NATIONAL & STATE NEWS

Shelters, Crisis Centers Fight Back on Records

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The subpoenaing of advocates and records of rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters has been increasing at an alarming rate over the last three years. This increased use of subpoenas by rapists, batterers and state agencies is proving dangerous to rape victims, battered women, and to the employees of crisis centers and shelters.

At least one rape crisis counselor has served 16 hours in jail for refusing to turn over a victim's records. Employees of battered women's shelters have been threatened with public exposure, thereby making them targets for retaliation by the batterer and his family and friends. Erosion of the confidential nature of communications between counselor/advocate and victim serves as a deterrent to the reporting of battering or rape, and thus harms all

women.

Legislation has been introduced in a few states to

provide for a crisis counselor-victim "privilege.' However, most rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters, and the women they assist, cannot yet depend on such legislative protections. Most subpoena cases have to be handled on an emergency basis without adequate preparation. Counselors and advocates face contempt of court, and victims face public exposure of traumatic and personal facts of their lives, under severe pressures and time constraints.

Because of the importance of this issue, four national organizations that assist battered women and rape victims jointly sponsored a conference April 7 to deal with this problem and develop national policies and strategies for the handling of subpoena cases. National guideline proposals for victims and those who assist them are expected soon as a result of the conference.

Barring of Ms. Allende Protested

(HerSay)--Congressmembers, as well as academic, professional and religious leaders, have joined in an outcry against the barring of Hortensia Allende from the United States.

Allende, the widow of slain Chilean President Salvador Allende, was recently denied a visa for her American visit on grounds that she is allegedly a "highly placed member" of the World Peace Council. The Council is a Helsinki, Finland-based group that the State Department charges has "direct" ties

to the Kremlin.

Allende was to speak at the Jesuit-run University of Santa Clara, San Francisco's Ecumenical Peace Council, and the San Francisco Bar Association in March. She also was scheduled to meet with San Francisco's Archbishop John Quinn and to be interviewed by the media there.

The State Department determined, however, that these events had "been determined to be prejudicial to American.interests."

Ex-Wives of Military Win Pension Rights

In September, 1982, former military wives won a significant victory when the President signed a law which overturns the Supreme Court's decision in McCarty v. McCarty and returns to state courts the power to decide whether military retirement benefits are marital property divisible at the time of the divorce. Effective February 1, 1983, the new statute reflects Congressional recognition of the reality of the marital partnership by according some legal recognition of the contribution made by both spouses in the acquisition of the pension benefits earned during the span of the marriage.

On June 26, 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McCarty that military retirement benefits are not marital property subject to state and local community property laws and therefore cannot be divided by a court upon divorce. Reviewing an appeal from a California court that a wife of 181⁄2 years was entitled to a portion of her husband's military retirement benefits earned primarily during the marriage, the Court found that permitting division of retirement benefits would increase the difficulty of recruiting new personnel as well as demoralize those already in the service.

The Supreme Court concluded that if a service member is involuntarily transferred to a state in which retirement pay is divided upon divorce, the value of that pay as inducement for enlistment or reenlistment will be diminished. The Court ignored Patricia McCarty's essential and valuable contributions to the mafriage and to her husband's ability to earn the pension benefits-she had taken care of

their house, their four children, and fulfilled the responsibilities of an officer's wife including

Uncle

wants you to keep it in the family

relocating her family seven times during the marriage.

For many years bills had been pending in Congress to recognize the right of a former military spouse to some part of the retirement benefits. The inequity reflected in the McCarty decision gave the push necessary to pass legislation making clear the marital property character of military pensions.

--The Women's Advocate March, 1983

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Hill Street Blahs

(HerSay)-If the women you see on television seem unrealistic, maybe it's because their lines are usually written by men. The Women's Committee of the Writers' Guild of America has just completed a study of the nearly 2,300 TV episodes aired between 1980 and 1982. The committee found that men racked up 2,700 writing credits during that time, while women accounted for only 655 credits. What's more, half the women's credits were amassed by a mere 44 writers.

Shows which listed no women writers at all for at least one season included "CHips," "Dukes of Hazzard," and the much-acclaimed "Taxi” and “Hill Street Blues."

Pink Collar Tracking

(HerSay)-Sexism is paving the road to poverty for women enrolled in New York City's vocational high schools, according to an education advocacy group called Full Access and Rights to Education Coalition. In a study released recently, the Coalition reported that male students dominated 12 of the city's 21 vocational schools, while women were in the majority at only five. At those five schools, the curriculum centered on what the Coalition calls "traditionally female" professions, such as cosmetology and stenography. "This segregartion by sex," concluded the Coalition, "plus the fact that women's work is traditionally undervalued, translates for women into low wages and, ultimately, into poverty."

Nurses Say "No"

(HerSay)-Seventeen thousand California nurses have made it clear they aren't eager to go if Uncle Sam calls. The Board of the California Nurses Association, which represents health workers all around the state, is informing its national organization, the American Nurses Association, that California nurses oppose any restoration of the draft. Should the draft be restored, the nurses' letter adds, it should apply only to "individuals that have constitutionally guaranteed equal rights.”

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The nurses' letter comes in the wake of revelations in March by columnist Ellen Goodman that the Defense Department is hoping to amend draft laws to require that all health care workers, both men and women, register with the Selective Service. The medical-draft proposal, Goodman reparts, put before Congress soon, as part of a new package. If passed, the measure would require and doctors between the ages of 18 and 46 to nj for the draft.

The San Francisco office of the Central Conszinse for Conscientious Objectors says the so-called, das tors draft" proposal has been in the works for veze time. The American Medical Association andoved the proposal last summer. It is an open sera, MRI Phyllis Larimore of the CCO, that the Áing Reserve is badly in need of 23 500 nurses. At na sad yet clear, however, how regis A) MITSES MÅVÄL alle the Army's nurse shortage.

O'Connor in 1984?

(HerSay) First, it was rumors of SÝKO Mayor Dianne Feinstein as a possible case, fals Pa the Vice Presidency, rumors Feinstein destes. Biyom lowa Representative James Leach, who honds 'u group of "progressive" Republicam, is touting Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for the nation's second highest elected office.

April-May, 1983/What She Wasis/Pass 3

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