Weep at What WEPP Has Found

By Mary Walsh

The Women's Equity Planning Project (WEPP), initiated by WomenSpace in cooperation with the Federation for Community Planning to identify, research and analyze the most important issues facing Cuyahoga County women, has completed a year of study and issued its Women's Action Agenda, a

suminary of a longer report. Funded by the Gund and Cleveland Foundations, WEPP was assisted by more than 100 women volunteer participants in its extensive attempt to recommend needed action on women's issues locally.

WEPP's report and its recommendations were made in 57 topical areas, including employment, human services, crisis aids, education, health and the justice system. The findings of the report are shocking, although unfortunately not surprising, and show that sexism is still deeply entrenched in all the local institutions studied. Portions of the Women's Action Agenda were recently presented at the Women's City Club, dramatically illustrated by speakers who had been victims of various forms of sexism and abuse.

The "justice" system, for example, is less than just to women, both in its criminal and civil branches. In 1977, WEPP found, 3,409 women were arrested for various offenses, most of them-such as welfare fraud and prostitution-connected with lack of money. Such women are unable to afford private attorneys and are assigned counsel by the court, who usually advise them to plead guilty. Since they cannot afford bail, these women may be incarcerated pending their plea or trial, with no provision made for care of the children they are supporting-occasionally they are led off to jail in handcuffs before their children's horrified eyes. If they are placed on probation, they are subject to invasions of their privacy and restrictions on their lives for years. As one woman, once jailed for theft, put it, "Isn't it strange that the society that ignored my poverty and my desperation now chooses not to ignore the words 'convicted felon' on my job resume? Yet society calls me the offender."

More developmental programs, such as the existing Female Offender Project, are needed to reintegrate these women into society. Other recom-mendations made by WEPP include more access to training programs, decriminalization of prostitution and welfare offenses, and childcare programs for the children of incarcerated women.

In the civil courts, women are most directly affected by the domestic relations division. Despite myths of extravagant alimony and large property settlements for women, the fact is that alimony is awarded in only about 10 percent of U.S. divorce cases and child support is difficult to collect. One

divorced woman told how her ex-husband, $7,000 behind in child support, threatened a custody suit if she attempted to enforce her rights, making her incur attorney fees which she could not afford. "Is that justice?" she asked. "I call it blackmail."

The median income for women heads of households is $5,900, and 19 percent of them live below the poverty line; many of these women are in this

S. Berdecia/Washington Square News/LNS

predicament because of inequitable support awards by the courts.

Recommendations in this area include influencing the courts to adopt more reasonable guidelines for property settlements and-support-awards,-and-find-'. ing ways to insure financial security for the custodial parent, such as requiring a security bond equal to one year's support.

Employment is another field where women suffer from sexist attitudes. Three-fourths of working women are in dead-end jobs, making less than $10,000 per year-some are actually eligible for welfare! On the average, a working woman makes $.57 for every $1.00 earned by a man, a figure that has actually decreased from ten years ago, when it was $.63.

Discrimination is also evident in the unequal treatment of women employees: one black woman bank teller, with years of excellent job ratings, told how she was fired in a matter of hours for "insubordination" to her male superior. She had openly been

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seeking advancement, without success.

In the area of employment, WEPP's recommendations include an "old girls' network," skills clearinghouses for women seeking employment, and enforcement of existing equal pay laws.

Women's health is also discussed in the report in many of its aspects: reproductive health such as abortion, menopause and sterilization abuse; the special needs of lesbians; and alcohol and/or drug abuse. Women must be more involved in research for their health needs, and must assert their rights as consumers and patients to information about alternative treatments and the effects of various medications. Medicine must be demystified, and more emphasis

placed on education for wellness.

As to human services and crisis aids, WEPP recommends that many more be established to deal with the appalling amount of violence toward women, especially in such areas of family rape. The extent of this problem is just beginning to be recognized: one in every four women is a victim of family rape but, as a woman repeatedly raped by her stepfather beginning when she was 6 said, "Secrecy. enslaves us to our pain. We keep the secret because we are afraid to be hurt more, I ecause we see no way out-because we protect those we love and learn to sacrifice ourselves." Far more counseling of victims, programs and education of the community are needed to aid the countless victims of the many forms of violence.

Attitudes are formed young, and the WEPP Education Task Force found that elementary school readers still abound in stereotypes which reinforce sexist beliefs. More women, especially minority. women, must enter all phases of education, and a centralized service-should-be established in Cuyahoga County to disseminate non-sexist materials.

The above are but brief glimpses of the farreaching recommendations made by the WEPP report. The big question remains: Will these recommendations be implemented, and if so, how? Most of the problems and solutions dealt with in the report have been recognized for years, and progress has been painfully slow. WEPP plans to distribute its report to "persons of good will" in hopes that individuals, groups and associations will voluntarily undertake to make the recommendations a reality. WSW hopes fervently that this will happen-but we won't hold our breath.

Copies of the report and the Women's Action Agenda can be obtained from WomenSpace, 1258 Euclid Avenue, or the Federation for Community Planning, 1001 Huron Road.

NATIONAL

MARCH AND RALLY March 22, 1980 Washington, D.C.

Join thousands of us to raise our voices against the threat of registration, conscription, and a new cold war. Put the politicians on notice that the draft is a losing issue. in 1980. We can stop registration and the draft.

Sponsors are: United States Student Association, Democratic Socialis Organizing Comittee, Americans for Democratic Action, Mobilization for Survival, Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters League, SANE, Students for a Libertarian Society, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. In cooperation with the Committee Against Registration and the Draft.

Endorsing groups include: Boston Alliance Against Registration and the Draft, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Chicago Area Coali tion Against Registration and the Draft, Jewish Peace Fellowship, Lutheran Peace Fellowship, New Patriot Alliance, New York Coalition Against Registration and the Draft, Student Association of the State University of New York, Womens Strike for Peace, Women USA.

Organized nationally by: March 22 National Mobilization Against the Draft, 853 Broadway, Room 801, New York, N.Y. 10003, Organized locally by: Cleveland Mobilization Against the Draft.

Watch for local leaflets and posters for transportation information. Round trip bus fare will be approximately $30. Buses will leave CSU at 11 p.m. on March 21 and will return after midnight on March 22. Carpools are also organizing.

For further information and bus reservations, call: 231-4263 (Jim), 843-8776 (Dave-CSU), 67 372109 (Don-CWRU).

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