I
Friday, September 21, 1973
University Daily Kansas
A Mundane War
Cautious advice for journalists eddies through Flint Hall. Be terse, be accurate, be fair in your writing. Eliminate personal pronouns from editorials. Identify sources plainly to build credibility.
All of that is standard counsel. This year, however, a new admonition has been added: don't sound off too much about women's liberation. The libbers are touchy this year.
Women's liberation. Personal pronouns. Bah!
My wife was picking nits the other day about women and their freedom, or lack of it, as she enjoys phrasing it.
"You know me, I'm not a libber," she murred.
"Uh-huh," I said, and snapped open another can of the beverage that goes well with cigarettes and football games.
"Veah. veah."
"Really," she said. "Why can't we talk about my job sometime? All I hear is Kansan this, Kansan that, Baloney."
She gave me a sour look—she's very accomplished at that—and retreated to her sewing machine.
"Women's liberation," I thought. The term even sounds aggressive. "Women's rights" is worse. That sounds like a new kind of hard love.
In the past 10 years, women have concocted an incredible determination to obtain women's rights. They're lobbying for small-time concessions, either
The New Woman talks about employment rates and dispenses statistics like baseball wizard Nigel Ferguson ("find her own identity") and be regarded as something more than a child-producer. She not only wants
men to admit her to the corporate dogfight, she wants to win the fight.
But not at the expense of her privileges. Ladies' nights at baseball games and in bars are agreeable. She still is not afraid to talk but has made the door for her and sanitize their language when in her presence.
And I haven't met but one woman in 10 years who has offered to split the cost of a date. That particular woman may have other reasons, for comparison.
While this sugar-coated revolution has been building, men have been quietly turning into chairperson chickens. Yes, dear.
No dear. Certainly it's unnatural to work with women's liberation professor.
I popped out of my reflective soliloquy and went into the kitchen of my apartment. One must begin to think, where isn't aesthetically pleasing.
As Shakespeare wrote, "There is a tide in the affairs of men. ..."
"What happened?" my wife in an agitated voice from the baggage
I grabbed a still-wet dish and
heated it with broke with a
realy heart-warming
"Dropped the damn thing," I muttered cryptically. She came rushing out. Good Lord, maybe I had dropped the M vase.
"Just trying to help," I explained. She gave me a sour look that completely outdid the first one.
Not very original, you say? Of course not, it's a mundane war.
Tomorrow night I am going to drop the Ming vase.
Chuck Potter
Campus Editor
Feminist Therapists Offer Options
By AILEEN JACOBSON
Women Still Struggling to Surmount Barriers
The Was Mngton Post (Second of two parts)
"After first-term finals, Anne finds
atself at the top her医学校~school.
Psychologist Matina Horner, now president of Radcliffe College, asked a group of female undergraduates to complete the story. A typical response:
"Anee doesn't want to be number one in her class. She feels she shouldn't rank so high because of social reasons. She drops the ball and then surprises the boy who graduates number one."
Feminist complaints don't seem unusual or shocking anymore. They've become the norm in many cities.
short-term groups in the evenings. Jean P蒂erson, a clinical psychologist with the group who is also president of the Philadelphia chapter of NOW, explains, "We have a whole different set of values operating in the group. The women have permission to be all sorts of things they want. Women who have romantic relationships are so phony now, the women find it difficult to be straight even in the groups."
—In Washington a dozen women, most of them not professional therapists, have formed the Ferminist Counseling Collective as part of the Washington area Women's Center. This group is professional feminist therapist and consulting regularly with professionals, they
"Bright women fear success . . ."
women have been able to surmount all barriers easily, as Matina Horner's study shows. Bright women fear success, she often don't achieve it because of that fear.
It hasn't been easy for women to break down barriers in the psychology-related professions, either. Karen Horney, an instructor at the University of Toronto, the founder of the present movement toward a feminist psychology, was objecting in the 1920s that Freud's view of feminine development "differs in no case by a hair's length" from the typical ideas that the boy has had "girl's hair."
ACROSS THE COUNTRY, therapists are identifying themselves as feminists—sometimes even on their calling cards. Four years ago, a group of women within the international association met the Association for Women Psychologists, which maintains a suite and holds women's caucuses and "rap" sessions at events. The professional organization for psychologists.
Almost half a century later, New York psychiatrist Natalie Shainness was derosing Freudian psychology as an important development of all feminine potentials.
As Pat Webbink puts it, "There's more going on in the women's movement in this area than in any of the professional organizations."
A SAMPLING OF the activities within the movement:
But most effective so far has been the forming of "collectives"—some with paraprocessions and other totally new entities into action and to develop further, theory.
—new York City has one of the oldest of the "collectives," which calls itself the Feminist Psychology Cation—four women who interview therapists, both male and female. They call them "nonsexist" for their referral list. Ninety-three therapists (two of them men) are on the list now, and hundreds of women have been referred. The National Organization for Women's Rehabilitation referral list, Robin Posin, a psychologist with the coalition, calls its feminist therapy 'rehabilitation.' We are helping women learn skills that boys learn when they are girls. We are also developing the strength to live as 'deviants' from society, because society is crazy."
—The Feminist Therapy Collective of Philadelphia is a group of eight women, all illuminated by the power of the human spirit.
offer problem-solving groups for women, rare here because Washington, like most cities smaller than New York, has cultivated few professional feminist therapists.
THEY ALSO FIND A POSITIVE side to the idea of "peer" counseling; "Sisters Helping Sisters," not totally dependent on the education-and-crediential system, and less fear of professional "authority" than if the group leader is a lay counselor.
(A recent sign that feminist therapy is gaining respectability; the "collective" has been invited to present a workshop before the prestigious Orthophysiatric Association's convention in San Francisco next April.)
In Amherst, Mass., about 30 women, almost all professional counselors with widely divergent theoretical backgrounds, have been meeting since mid-April as the Amherst Area Feminist Counseling Alliance. The close-knit group is an outgrowth of a weekend workshop held at Everywoman's Center in Boston, one of the few times that therapist from different areas have been in direct communications.
—The Boston area, perhaps because it, like Amerethir, has a large concentration of young women fresh out of or still in universities, supports three feminist therapy endeavors. The Harvard-Epworth Women's Health Center, at the Harvard-Epworth Church, provides individual and group therapy. The Somerville Women's Health Center, run by a "collective" of women with professional degrees, is training women to become paraprofessionals with a feminist outlook. The Women's Center in Cambridge runs a women's center for training women who compiled a list of about 15 feminist therapists in the Boston area.
- The Association for Women in Psychology publishes a feminist therapist roster, which gives names, addresses and information about private therapists and groups across the nation that consider themselves females. (The pamphlet is available for 35 cents from Know, Inc., P.O. Box 8001 Pittsburgh, PA 15214.) This book is briefly being edited by Annette Brodsky of the University of Alabama psychology department.)
Most will admit, in fact that having a good therapist—a competent, compassionate human being—is more important for a patient than having a feminist one.
ONE OF THE MAIN CRITICISMS that can be made of feminist therapist is that women are not supposed to make decisions.
Pat Webbink explains it this way: “Be a feminist means taking care of yourself as a woman. It means being strong and not using violence or going to some goals. So, really, many therapists are more focused on work. But some have biases about women and are doing things that are, in fact, anti-therapeutic. If a therapist can accept a woman’s strengths, but many can’t, so they pat women down.
The extra perspective she feels she can add, as a feminist therapist, are her friends and 'how people are stuck in roles—both men and women' she believes she has more alternatives to offer.
"For instance, one woman wanted her husband to take their children when they went shopping; she was lucky to have me as a therapist. Another woman thought she was inadequate as a mother not to have taken custody of the children," she said, and suggested that child care be divided equally.
Feminist therapists have received criticism from some radical quarters for being "counter-revolutionary"-leading women away from the political into the personal, defusing anger and focusing attention on personal rather than societal problems. To whom Lynda Weston, a white woman of Welsh descent, group, replies: "You've got to get your head together before you can be effective in the movement."
Whether what is happening in some spots around the country between feminist therapists and patients is to be a permanent, well-established branch of psychological theory—like, say, tranquility, Gestall—and or merely a fad is yet to be seen.
Unlike the schools founded by Eric Brenner or Car Rogers, feminist theory has no gurk, no top man (till now, it's always been a man) to organize the new theory and to write a book about it that can be used in college courses or become a bestseller.
It differs from the other branches, too, because it has its roots not so much in psychological theory as in theories developed in the women's movement.
Because it is different in these ways, it may not evolve as a separate theory at all.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Bicycle Information Questionnaire
News adviser .. Susanne Shaw
Editor .. Bob Simison
A public hearing on bicyclists' needs will be at 7 p.m. Monday in the city hall meeting room on the 4th floor of the First National Bank Building at 9th and Massachusetts streets. The hearing will be conducted by the city's traffic safety commission.
We are collecting information that will enable us to assess present and future needs for such things as street markings, signs and racks.
To assure safer bicycling and to improve the quality of facilities for bicyclists, your effort is needed. Please complete the questions below and check back later.
M. Otte Bicycle C
c-0 SUA
Kansas Memorial Union
Campus
miles for recreation weekly.
1. 1 bicycle    miles to work        times weekly.
    miles to shop         times weekly.
    miles to school       times weekly.
    miles for recreation weekly.
2. What are the principal streets you use for bicycling?
1. When you get into the permit section you use for the riding:
    miles on
    miles on
miles on
3. Reasons for bicycling on the above streets (rate as follows: 3-very important, 2-moderately important, 1-not important)
most direct route . . . least motor vehicle conflict . . .
best road surface . . . least cross traffic . . .
best hilly . . . most scenic . . .
fewest stop signs . . . other . .
4. In what area(s) of campus do you usually park your bicycle?
5. Can you always find available space to park and lock your bicycle?
lack of space...facilities full
If not, is it because of lack of facilities (rack space, etc.), or are the facilities full?
6. Please offer other suggestions that might help to improve the quality of biking on campus and in and around the town of Lawrence.
Editor's note: This form is provided as a public service, in the hope that concerned bicyclists at KU will act immediately to help lessen the con-
tention.
Unsung Workers' Blues
Have-Nots or Had-Its?
By WARREN BERRY
NEW YORK—President Nixon discovered there was such a thing as a blue collar worker the day he had to send out for a TV show, in the middle of a Washington Redskin game.
That was the cynical story making the sounds in labor-liberal circles when, three years ago, she surprised its critics with a sensitive study on the growing bitterness among blue collar
its analysis was excellent; its remedies were something else. One of the more concrete suggestions was that perhaps the unique worker out a stamp honoring the unusual worker.
The blue collar revolt is something more than postage-stamp size today. In fact even the union that represents more of this breed than any other, the United Auto Workers (UAW), is discovering that wage hikes are not enough.
As the negotiating sessions with the 127,500-member Chrysler unit went to the wire, management was finding that union leaders were willing to live within a rough 5.5 to 6 per cent wage increase guideline; but they were adamant on their members' right to refuse to work more than 40 hours as they would have been paid. The union also insists that it—not just the bosses—has the right to post men in each plant to set health and safety conditions.
EVEN WITH ITS IMAGE as a "socially progressive union" in terms of enhancing the dignity of the worker and things like its own, its finding that many of its more vocal locals are not working that work be improved, slowed down and what the social psychologists call enriched.
It was the lack of "enrichment" that caused the union to call its first national congress.
THESE INCREASESLY DOMINANT demands stem from widespread rank-and-file unabpiness over jobs, and are exerted by the executive leadership of General Motors and Ford negotiations.
The outside experts know that the American worker is unhappy. When Harold L. Sheppard of the W. E. Uplogin Institute for Employment Research set out to study how people could be possible to record real differences, with the professions and the skilled trades on top (where not more than 1 in or 10 in 20 says he is dissatisfied) and the clerks, secretaries and retail workers at the bottom (where not more than 1 in or six in openly register unhappiness).
AT THE UNIVERSITY of Michigan's Survey Research Center, which provided the data for many of Sheppard's contributions, also showed attitudes that showed the unhappiest ones were in the two categories called "operatives" and "non-farm laborers", which would include many of the assembly workers up on the United Auto Workers membership.
At Michigan, analyst Robert Quinn said that an update of the original 1969 survey would be out in two months and probably would not show any significant changes in
attitudes. There are some who take signs like that as an indication that worker unrest is about to occur.
BUT THAT DOEEN'T seem to be modifying those UAW members (who are not in the AFL-CIO anyway) in place like the much-publicized Lordstown plant of Chevrolet. The assertions of "workers' rights"—even to owning a piece of the action, as some would put it—are rapidly becoming top UAW policy.
Since neither traditional union chiefs nor administration experts seem to know how to deal with or even measure this seeming workers' revolt, one thing is sure: The workers will continue the worker productivity for the sake of curbing inflation will be an early casualty.
President Nixon has presented the old Puritan "work ethic" as a keystone in his plan to get what he considers to be a permissive nation moving again. But belt-tightening and other last things on the minds of the men and women who man the nation's factories.
Adjusting to the Bicycle Boom
Readers Respond
To the Editor:
According to an article in the University Daily Kansan of Friday, September 14, Security and Parking Director John Thomas is concerned about traffic and safety problems created by bicycles on campus.
I am also concerned with these problems and have come to the conclusion that motorists, as well as bicyclists, must be aware of the rules of safe driving.
Some of the problems involving bicycles are the result of the fact that a number of motorists do not pay attention to bicycles. In addition, many motorists do not know how to react when approaching (or passing) a bicycle.
IN SOME CASES, bicyclists break the law because of a fear of motor vehicles. For example, some may ride on a campus sidewalk in front of a bird-breast bicycle, but the bicycles more visible.
Let's try not to blame too many campus traffic problems on bicycles. In general it is automobile owners who drive as well as bicyclists. After all, the speed limit on Jayhawk Boulevard is 20.
Griff and the Unicorn
by Sokoloff
Next Monday the Lawrence Traffic and Safety Commission is holding an open meeting to discuss the marking of bicycle lanes throughout the city. Now would be a good time for concern at the university of Kansas to start working for the cause of bicycle safety.
I CAN SUGGEST a number of steps that might be taken:
—Produce statistics on numbers of bicycles entering campus (going past traffic control booths) to provide the city statistics of bicycle flow to and from campus.
I
in view of the preceding, I believe that a position of safety education would be advisable to the student.
OF COURSE I REALIZE that some bicyclists do not obey the law.
mph, a speed easily attained by a modern bicycle. Most cars passing bicycles are not.
- Remove parking places from campus
access and provide bicycle lanes in place of the
parking space.
-Provide more bicycle parking areas on campus with racks to which bicycles can be securely locked. This would make the campus look better too.
I think that all members of the University community can benefit by an increased awareness of proper safety, Bicyclists, motorists and pedestrians will all benefit from an educational program stressing the movement of the routes of travel on campus.
—Close Jayahawk Boulevard to automobile traffic.—This would be a boon to people living near the airport.
Kenneth Lister
-Prepare an educational booklet on bicycle safety which can be distributed to persons buying bicycle licenses on campus and to those obtaining car registrations.
Reinhold Lester Chairman, Transportation Committee Mount Oread Bicycle Club
- Enforce the laws for bicyclists (running stop signs, etc.) and for motorisers (speeding, turning in front of bicycles, forcing bicyclists off the road, etc.).
Western Civ
your sept. 19 ediorial, "Western Civ.
(YAWN)," presented a most interesting and,
in my opinion, unwarranted condemnation of the academic abilities and motivations of virtually all KU students with the exception of seniors like yourself).
To the Editor:
However, my primary concern is that your editorial promulgates a widespread misconception regarding the Western Civilization requirement.
WC Program Discussion I & II are not sophomore requirements as you imply. In fact, these courses are not requirements at all. They do not even appear on the list of recommended freshman-sophomore programs or the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The College's requirement is that B.A. students must successfully complete sometime before graduation either (1) the WC Comprehensive Exam, or (2) WC Lecture Discussion III & IV. If the student has failed the comprehensive exam, then he has the further option of taking advantage of one or both of the course courses, WC1 & I.
Although these courses are still listed for freshman-sophomore credit, they may be taken at any time during a student's unanticipated term. In addition, stipulation in the College's regulations is that a student who elects to take a WC II exam is required to comprehensive exam that same semester.
I will be the first to emphasize your editorial right to argue your view, but it does not entitle you to present the obligation to present the facts accurately. Your editorial creates an unfortunate confusion regarding the actual requirements and the options available to the student.
Mike Ducey
Senior Instructor
Western Civilization