk about is the law and single women or buddies with women irrespective of their marital status. Right. Right. And some of the things that I was most interested in was the way in which the law treats women differently for instance and in some cases it seems that things are easier for women under the law than they are for men. Perhaps you could explain some of those marriage age criminal law. So let me before I answer that let me merely make a preliminary

observation again and that is that one of the things I had hoped to achieve and women and long was to stimulate some interest in the legal aspects of the question of inequality based upon science we've been literally deluged with material really recent past dealing with the disparities in the social condition of men and women. Very little has been done on the matter of differences in the legal situation of men and women. My own feeling is that I don't really have time to know what what the explanation for this is. I think some of the history that we've seen with respect to the response to Brown versus Board of Education which was the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954 holding that school desegregation was unconstitutional. Has has shown us that when there is a breakthrough on the legal front

that rather than dampening the desire for reform this can often stimulate new interest and new concern beyond the strictly legal sphere. My more I hope it is and this is a major reason who writing the book is that. If we can get some interest in the legal aspects of sex discrimination if we can get people interested in litigating can issues bring about modifications of existing law through legislative action that we will ultimately wind up with a feeling that there is a great need for complete reexamination of the roles of men and women in our society and people will be doing the things that need to be done to some extent the legal structures that we have or the legal framework in which we exist to define what lives within or define our views of other people.

Well what I am saying is that over all of our social institutions a lot is at the same time one of the most powerful and perhaps the most feared that it has an inordinate amount of influence on our psychology. On the one hand it reflects social mores on the other hand it plays a very significant role in shaping those mores and attitudes. And I think that if we can make a breakthrough in the legal front though we don't have a direct impact upon people's Thank you. Just hours after Brown versus Board of Education. The cancer of racism was not automatically removed from the body of American life. Nevertheless the impact of these kinds of developments in the law caused people to begin rethinking old out of two whole

philosophies with regard to race. I'm hopeful that the same thing can be achieved with regard to the rules the respective roles of men and women in our society. One of those roles for women has been that a wife and you raised an interesting point about difference in the age at which women can marry and that which mankind without parental consent that is women generally can marry at an earlier age without consent it seems favorable to women but perhaps you can explain what the implications of that. Well this sounds were part of the question you asked a moment ago which I did not answer because I got sidetracked by saying making this other remark that I want to make. The book is divided between what I

describe as law and the Single Girl and law and the married woman. And then it contains several chapters dealing with constitutional aspects and several dealing with the equal employment opportunities for women pursuant to recent statutes that were enacted in the last few years in Congress and states under the heading of law and the Single Girl as I called it. There are a number of areas explored in which women continue to receive different treatment at the hands of the law solely because of the sex of sex. But do so or not. Because without regard to whether they're married or not. Sometimes they may be married but. That's not the reason for the difference in the treatment that they receive in this area that I'm discussing now and one of those one of those areas as Larry just asked about and really the disparity in the minimum age requirements for marriage for men and

women. Like many other areas of law the explanation for this you don't mean simple words are the result of many complex factors one of which I'm sure in this area is that it can be demonstrated that men and women in their early years old boys and girls in their early years which were at different rates. I think we have substantial evidence from the psychologists that the ration rate of girls is more rapid in the early years of life than it is for boys. Alone there is a general leveling off period when boys catch up. Both physically and emotionally they seem to have developed or reached a comparable level. Now I'm no doubt this difference and who's the ology and psychological psychology played an important rule.

Young. Determining the rules of law that permitted girls generally today in many of the states to marry at age 18 and boys tomorrow at age 21 without parental consent. However there are other factors that I think cannot be overlooked and I think we're flat. Sex Bias on the part of society as a whole. One can't help but feeling that among other considerations that lawmakers were guided by and developing this disparity in minimum age requirements for marriage was the general attitude that only men and only males were to be permitted to engage in the quote Important business unquote of life the business outside of home only they would be the the doers and the shakers in the world. It was inconceivable that too many years ago who would want to play this kind of role at all. There were not too many

years ago there were very few women in employment outside the home and therefore society you know took the attitude that no great social loss was incurred if women were to be encouraged to follow the line of least resistance as far as their biological urges were concerned and to permit them to enter the marital state and to take themselves out of the general marketplace. As far as the productive meaningful enterprise of society was concerned. I want to call that productive and meaningful I don't want to suggest that I regard the activities within the home as unproductive and non meaningful. But what I'm trying to do is characterize what I think was a general social attitude in this regard. There are a number of states in which there is a common

age in which men and women and things work out well. But this is one area in which very clearly there is a disparity you know based solely on sex. Another area that you mentioned was in the field of statutory rape and other crimes like thought you said that women couldn't be charged with those crimes that it was impossible according to a law for women to commit statutory rape with a young boy whereas a man could commit adultery or perhaps you could elaborate on that. Well let me say there are nominally there are crimes for which a female can be charged and convicted if she engages in sexual relations with a young man for moral. Given age and common that we know of as contributing to the link once you have a minor. But here I think we have.

Here we have a disparity not so much in law as written but rather in law as in forced. I think if we explore the law books and if we examine an adaptation to a typical contributing to the link when see a statute we find that the usual defendant in such an action is a man of the usual crime as that of supplying some kind of alcoholic beverage to a minor but rarely if ever do we find a female prosecuted for having engaged in sexual relations with. A boy who was technically a minor age of 18 or 21 in some states whereas the crime of statutory rape or the accusation of statutory rape was frequently made and that many have been charged with this crime. I think in this area as in a number of others the law reflects the double moral standard of society and does it in a rather subtle way.

But does it nevertheless here as if there is another. There's also the issue of the age of consent for the most part it seems that the law considers there to be a problem back consent with girls but not so much with that. Well I think and it's very difficult to psychoanalyze an entire society but one inevitably winds up doing this we're going to talk about a subject that is kind of I think the society as a whole regards premarital chastity on the part of women that has a positive social good that must be preserved at all costs whereas the loss of chastity if you will on the part of young boys is does not represent a great social danger. Now obviously there are differences between male and female

law when sexual relations occur the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy will weigh a lot more heavily upon the female than upon the male. And to a certain extent the society is also. Protector providing protection against this contingency. As I said it in many of these areas we cannot simply point to the sex discriminatory aspect and say that's the entire explanation for the disparity in the treatment of the sexes. Very often complex sex discriminatory attitudes plus others that are world less valid than the fans will well on the other hand it doesn't seem to me that consistent to have laws which try to preserve the chastity of young girls saying that well that will prevent unwanted pregnancies and at the same time have laws preventing abortion wasn't corrupt I think.

The bushing area is another tree created in the book is another area in which men and women will continue to receive significantly different treatment. Solely because of attitudes with regard to the difference between the sexes. Here once again I think. The discrimination arises from the impact of the enforcement of abortion laws rather than the laws themselves. We do know although statistics are difficult to come by in this area but we know that between a million and a million and a half of illegal abortions are performed every year in the United States. We know also that there are between five and ten thousand women die every year as a result submitting to an illegal abortion or performing an abortion themselves. The fact of the matter is that when all is said

and done no man would lose their lives as a result of their participation in an illegal abortion. What this many women do. I think that. This demonstration number one that the existing abortion laws are completely out of touch with social mores very much like the situation that existed during our noble experiment with prohibition not too many years and long. There is a crying need for fundamental modification in the treatment of the subject of abortion by law. Now there have been efforts in recent years in a number of states including California toward liberalization abortion laws. At one time I must admit that I myself thought that if there were to be greatly applauded and were very much in the right direction. Well I still feel they're in the right direction. I like many others come to believe that the ultimate meaningful solution to the problem of

abortion is for the law or certainly the criminal law to withdraw entirely from this area and to leave the matter whether or not an abortion should be performed to the woman and her physician. The same as any other medical question. And I think this is one other area which I've included under the general heading of law and the Single Girl is going to find it and which the law continues to treat men and women significantly different differently so only because of sex. It gives women the effectively conservative less control over their bodies. This is not allowing abortion when women. This isn't an argument that has been developed. Let me say that there are a number of attacks on existing abortion laws. Those attacks are being based upon constitutional principles involving among other things a claim or an invasion of right of privacy

invasion of the physician patient relationship and other matters. But these these are efforts being made to prevent to hold existing abortion legislation unconstitutional. To have this done in the courts the same time efforts are being made in the legislatures to have like repeal of existing abortion laws. I suppose this is an area similar to what you were speaking about with Brown vs. the Board of Education where it could be a legal breakthrough. So courts declaring abortion laws are unconstitutional that it would give an opportunity for a change in the way society has been thinking about those corrupt I think there'd be a tremendous impact in people's daily thinking about this and related subjects. Why don't we start with the law in the marriage room which is the next section in this book Women and women on the lawn. There's so much in this

section. I don't know what to ask you about first. So perhaps you could summarize it by saying what the doctrine of coverture and giving some of the implications. Well what I think we have to say a word about history first before we have to tell her that had me very good. But the fact of the matter is that for many years under the English common law which is they are really the ancestor of our own legal system here in the United States. Our women all married women when that when they became married sucker and many immediate disabilities as a result of the mark. All of the personal property they are immediately became their husbands outright. The real property they own remained their own. In theory Ali but the husband had the right to marriage and hold that property and to retain the

proceeds from selling that crap. They could not be employed outside of the home without the husband's permission. They. Could not sue or be sued without the husband's permission. These were some of the disabilities that married women are suffering from Upon being married. There was a tremendous revulsion against this kind of unjust treatment that women received at the hands of the law. There were there was much agitation on the part of individuals and organizations. John Stuart Mill's book the subjugation of women Mary Wollstonecraft book conservation of the world. That's correct. All dealt in part with these matters and ultimately reforms were effected. Interestingly enough the first place in which your form was in fact in this area was

in Mississippi in 1839 where the first married women as a Property Act was and acted. It was shortly followed by many others throughout the United States and finally back in the mother country itself England. So that everywhere in the United States today there have been since the middle of the 19th century and acted married womens property acts with Byron large. Most of the disabilities that married women suffered from the widespread passage of Married Women's Property Plus the activities that went on that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment removing legal barriers to women's right to vote in the United States. Are the two events that I guess I referred to earlier in the broadcast which have given many people the feeling of complacency about the legal status of women that is.

Feeling that's been expressed in our offline as well the battle has been fought and won and nothing remains to be done because haven't we achieved the married women as property act and haven't we achieved the right to vote. As I mentioned earlier the book attempts to demonstrate that there still is much that remains to be done in the area of law and that there is still much inequality that needs to be eradicated. Not I think in talking about this historical development I probably have answered your question about the doctrine of Coleridge it was the doctrine that in a sense said that when a woman married she and the husband became one person in the eyes of the law and that one was the husband. That's correct and I think that's a lot more accurate description of the doctrine that was used by Blackstone that Wango who's the one actually but

maybe not quite. No I think it was a black rather than black so it was just as Hugo Black good to Santa in the 1965 Supreme Court decision United States versus Yaz said. Yes it's true that the only common law of the doctrine why is that. When a man and woman learned they became one person in the eyes and law of the law but the way it is worked out is that the one was the husband. But the doctrine of curvature was something completely abandoned by the court. It was in a. Theoretically that is the good the doctrine is rarely if ever invoked to impose a direct disability on women with the doctrine still plays a significant role and many indirect ways for instance. When matter over on the matter of the loss of a woman's maiden

name upon large lists in a certain sense it is a reflection of the medieval doctrine which are yet to some extent it reflects the social mores that is we don't have any great clamoring on the part of American women for the right to retain their maiden names when they marry. But if one stops to think about it it certainly is an odd phenomenon that two people each of Homo had been long by a certain name. Up until the time of large enter into the state of marriage and suddenly the name of one of them disappears. The cum submerged in that of the husband. Now as I say there's a pretty well reflex social mores and I guess that's what Interestingly enough I'm persuaded by my researches in the area that this is the case. It's also required as a matter of law in the United States

we have many statutes and various states prescribing conditions under which people may get a judicial record of a change of name consistently. Women who are married women are excluded from the right to change their own. This is a right to belong to the husband only when any of that. The I discussed this in considerable detail. Women in the law were. I feel as though we should go on to employment and I'd like to continue talking about this field as well. But why don't we move on and maybe we can draw things together. And one of the things that may be what you called a legal breakthrough with Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which as I understand it forbids discrimination in employment on the basis of saying that life

doesn't work. That's that's one of the things it does right. And how that how has that worked. Well we read history of the prohibition against discrimination on grounds of sex in employment which is found in Title 7 as it is a very interesting one that is how this prohibition got into the legislation in the first place. Title 7 was is a fair employment practices section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which was enacted not long after President Kennedy was assassinated. It was an active at a time when the nation was still shocked that members of the federal legislature were shocked by that event. They were for the first time in a long time amenable to doing something significant in the way of guaranteeing equal employment opportunities

for people without regard to race religion or national origin. The Congress debated for about three months the matter of Title 7 the Equal Employment Opportunity provisions of the 64 Civil Rights Act with the traditional language being demonstrated that is almost to a person members of the Congress from the south. I made every effort to resist. The titles I want to obstruct. Interestingly enough it was one day before Congress voted on Title 7 that Representative Howard Smith of Virginia. Got up in the halls of Congress and proposed the addition of sex as a prohibited ground or prohibited basis for discrimination

in employment. It's very clear given the background of the legislative history of the previous role played by Representative Smith and his colleagues from some of the southern states that there were no great friends of women that they were not doing those you know wanted to. Strike a blow for the advancement of women's opportunities but that they were primarily concerned with throwing a monkey wrench into the debate over the over the world title seven and hopefully from their viewpoint to prevent its being enacted. Interesting going. This would seem to be a search by many members of Congress who had outstanding records on behalf of. Racial justice as well as justice on behalf of American women

and who first attempted to resist the inclusion of sex as a prohibited basis and for employment discrimination because they they saw it as being diversionary and harassing. But there was some discussion on the floor of Congress although there were no committee hearings on the matter of sex. And lo and behold when that when the dust had settled and the ACT finally emerged it contained this prohibition against discrimination and sex against discrimination on the on the basis of sex in employment law. Now I I want to stress that in giving this account of this what I call the peculiar legislative history of these sex provisions of Title 7 that it is important not to conclude that this is a fluke in the law and that Congress really didn't mean it and therefore that this provision in the law can be ignored. Equanimity. The

fact of the matter is that. Although Congress didn't hold extensive committee hearings on this it frequently adopt legislation without doing so and the legislation is just as much a law as that any less correct. And as far as the as the motives of the people in Congress were concerned there were rather extensive hearings a year before the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed. Already the Equal Pay Act of 1963. That was the amendment of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act which now requires for women and men who are covered by its provisions to be paid equally for equal work and in the course of the hearings on that which were rather extensive there was ample documentation of this tremendous disparity between men and women in the sphere of employment. So one might say that Congress wasn't thinking about sex

discrimination when it was debating Title 7 and there were there were no hearings on it that when it decided to include sex as a basis for a prohibited basis for discrimination in employment that it was or knowingly intelligently and with and with a determination that it should be enforced in every respect. Let me also add that significantly the history of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the Federal agency that was established to administer Times of them has shown that the sex provisions of Title 7 have struck a responsive chord in American society. We had in the first year of its operation one third of the complaints that were large with the commission were based upon discrimination and sex rather than some of the bases of discrimination that are prohibited under the Act. Well does it work. This prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.

Well I think like any new statute it's going to take a period of time before we really find out how effective the statute is. But there already are many indications of significant breakthroughs in the employment area as a result of the statute. Interesting lady. The statute does not prohibit discrimination against women. It prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex which is a different thing altogether it means that men have standing to bring complaints to the courts and to the commission first. They are being denied opportunities to work in the job because it is one that's regarded by an employer or labor organization or an employment agency as being within the exclusive preserve of women. Some of the developments that have taken place are only the EEOC the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has already ruled that the position of flight cabin attendant to the person who serves food or

commercial airlines is not one in which sex is a bona fide occupational qualification since the act permits discrimination on grounds of sex where it can be shown that sex is a bona fide occupational qualification. We're what we call a vehicle queue. And since sex is not a Biblical cue for the position of flight cabin attendant the EEOC has ordered that. That man be given an opportunity to work on his job as well. The telephone company has in various parts of the country already hired mail telephone operators. By contrast the EEOC is held that the commercial airlines cannot be denied the right to a woman to to apply for the position of a commercial pilot on the airlines. And there is one important case which is making its way through the courts on that issue as well. There have been already a substantial number of

significant back pay awards by the courts after the EEOC has handled it preliminarily awarding women for the most part the additional money and requiring them to be given the same promotional opportunities that are available to men doing comparable work. Maybe we could talk about protecting legislation in quotes because I think that has something to do with job opportunities as well as with protecting workers or women workers from having to do certain kinds of what I'm thinking of this that women would be limited in what kinds of jobs they could have if there were legislation can't require them to lift something heavy or to work more than eight hours a day. Well this is a very important area that's absorbed the attention of many people interested in this field and is very complex. But

perhaps I can try to state a simple as possible what the basic issues are. There are various attitudes as to what ought to be done here and I have my own which are developing women on the law. I'd like to say some few words about them like the situation that it exists in California do exists also in many other states. California has a statute which places a limitation on the number of hours that women are allowed to work in a day and in the week. For the last couple years there's been no distinction made by California depending upon where the women are working in industry and interstate commerce or one that's purely in cross-state cars. Take the situation where the restriction is to 8 hours a day 40 hours a week.

Now a woman who is working in a large plant for many years discovers that there is a vacancy in a higher paying job in that plant. She wants to give them an opportunity to work on that job. The employee turns to her and says Sorry I can't hire you. I can only I can't promote you do this job I can only promote a man to this young woman then says but that is in violation of Title 7 which prohibits discrimination and plywood on grounds of sex. The employer replies. Well Title 7 permits discrimination where sex is a bona fide occupational qualification would be ethical. Q And in this case the California statute which places a limitation on the number of hours that I met that I may require you to work or permit you to work represents such a bill after all. Q Because this job that you're interested in working on is one that traditionally has required of frequent working overtime hours.

Since I'm not permitted to work you more than eight hours a day I would be in violation of state law if I allowed you to work on his job. And I can only consider a man to possibly feel this vacancy. Now this is occurred in a number of cases already and a number of women have brought suit first complained to the commission and then brought suit against the employers alleging that the Apply employer's adherents to the state law is invalid as being in conflict with the federal law which takes supremacy of priority under the supremacy clause of the US Constitution and also that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Now already in a couple of cases one here in California another one up in Oregon where the federal courts have held that the plaintiffs were

correct that the state law was invalid primarily because of being in conflict with the federal law and have in fact declared that the state law was there for. No force and effect. My all view is that this is somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory by half the women plans of said actions of this kind. Or to put it differently where the victories of that kind we don't need very many defeats. Ah well our the reason for this is that those who are to be sure the limitation on the number of hours that women may be permitted to work a day or a week at the present time result in an inequality of job opportunity. My own feeling is that the humor to this problem is not to remove this protection from women but rather to extend it to men.

That is if we had a situation in which an employer could not as a matter of law require either of mono or women to work more than eight hours a day the employer could no longer be in a position to say I have this vacancy but I can only consider and not consider a woman. And though to be sure the effort to achieve this equality can be carried out in the legislature. I've spent a good deal of time in women in law demonstrating how I think this might be done even before legislative action. That is through the use of the title 7 itself and through the application of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States can 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution which would then apply protective legislation to workers as workers and not because they are women or something.

That's correct and I think the possibilities of doing this are great. Of course it will depend alternately upon whether the United States Supreme Court agrees with this kind of interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause and title Son. So what we sort of thought I think is that and what I understand from your book Women and the law is that laws that look as though they're they're beneficial to women because they treat them differently than men really aren't in a lot of ways without having protective legislation isn't such a benefit for women. That's correct. There was a very apt phrase that was used by Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court at a time when he was before he becomes chief justice of the court in an article he wrote some years ago in which he referred incidentally in that article to women having become the victims of protection. And I think

that phrase really says a lot. I think in many respects under the guise of providing protection for women the law has merely perpetuated the artificial distinctions drawn between men and women and there and has reinforced the barriers between them and their ability to relate to one another as people. And I think there's there's a there's a. The fundamental problem and in human affairs today our general inability to relate to one another as people and our tendency to see one another as objects of one kind or another. Let me say here that one always hopes that the work that one does may have some important results. By no means were persuaded of this aspect of the question but from the little bit I know of what of the work that the

anthropologists have done. I think on the study of the societies in which the rules of the sexes are highly stratified and differentiated persuades me that this may have some far reaching implications. Margaret Mead who won and Jeffrey Goren of the British Isles apologies and their study of the South Sea island populations have concluded that in all societies in which the roles of men and women are highly differentiated there is a much greater tendency toward aggression than in those south sea island groups in which the rules of men and women are blurred. There is considerable crossover I think. In terms of the nature of the human animal and how he or she can develop that paying some attention to the rules

of the sections in our society in many very profound implications for such questions of war and police crime and liquid sodium rather than the other form about protective laws. Getting back to some of the issues about married women and whether the need for permission for the women from their husbands to do things like set up in business or something like that which it seems to me saying that well women are perpetually children and. It can never be equal to men who grow up and in that sense a lot don't you know put it like this is correct this isn't as widespread today as it was in the past merely because of the passage of live womens property acts but in a number of states we have sought greater statutes under which a woman in order

to go into business for herself must apply to the Corcoran must have the permission of her husband and must demonstrate that she has ability to do so or all of which conditions are not imposed upon. Much like requiring black people to say that they can read before allowing them to. But not quite like you. That's correct I think the parallel between the situation of black people and women in our society is one that needs to be kept in mind it's by no means an original with many many sociologists and Arthur apologists brought upon this. I think there is one very important similarity. Live was Ashley Montagu on or may have been and Simone de Beauvoir made this observation. She says you were she said that in the case of women as in the case of black people the same

phenomenon is present in that in both cases the oppressor justifies the continuation of oppression because of the condition that the person or person himself has created. And these are rather extreme terms but I think they are generally descriptive of a situation that develops. I just think there's also a parallel between the Movement for Change condition of black people and a possible movement for the change of condition. While there are many many similarities that I discern and the organisational fragmentation at the moment the respective efforts for black liberation and women's liberation women's liberation. One thing I'm persuaded that there's going to be a great resurgence of interest in the field of women's

rights and women's status. There already is such a demonstration of that interest. Not all only are they were older more established women's organizations active in this area. But there are new organizations growing up all the time which are very much involved here. And interestingly I think that in every instance there are very close parallels can be found between the ideological framework of the individual organisation and the field of women's liberation and another organisation in the field of black liberation. For instance some of the older women's groups such as the National Women's Party business and professional women's groups in many respects ideologically in terms of home content resemble the end WCP. Such a group as now the National Organization for Women probably in its

style of operation and its perspectives. This is a very rough approximation and it doesn't apply to everybody and each of the organizations are just generally descriptive. Probably parallels organisations like core Sneck. And then we have groups that go under the name of women's liberation. I'm sure you've heard of the SCUM Manifesto written by Valerie Solanas Scott being an acronym for the Society for cutting up man which in many respects is a parallel to the attitude on the part of some black people complete separatism and an attitude right down with hockey. SCUM Manifesto essentially says down with man. Let me let me.

And of course there are organizations in-between where they're searching the SCUM Manifesto wasn't it by liberation so to speak. That's correct. But she does have some following go I think women's liberation there is which women's international terrorist conspiracy from her has corrected I think the the names that are developed who are really really fascinating. I would I would stress that my own perspectives on this are that nothing will be achieved if we substitute the tourney women for the tyranny of men I think the important thing is to create a situation in which men and women can regard one another as people primarily and to live into partnership. Do you think can be done toward that goal through the long. Well again I think that Laura is probably at this stage historically probably the most important instrument

for social change. That is I think that if people become aware of the disparities in the legal situation of men and women if they will attempt to overcome these disparities through litigation through efforts in the various legislative bodies that this will have a necessary spillover effect upon other aspects of male female relationships that men and women will then begin to re-examine their total relationship. Now of course at this stage it's only speculation but already there have been significant breakthroughs. Not too long ago the federal district court in Connecticut held the unconstitutional law in our state which imposed longer sentences of imprisonment upon women than upon though they would be convicted of the

same crime. The sampan development took place in Pennsylvania with the decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. These are statutes that have been around for a long time they exist in some other states. But here for the first time. The law has now spoken in a humanistic positive manner. Similarly a number of years ago a federal court in Alabama held that the Alabama statute which denied women the right to serve on juries. To be unconstitutional in violation of the protection clause. I know that was the result in Alabama. As of now South Carolina and Mississippi continue to deny women the right to serve on juries in the state. But I do think that the law is beginning to wake up to the need to accord women equal rights. There are many complex

problems in this area. But there's also much that needs to be done and I think it can be done through the law. There are so many things in this book I wish we had had more time to talk about. I like to repeat the title publisher that women on the law the unfinished revolution by the outline of what is with me and it's published by the University of New Mexico Prof. I found tons more material able to talk about. But I thank you. Thank you.