- Good evening, welcome again, to a feminist perspective. I'm Emily Taylor, the Dean women at the University of Kansas. And I have with me tonight, two staff members, Dr. Carol Smith and Casey Iyke. In the fall of 1971, information concerning a new awareness on the part of women was coming ran a thick and fast. Newspaper articles, magazine articles books were beginning to be written. And at that point we decided in our office that we should attempt to share some of the material that was coming to us, and established this radio program in feminist perspective. We started in January of 1972 and tonight begins the fourth season for this program. Our purpose at that time was and it continues to be today. To provide a forum for women to speak publicly on issues of concern to them. And to help inform other women and men of the movement which is remaking the shape and substance of women's and men's lives. We've never changed our basic reason for these programs, although of course, the topics themselves are do change from time to time. Tonight we wanted to acquaint you with our plans in general for this year and with the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center in our office. So let's begin by asking you Carol to give some idea of the kinds of topics that we would propose to deal with this year. - Thank you. We thus far have worked with KNU and we have developed an outline of what we will be trying to do during the months of September and October in some detail. Beyond that point, we have a lot of ideas some of which we want to share with the audience tonight. During September and October we will be trying to set the stage for the rest of the year. We have a new feature. We hope that the audience will like it. We hope that we will like working with it. The first program of each month starting next week, September nine, with the first program of each month will be feminist news digest. And we hope during those programs the news digest programs once a month to the audience some of the news worthy notes, books, records items of personal concern and interest that will affect them and their interest, we hope in the feminist movement. We hope that this is something that becomes a very viable part of our total programming. Later in the month of September we will have a program devoted to title nine guidelines, their implications for education. That's an exceedingly timely topic since the department of health education and welfare will continue to receive comments and urges the public to comment on the proposed guidelines through the middle of October. So we want to help make the public more aware of this opportunity to comment and some of the overriding issues in the proposed guidelines early in the month. We also will be covering some current news and current changing seniors, at the University of Kansas about women in sports. We will have another program, oh, I'm sorry, two programs during October, dealing with women in politics, and leading up to the November elections. During the entire year, we hope it will be coming much more flexible in the ways that we put on the programs and the newly expanded facilities. Okay, and you are going to help us in this a great deal. We will have at least one program in October which we probably will take out of the studio on location, hopefully at a workshop which we would like to share with the listeners. And this is the first of several programs that we hope will be very innovative in format and technique, which is something new for us. Later in the year, we have not set definite dates with definite programs, but we have a lot of ideas. In fact, we want to elicit more ideas from the radio listeners and we invite them to respond to us. Some of the things that we hope to deal with during the rest of this semester will be a series of programs about the male feminist, the black feminist the roles of canvas women. We hope to deal with career forecasts during the next decade. And we will indeed be doing some kind of a year and wrap up to review what happened to women during 1974. In the coming year, we certainly will be devoting ourselves to a lot of conflicts, but we hope to leave space and ourselves flexible enough to respond to the interests of viewers and to the changing scene. I mentioned that we would like to invite the listeners to respond by postcard to us, writing to Dean Emily Taylor and 220 Strong Hall University of Kansas and Lawrence. Please tell us your questions or your concerns or suggest topics that you would like to see us deal with on a feminist perspective. We mentioned questions, these could be questions that are a personal concern to you and if you indicate that we will respond to you individually and personally. But I think that this might help us. - One of the very common things which happens in our office are telephone calls and letters from people who have a particular problem. And we attempt to deal with that. To tell them where they can get the information they want or provide that information ourselves. We like to make use of this radio program to expand this service, to the entire listing area, and to make clear to all listeners that we are happy to respond to any question, which they might have. If it's a matter of general interest then we would that comment on it in the program itself. If it's a personal thing we will of course respond to the person who asked us are completely confidential basis. All you need to do is to let us know whether or not it's something that you would like everybody to hear or whether it's a personal thing which you wanted to answer to yourself. - And we will give that address again at the end of the program. So get your pencils ready. If you'd like to write to us we would like to hear from you - This is a service of the women's resource and career planning center. And simply expanded to include the entire radio audience. And I think we ought to come in on who is the radio audience. We don't really know, who is listening but we know who we'd like to have listen. And you folks want to comment on that. I mean, what women are we trying to reach? Just a college women or university trained women? - Well, I think basically we'd like to reach our women and not just KU student and not even just the Lawrence community. I think that we also very interested in hearing from men and the kinds of topics that they would like to hear and to talk about and have questions about also. - Oh, very definitely. I guess the one thing we should make clear is that it's certainly not in any way designed to be limited to people who are college or university interested or related. And another thing is that we hope that program is not geared and it's not designed to be geared just to people who are committed feminists or potential feminist as far as they feel. We would like to think every woman's a potential feminist but we think that indeed we ought to be offering a public service of informing the adult public, or the interested young adult public in what's going on. And what the major concerns of the movement are. - I would go beyond the adult public to point out that during the past year particularly there was increasing entrance on the part of young people, all the way down to the junior high school. And in fact, in one of our programs last year we had a junior high school student. We spoke about the matters which were a particular concern in this case to her. But young men also are very much involved. We haven't really defined a feminist perspective. You've referred Carol several times to a feminist. Would you like to offer some kind of an explanations to what this means? When you referred for instance, to a committed feminist. What is a committed feminist. What are they committed to? - I guess that someone who was a committed feminist would be indeed committed to the ideals behind the feminist movement or the women's movement. And this would mean in very broad general terms but indeed it's appropriate that these people or this person, male or female of whatever age was committed to the ideals of human equality. There are lots and lots of just all facets of our life are thus affected. And that's what we hope to share with you by talking about a feminist perspective as life, of contemporary life. - So feminist doesn't have to be a female. - No. - Or any particular color any- - Or age. - Or age, that's right. - Or temperament in terms of you do not need to be a radical. There are lots of people who are very conservative or who would say they're very conservative but who are very committed feminists. - So those believe in the opportunity for people to make their own choices, which includes everything from what might be considered by some of the most conservative choices, to those who who wished to make choices that are very different from what the community has ordinarily thought of appropriate roles for men or for women are included. The idea of choice is tremendously important. And I think sometimes very much misunderstood. So that we can occasionally hear people saying that the women's movement is concerned with getting all women to do some particular thing. All women, to work all women, to join the armed forces, all women to do any particular thing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The principles of equality of opportunity mean that all opportunities are open to all citizens. And that the choice and informed intelligent choice can be made only by the individual who is living the particular life and not by someone else. Obviously, with every individual there are other people who are concerned about those decisions and in no way mean to imply that there's not a community of interest in the decisions that individuals make but we do very much object to the notion that the society as a whole should set up the rules which say that women do certain things and men do certain things occupations for example. There is no occupation now that does not include both men and women. And we would like to expand that to the point where every individual man or woman feels free to make whatever choices right for him or for her. - And we can't quite go beyond that point without saying that this certainly does involve informing society at large, so that people are aware that they have these opportunities. Once the opportunities are secure. - So in the sense the radio program is an expansion of or is a part of the work of the women's resource and career planning center. And Casey would you like to talk a little bit about the kinds of things which are in our office is a concern about. - All right, I'll start with a little past history, in 1968 and 1969 some of the very first articles began appearing in some of the magazines and newspapers around the country. And in the summer of 1969, the Dean of women's office had the foresight to gather up these first articles, seeing that this may indeed be the beginning of a deluge of like articles. And this was actually the beginning of the women's resource library. And started with one notebook. It was a very fat notebook but it still was only one notebook which had different sections on different topics. Most of the topics from that era, or if we can refer to something so recent as an era were very general kinds of statements on what is the women's movement. This is a brand new subject. And so they're very general articles. I think it's really interesting to go back and read some of those very first articles to really gain a perspective on where we are now in relation to what people were saying. Even that length of... Short length of time ago. Now, in the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center we have over a hundred topical notebooks that were began from this one notebook a couple of years ago. - Tell us what you mean by a topical notebook. How do you have it arranged? What are some examples of the kinds of things you could find it? - All right, we have notebooks which range from one entitled women in the law, the equal rights in women, affirmative action plans, abortion, daycare women's studies, women's newsletters, birth control and on and on and on. I won't obviously go through all of them. But we do have a handout which is available from our office which does list most of the notebooks. So if you do have a particular topic that you'd like to either research or learn more about you can find a whole notebook, which has much, much information on that particular topic in that. I've often said to students anyway that there's probably enough information in the women's resource library to write thousands of term papers. So that's one use that we do have for the resource library. - Certain times of the year we think that it's being done too. When you're trying to walk through it. - Right, exactly. And then we do like to, whatever research is being done with the notebooks, we usually get a copy of what the paper that is written and that helps other people learn more about the different topics too. - Should we say something about how we acquire those? Because I think that's interesting and we also would welcome other people to contribute. That would be awesome. - ThaT we have received many articles from the community. People in the community that come across an article, a lot of the staff members, not only just in the Dean of women's office, but in other offices as well, we'll go on trips and be reading a paper in New Orleans or something, and see an article and send it to us or bring it back. The residence halls, which take newspapers and magazines will send us clippings. And we certainly, certainly, I can't emphasize it enough welcome whatever articles that you might come across. We'd really appreciate having either the article or we could copy the article and send it back to you. - Especially if it's from a not usually available journal or magazine, because many people in the community or on in the university situation receive as a regular part of their work journals or magazines or printouts or documents from their professional organizations. But we would have no access to which might upon occasion have tremendously relevant material for us. - That's right, every professional magazine now does but so do magazines of general interest. And the fact that it is impossible for anyone to read all of this material means that in order to make a collection which really can serve as a history of what's happening to both men and women and the whole movement toward equality of opportunity for all citizens does require that a lot of people assist with the process of getting it all together. I think it's very interesting that at first and back in 1969 and 70, most of the articles that appeared in newspapers were really the first. They were about the first woman carpenter. The first woman who did this, that and the other. We still see some of that. Although there are very few first that are left. But it moved from there to a much more serious discussion of actual issues that... With which the community had to come groups. - I think that we've really seen it. Not only a change of topic and the way in which the topics are being dealt with. But we also just the vibe has magnified tremendously. We do try to keep abreast of the new publications that are books too, and they're available for borrowing. - Right, I was going to mention another aspect of the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center is the lending library. We have probably now over 500 books that can be checked out for one week at a time. And these do include the source book library on women which is a 50 volume complete history of the women's suffrage movement. And this particular set of books can not be checked out but certainly can be used in our office. I might mention very quickly here that we are open from eight to five, and we really enjoy people coming in and using the material at the office too. - And starting in early October, excuse me the resource, Women's Resource and Career Planning Center will be located in 222 Strong Hall - But is it in the same suite we're moving because we've outgrown the space, which gives you some idea of the enormity, of the amount of material, which is coming in. - And will not be closed during any time other than the day that we in the books. But we will be going into a new facility for us at that time. - The career planning aspect of the women's resource library includes not only books on different careers, but also graduate school catalogs. Some of the information books on how to take the LSAT tests which is the law school admission test or the medical exam test, et cetera. And also three very, very full file drawers of different pamphlets on I believe every conceivable career that exists, and these of course can be used in the office and we urge people to do that also. - Just the professions and the department of labor have been most generous in providing us with some of these pamphlets and keeping them up to date. - Also, there is always a staff member available to talk with anyone about their particular concerns in the area of careers, but also in other areas too. But we do like to talk with people who are thinking about either new careers or rethinking an old career, or just wanting to examine some different options for their lives. And this applies not only to students who may be looking for, what should I major in if I want to go in this into this particular career, but also for women who may be wanting to begin a new career midlife, excuse me, midlife or maybe wanting to change a particular career. - The setup of a women's resource library is really very simple. A librarian I suspect would tell us that we're doing it wrong, but there's always someone there to explain exactly how to use those resources. And it's a simplified version. The key to the whole thing, of course being the notebook system. Some of the items that Casey mentioned, for instance the equal rights amendment, there are probably what? Five volumes, so that you get a general history too, from the very beginning, the effort to pass and to have ratified the equal rights amendment. Which is still not ratified, but it was passed by the Congress in March of 1972 and has just five States to go for the final ratification with every responsible organization including labor unions, all women's organizations. Or having gone on record in favor of it. The president of the United States, the Congress so that we hope it will not be long before this has become a reality. And of course, at some point during the year we'll be discussing this issue. In fact, probably a number of times in the feminist news digest that occur once a month as Carol has pointed out. And not always the first Monday, however because this is the first Monday of September. And it's next week that we'll try to bring things up to date on all of the issues that are current and that are the most concern to people in terms of their understanding and their possible intervention and bills that are before the Congress or the state legislature which are a particular concern to women. We hope that you will not be concerned over many lack of understanding of reference was made to title nine. We need to explain in detail what title nine is. Since, this is title nine of the education amendments of 1972. These guidelines are the regulations which say what this will mean. I mean, how it will be interpreted. And in a state of flux at the moment, the proposed guidelines have been issued, but everybody, all citizens have a right to commit on them. And there will be then a final revision made after all the comments have been received. - And we will be devoting an entire program to that topic in two weeks. - We'll also be bringing you news of conferences and seminars and institutes which we were either personally sponsoring or co-sponsoring with the other organizations. And we want to tell you that we also operate a speakers Bureau and we hope that no one will hesitate. If they wait to have a program on this subject to let us know, if it's impossible for anyone in our office to come, we will make sure that someone is there, who is properly informed and can speak to the particular topic that your organization is interested in. The reason I emphasize this is that yesterday I received a telephone call. The one of many that come constantly asking rather apologetically if it would be possible for someone to come to speak to the organization for which this woman was a program a chairperson, apologetically, because she said, I know that all of you are very busy and I hate to bother you. Please know that we do not consider that we are bothered by any group or any individual who wants to talk with us or wants us to talk with a group of any size. Small or large on any issue that concerns women. - We've recently, what was in the past year, been also adding some media attractions to our Women's Resource Center. Casey, do wanna to describe some of those? - Well, we have several films now that we have been able to buy and they will be available to student groups and also to community organizations. We may, if we are requested to do a program we may bring one of these particular films or multimedia shows along with us to facilitate some of the discussion or the program. So those kinds of games and multimedia slide shows and films are also available. We hope to gather some more during this coming year also. - I think we do have a list that we just send to people, if an organization were interested. - Right. - Some organizations are interested in sort of the overall picture or in getting membership more knowledgeable about the general movement toward equality in our society. Others are interested in something very specific so that we get requested. Talk about, say what alert the laws which people are using to assist with this process. That would like to have someone come in and talk solely about this. So it doesn't matter whether you have a particular interest, whether you want to talk about legal issues or about the equal rights amendment or about employment issues or a women's health or marriage and divorce and family life. Whatever it is. Or politics, it can be a specific subject or it can be an overall general subject. - We have a new brochure that Casey has just put together for the office, the details some of the many things that we do such as we've been trying to explain here. And we also would be more than happy to provide copies of the brochure to interested individuals or organizations if they would like to further go into the variety of materials and people and opportunities that there are available in the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center. - And that's what it's called, we should copy of this brochure just to send a postcard, to 220 Strong Hall, asking for the brochure on the KU Women's Resource and Career Planning Center. - We've just proposed about three, four ways that they could send us postcards. But I think that's marvelous. Just write to us anytime, right. - Would you like to repeat the information very short time we have left as to how people can get in touch with us. Either by telephone or a postcard or mail. - Certainly, our address for inquiries about what we do or what is available through our resource center or suggestions for the radio show can be directed to Dean Emily Taylor, 220 Strong Hall University of Kansas, Lawrence Kansas 66045. Our telephone number is area code 864-3552. - Thank you. We appreciate your listening tonight. We hope that you will join us each Monday night at 7:30 for a new season on a feminist perspective.