The road to San Francisco See p.8
The University Daily
KANSAN
Vol. 94, No. 148 (USPS 650-640)
Published since 1889 by students at the University of Kansas
Friday morning, June 8, 1984
Feminist decries women's status
By MICHELE HINGER Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Although the media portrays today's women as fast-track executives climbing the success ladder, women are actually sliding down the economic scale, with no reversal of the trend in sight, a prominent feminist said last night.
B Barbara Ehrenreich, a contributing editor of Ms. magazine and co-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, spoke to an approving audience, of which about one-third were men, in the Big Eight Room in the Kansas Union.
Although more women are entering high-paying professional jobs, such as law and medicine, Ehrenreich said, two out of three women at or below the poverty level are women.
The number of women supporting their families alone is steadily increasing, and those families are six times more likely to be poor than families headed by men, she said.
this phenomenon, which Ehrenrein called the "feminization of poverty," is a trend that is unique to the United States and growing worse, she said.
Magazines such as Savvy and Working Woman, which paint rosy pictures of high-paying jobs waiting for women with a special skill only to dislust women's true status, she said.
"The media seems to say there's no institutional barriers for women, that it's up to men," she said.
Ehrenreich said that there was little hope that better jobs would be coming soon for women.
"This ghetto is expanding. There are only more low paying, dead-end jobs coming in."
Ehrenreich cited three reasons for the rise in women's poverty: Women earn 60 percent of what men do, women today are more likely to be the major or sole supporter of their families, and when marriages split, the land is seldom a reliable source of income.
"But the problems in families headed by women are not that they lack a man," she added.
Men are no longer viewed as meal tickets, she said, because the traditional family wage
system depicting the man as the sole bread-winner is crumbling.
The family wage system was actually unstable in itself, she said, because many men didn't earn enough money to support a whole family.
"It was also presumed that the man would turn all of his earnings over to the family. It all depended on his good will, and that was a major source of tension," she said, adding that many women waited for their husbands to get home because he presents money had gone toward whiskey.
But, the family wage system still lingers, she said.
"The assumption is still with us. Women are all somebody's dependent."
Making the transition from dependent to supporter is difficult now in a country where the fastest growing sources of jobs for women are in the areas of clerical work and school.
Ehrenreich blamed the Reagan administration's budget cuts for some of women's
The programs Reagan cut were only 8.5 percent of the total budget, she said, and the victims of the cuts were mostly women, who make up the highest percentage of recipients in the food stamp, legal services and welfare programs — all targets of budget cuts.
Business practices that oppress women have either been boosted or ignored by the establishment.
factories that ignore hour and wage laws are common, she said. These factories treat workers as employees.
Women have more homework at night now, ekrethere said, a consequence of wanting to stay active.
Women are now allowed by some factory employers to take projects home, especially in the garment industry, she said. But this serves as more of an advantage to the employer than to the women workers, because there is less chance for women to unionize.
The employers are further served by the homework practice because it minimizes overhead and allows them to pay for work without taking into account the time spent.
If these trends continue, she said, the
Barbara Ehrenreich tells a packed crowd in the Big Eight Room that women are growing poorer in the United States. The speech, titled "Women and Children First: Our Struggle for Economic and Social Justice," was presented last night by Ehrenreich, the leader of the Democratic Socialists of America and contributing editor of Ms. magazine.
See RADICAL, p. 5
Broadcast head plans changes in radio station
By CAROLYN COLEMAN Staff Reporter
Your sound alternative, KJHK may sound the same, but new personnel in the broadcast department plan to make some changes in the University radio station.
Max Utsler, who became chairman of the broadcast program at the department May 15, said that the radio station should become more professional.
"The closer we can come to creating an on-the job situation at KJHK," he said, "the better it will be for the students and their future employers.
"THEY GAVE THE KJHK faculty advisor job to Sam Elliott before I got here, and he and I see eye-to-eye completely. He owns two radio stations — he's a professional. I said, 'take care of KJHK just like you take care of your two other radio stations'..."
While Elliott calls the music played at KJKH "disorganized, uncontrolled and purely determined by the disc jockey," he says that he does not plan to change it.
Elliott does plan to record and critique the disc jacks, and provide formal training for students who solicit underwriters. He says that news breaks will be shorter and more frequent, in keeping with the policy of similar commercial radio stations.
The big change at KJHK will be to have the news and programming staff in the same building.
"There's no possibility that we'd change the music; we're very proud of our music history!" said Gaeff Price, KJHK station manager. "We're nice calls KJHK a progressive music station
ANN MCKERCHER, a disc jockey and program director at the station, said. "We've cut the number of disc jockeys by half so that each one is responsible for two shifts. There will be more competition for shifts — the better people will be on the air."
Matt Kessler, Leawood junior and DJ at the station, said that KJHK will sound better with fewer disc jockeys.
Local preservation group rescues homes
See RTV. p. 5
By MICKI SAMPSON Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
But from the warped and splinter front porch, you could see little more than the overgrown bushes that had consumed what was left of the front lawn.
The view from the attic window of the old house was panoramic, stretching north to the west.
It was this old house, "which isn't really historically important or architecturally significant," Oliver Finney said, that captured the Lawrence Preservation Alliance into action.
YESTERDAY, REPRESENTATIVES from the LPA signed the closing papers to the house at 947 Louisiana St., closing the building. Members members have dubbed the "Louisiana Purchase."
Finney, LPA president, said that the "Louisiana Purchase" was a first, though somewhat atypical, move for the LPA, which included Louisiana's historic Preservation Week. May 9-14
This week, the five member LPA filed with the state to become a non-profit organization, enabling LPA to receive tax deductible contributions.
The board of directors of the LPA includes Finney, president; Karen Kressin, secretary; Marci Francisco, treasurer; Gienn Kappelmann and Richard Kershenbaum.
"It's surprising that we haven't gotten something going before." Francisco said.
OTHER GROUPS HAVE formed in the
other over specific issues, she said, but have not
formed over all.
After the group receives its non-profit status, it will decide how to solicit members and how to elect a new board of directors. Finney said.
"The method we used was really very unscientific," Finney said.
Until then, the board of directors will continue to conduct the LPA's business.
Board members called friends and people they thought would be interested in contributing, and asked them to loan from $100 to $1,000.
Within a week and a half, the group received $2,100 from private donors for the research.
DESPITE THE FIRST project, the LPA <sup>10</sup> not a restoration group, but an educational group that hopes to inform the public of the importance of restoration and encourage their restoration. Finney said.
"This shows that people are very concerned." he said.
encourage their resorption. Pinyin said,
his decay began, he said, in the 1950s and
1960s when the trend was to move from the city to the suburbs.
"In lots of other cities, older houses have since come back into favor." Finney said and then proceeded to write.
"When I started this I was really very angry," he said. "I suppose I am president because I was the angriest. I was hoping to get the president to point my finger at, but there isn't a villain."
"There comes a critical point where you either fix them up or they decay exponentially," he said. "Lots of us feel we are reaching that critical point."
THE VILLAMNS, he said, are lack of interest, knowledge, attention and organ-
For example, the LAPA offered homeowner Duane Sawada $21,000 for the "Louisiana Purchase," an amount, Finney said, that was slightly more than the land alone is worth.
During the past six months, the value of old houses has dropped to almost zero, he said
"It if there is enough interest, there will be enough people to get things done." Finney
The LPA's next meeting will be at 10 a.m., June 23, at Watkins Community Museum, 1047 Massachusetts St., where the group will present a work for resale of the "Louisiana Purchase."
Staff Reporter
C. D. Stovall is glancing over the life jackets and bowling balls when something caught his eye — a 3-foot-long piece of wood with three metal rings attached to it.
Stout dough will the plow woe for $2 at a
barnyard, Mills and Peggy
Hodges, 700 Loreal St.
"I used yokes like this about 40 years ago when I was cultivating corn fields. I think I'll use this one to hang some plants on the back porch." Stovall, Rural Route 2. said
Bargain hunters drawn to sales in search of unique purchases
BY LORI ELLIOTT Staff Reporter
Stovall and others find unique items that people no longer want by scouting through the classified ads and sorting through items at garage sales.
JULIE Skalla, Lawrence senior, began scouting sales with her father, who she said enjoyed looking for bargains and gifts.
"My father buys useless stuff like those glass things that come from the top of telephone poles, and then he gets excited when she gotten such a good deal." Skalla said.
"Those are the kinds of things that would
Skaina said that she liked buying clothes and kitchen utensils at garage sales.
end up in the next garage sale we had."
"The best thing I ever bought was a beige sweater with satin flowers and tiny rhinestones on it," she said. "I bought a waffle iron, too, but I haven't ever used it."
PEOPLE USUALLY HAVE garage sales when they have accumulated things they no longer use, Hodges said. Many times several people combine their accumulated items in one sale, put an ad in paper, and hope it doesn't rain, she said.
"I just keep replacing things and putting the old things in the basement," she said while pricing several unmarked items for her garage sale.
Vicki Benton, 2432 Morningside Drive,
said that she had recently moved to
Lawrence and needed to get rid of some
of the things she didn't have room for. Rows
Of Reader's Digest Condensed Books lined
the tables in her garage.
"I've been cleaning out my
bathroom, but I don't have
nothing for these books any more."
Lightning bolts light the sky behind Memorial Stadium. During a tornado watch last night, gusty winds blew through the Lawrence area.
Larry Weaver/KANSAN