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University Daily Kansan, August 27, 1981
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Opinion
An unsupported shelter
Budget-cutting may be fun, if you're David Stockman. It may even be for the "good of the country."
For the women of Lawrence and Douglas County whose lives are filled with pain and fear of violent mates, however, budget-cutting is neither fun nor good. In fact, it may be awful.
Saving tax money is beautiful in black and white, but budget cuts filter down to people and sometimes they leave scars.
The end of the Law Enforcement Administration and CETA, two victims of belt-tightening, has stopped the flow of federal money to the Women's Transitional Care Services in Lawrence, and the center may close its doors this fall as a result.
A plea has gone out to WTCS supporters for five monthly contributions of $10 to keep the center operating until January, when help from alternative funding sources, private grants and state aid is expected to replein澈 emoils coffers.
WTCS will receive $12,071 from Douglas County, $6,500 from the city of Lawrence
and $5,000 from the United Fund beginning next year, but only $5,000 is left for the remaining months of 1981.
If the help from supporters isn't forthcoming, volunteer phone counseling will continue, but the center, which in the words of a former resident provided "a place to stay without the pressure of bills and grocery so that I could get my life together again," may shut down temporarily.
The center's offerings of shelter, food, transportation, emotional support and practical assistance will not be there for those who need to reassemble shattered lives. There will be no haven, no refuge from terror for women and their children.
WTCs's funding gap is a troubling example of the effect of snap budget cuts on communities. The "fat" of slashes in social services often translates into vital help at the local level.
In Washington, the cuts are easy to make. In Lawrence, they're pretty tough to take.
ERA grist for dreamers without attitude changes
The Equal Rights Amendment will not be ratified by the June 30, 1982, deadline.
It's frightening that such a basic right is under the law would be questioned in this freeway.
Unfortunately, this country is not ready for equality for all its citizens. The reluctance of individual state legislators might appear the major barrier to the ERA, but for it to ever have the power to pass laws with national attitudes toward women must change. Instead of going forward, this country is regressing.
When the ERA was proposed in 1972, supporters were optimistic. Many states ratified the amendment quickly.
KARI
ELLIOTT
Now, 35 of the necessary 38 states have passed their ratifications. Sixteen of those rescinded their ratifications. One step backward.
Then Ronald Reagan, who opposes the amendment but supports equal rights in principle, was elected president. Half a step backward.
Reagan did nominate a woman as a Supreme Court justice, but now he wants to ease or eliminate federal regulations concerning sexual harassment in the workplace, hiring discrimination and in the education of Education's Title IX rule among others. One steer forward and two stews backward.
The administration wants to lighten the "burden" of regulations inflicted upon business, industry and local governments, and save money by using more efficient keeping and by cutting bureaucratic red tape.
A presidential task force could wipe away many of the gains made by the civil rights and women's movements over the last 15 years if they were seen as too burdensome. But, then, how could rules that promote equality and civil rights be a burden?
One man, even the president, cannot alone bring a reform that millions of men and women support.
The administration is not the only one underminding the Equal Rights Amendment. A Kansas City television station recently dealt a blow to women's equality when it fired a woman newscaster after a survey revealed that she was not attractive enough and that she did not defer
to her male colleagues. One giant leap backward.
How can we expect the ERA to be passed when a woman's job still depends upon how she looks and dresses?
If viewers want a kewpie book who reads well and makes cute comments, they can change the font.
Female television journalists are criticized if they are not immaculately dressed, if their hair isn't perfect, if they are too old or too fat. These female critics applications to women, but not men.
The television public doesn't see too many gray-haired, fat or wrinkled women newscasters, although these physical characteristics on men indicate authority and wisdom. Would a woman as rotund as Today's Willard Scott be hired? Probably not.
More insidious are the pervasive forms of subtle discrimination that slip into the public's subconscious as stereotypes but later come to mind as accepted norms.
For example, women in television commercials often are shown as more concerned with cleaning, cooking and beauty than with work or corporate mergers. Another step backward.
One of the most powerful influences affecting equality is language. Not only are women excluded from our language, a double standard exists. Two stems backward.
Admittedly, "chairperson" or "congressperson" graze on the ear, but there is no reason why "police officer" shouldn't be used as "foreman," or "supervisor" instead of "foreman."
A more blatant inequality exists but cannot be corrected with a modification of the term. For example, an unmarried man is a "bachelor," which comnotes a fun-loving, youthful swinger. A married woman, a "spinster"—conjures up a without an untractive person knitting in a rocking chair.
Other language differences accentuate semantic biases. "Man's work" is important, "woman's work" is frivolous. Quet men are designed as 'caustic', but similar women are "timid".
If proponents of the ERA want the amendment ratified, marches and legislative lobbying are only the beginning. They must protest blases in the media, employment and even TV commercials.
Without these small protests and complaints, society's attitude toward women will not change.
Pity Bani-Sadr, washed up in Paris
I feel sorry for Abolhassan Bani-Sadr
Now, I know it's not in vogue to sympathize with Iranian bigwigs. Even former Iranian bigwigs who were bitten by the same hand that fed them. But the thought of lonely old France is frightening. In France, with nothing to eat except chocolate cake, is kind of sad. Yes, even to Americans.
I'm not alone, either. Evidently, some of his fellow Iranians still support him; there are a few in Iran still humming "Bring Back My Bani to Me." But as you may have noticed this past summer, the few are rapidly becoming fewer.
He spent most of the summer—since he was kicked out of office, anyway—in hiding, where he vowed to make a comeback. Yep, he said, of 'black eyes and black moustache would be back. He promised to bring Iran back to him. Can't you just see Bani-Sadr, saddred in a black leather jacket, cruising around Tehran on his motorcycle? Heyyyyy!
Oh, sure, we as Americans can smirk at Bani-Sadr's troubles. After all, this is the same guy who weekly stood by while hundreds of shah supporters were executed. Now he's appalled to see that Bani-Sadr supporters are being executed, also by the hundreds. (This differs from KU, where all we have are athletic supporters.)
Now, you probably remember Bani-Sadr as the middle-of-the-roader during the tumultuous Iranian revolution. To many, he seemed wishy-washy; one day, he'd plea for a hostage crisis, and the next day, it'd be, "America, your sister sleeps with wart hogs."
But in fairness to the man, it's obvious that he was caught between opposing political
forces. And that was Bani-Sadr's basic problem—he was never in control. From one side, this Col. Klink figure was manipulated by the clergy, who were hell-bent to make people good Moslems, if they had to kill everybody to do it. And from the other side, he
DON
MUNDAY
was pressured by those who just liked to torture people, but who hadn't gotten their freedom.
But most of all, Bani-Sadr ran into trouble because he never seemed to understand what the rest of us knew all along—that Uncle Khominiw was (and still is) a space cadet. He was an expert at that behind the shaggy beard and glassy eyes were geraniums in the cranium.
Now, however, from the comfort and safety of French soil, Bani-Sadi sees things diffi- cultively. He clearly now the reign has gone. He decries that the rejection and repression of the ayatollah, Saints alive!
I remember the days when he'd say all those same nasty things about America. But then, I doubt that he was creative enough to think them up for himself. I'll bet he had speechwriters to think up phrases like "gravy-sucking pig" and "foul stinking dog" and "great Satan." (That last one would make a niffy name for a rock group.)
And after all, if I ban-Sadr had been smart, he might have brightened the words "Death to America" and renamed it "Death to America."
But unlike smart political exiles, who take
their nations' treasures with them when they leave, Bani-Sadi is not a millionaire. He's just an ordinary fellow who would have been perfectly happy selling shoes in a backwoods town, filling mail but what instead got caught up in international politics. He just got in over his head.
That's precisely why I can sympathize with him. He's the type who probably took bodybuilding courses when he was a kid so bullies wouldn't kick sand in his face when he went to the beach. And, I suspect, many of his current problems date back to his troubled childhood.
Take his name, for instance. The other children no doubt taunted him with chants like, "Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, takes his bath in river water." Poor kid. Look at his inexperience, going down the street, and some inconsiderate person would shout out, "He,vey there's B.I."
And let us not forget all the good things he did. He, more than anyone else except maybe Steve Martin, brought back Groucho glasses. (In fact, I suspect he was elected on sympathy votes when people realized he really looked like that.) Look at how he boosted sales of American flags (and Bic lighters) back during those crazy demonstration days. And I hear that every April, he dressed up like the Easter-Bani just to please the kids.
Fortunately, Bani-Sadr is alive and living in Auvers-sur-Oise, despite the best efforts of Tehran prosecutors, who want to give him a trial and then lop off his head. The president's body, he says he wants in exile until his triumphant return to Iran. Say, that'a familiar story, isn't it?
Poor dejected Bani-Sadr. I feel so sorry for him.
But then, maybe not too sorry.
Letters to the Editor
University badly out of step on computer enrollment
To the editor:
Having once again braved the perils of juggernautism, I asked why ask why school of this size and
prestige continued to use an archaic and inept system. When nearly every school of any appreciable size has moved to computerized enrollment and some form of scheduling control, it seems strange that KU has resisted the temptation to move into the last half of the 20th century by doing so as well.
Could the reason for this frustrating nostalgia be that it costs too much or could it be that the alumni who endow KU so generously feel that if they have a need, then they, it is good enough now? Neither of these
reasons seems likely. Rather, it is more probable that no one in a position to change the registration process feels that it is really necessary.
Those who have this opinion are not accompanied in their belief by students, who actually have to go through registration from semester to semester. Perhaps a poll of the students who responded would serve to at least promote a feasibility system of conversion to a more efficient system.
Michael B. Place Abilene senior
The University Daily
KANSAN
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Editor Scott C. Faust Business Manager Larry Lehbergood Managing Editor Robert J. Schaudman Campus Editor Robert Tarney Editorial Editor Katy Brussel Associate Campus Editor Katy Permanick Associate Campus Editors Kate Pound, Gene George Assignment Editor Cynthia L. Currier Air Doubler Scott Looker Head Copy Chief Dunday Head Copy Chief Pinoward, Vanessa Hervon Entertainment Editor Karen Schulmer Trevor Hamilton Associate Sports Editor Ron Baglatt Cindy Campbell, Amy Collins Copy Chefs Jane Bryan, Mary Mag Retail Sales Manager Terry Knobler National Sales Manager Judy Caldwell Clausell Manager Marianne Jacobsen Production Manager Ann Horberger Teenbeets Manager John Egan Staff Artist John Keating Staff Photographer Gey Hoenk Retail Representatives Melissa Rader, Jan Johnson, Kelly McCarthy Leslie Ditch, Reese Youre, Barry Carpenter, Barbara Bodin Howard Shilsky, Brad Leng, Jane Lang John Obernan General Marketing Adviser John Obernan General Marketing and News Advisor