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THE COMPLEAT ARGUMENT
Women’s Lib, Pro Con
By Lynne Menefee
(NC News Service)
Heated arguments about
the Women’s Liberation
Movement probably ruined
more dinner parties last year
than anything else.
In the interests of better
diggestion, therefore, NC
News presents The Compleat
Argument.
Next time the subject
comes up, the hostess should
have this article under her
guests’ noses, consider that
everything is taken care of,
and go on to something easier
- like the Vietnam war, or
integration or the stock
market.
“Con” is a man who is
strongly opposed to women’s
equality. “Pro” is an avid
feminist.
Here we go:
CON: You don’t believe in
all that Women’s Lib rot, do
you?
PRO: Don’t be silly. Of
course I do.
CON: Women, women,
Never change. Talk a lot, cost
a lot, and get nowhere.
PRO: We’d make perfect
lawyers, then.
CON: You couldn’t handle
law. Women are simpler than
men.
PRO: I thought women
were supposed to be
complicated, mysterious, and
impossible to understand.
CON: That’s different.
Anyhow, most of ’em don’t
want all this equal pay.
Women’s income is a luxury.
They don’t need all that
money! They’ve got husbands
to support ’em. But men have
dependents that they have to
support.
PRO: Do you pay all your
male workers according to
how much they need? Does a
cab driver with six kids earn
more than a bachelor
executive? Paying people
only what they need sounds
faintly Marxist to
me. . . .Anyhow women work
because they have to, to
support themselves or to help
their husbands out. Nobody
works in a factory for fun -
CON: Wait a minute.
Women do the work they do
because they’re better at it.
Secretaries, for instance -
women have more dexterity,
everybody knows that.
PRO: Then why aren’t all
brain surgeons and jet pilots
women? I’d rather have a
dexterous brain surgeon
working on me than a clumsy
one. That’s just an excuse to
keep women in clerking jobs.
CON: Women couldn’t do
important things. They’re
absent from the job too
often, for one thing.
PRO: The U.S.
Department of Labor says
women are absent less than
men on the same job, even
including pregnancy leaves!
CON: I don’t believe it.
PRO: Complain to the
Labor Department, then.
They did the surveys.
CON: Anyway, women are
too unstable. They’re more
emotional than men.
PRO: Come on, now. The
only boss I ever had who,
when he got mad, pulled the
telephone out of the wall and
threw it at an employee -
that wasn’t a woman! Less
emotional, my foot. And as
for unstable, men have to be
committed to mental
hospitals more than twice as
often as women in the same
age group, and they commit
suicide three times as often.
Unstable?
CON: I suppose that’s
Labor Department statistics?
PRO: No, that’s Health,
Education and Welfare.
CON: You think you know
everything. Everybody knows
women can’t do everything
men can do! Women are too
passive! They can’t make
decisions! They’re weak!
PRO: Now, now, Don’t get
emotional.
CON: That’s why there are
special protective laws for
women, not for me a
Weight-lifting, for instance.
You can’t lift the same
weights.
PRO: I know. In Virginia,
it’s illegal to hire a woman on
a job where she might have to
lift 15 pounds or more.
Fifteen pounds is the weight
of the average 3-month-old
baby. It’s considerably less
that the weight of a sofa or a
full wash-bucket, or two bags
of groceries. Of course,
nobody gets paid for lifting
things at home so the
protective laws don’t apply
there.
CON: But there are other
laws - against overtime and
night work, for instance.
PRO: At your house, who
gets up in the night to feed
the baby? Who averages 99.6
hours of work a week in the
house? You?
CON: Labor Department?
PRO: No, a Chase
Manhattan Bank survey.
CON: But cooking and
cleaning house, that’s
women’s work; like
machinery is men’s work.
PRO: Then how come the
bakers in baking factories are
all men, and the packers -
who run and feed the packing
machinery - are all women?
Because bakers have more
pleasant working conditions
and higher pay, that’s why.
How come night scrubwomen
are women, but daytime
janitors are men? How come
cooking at fancy hotels is
men’s work?
CON: In the home, I mean,
cooking is women’s work.
PRO: Right, In the home,
nobody pays for it.
CON: Well, one thing’s
sure: no woman will ever be
President. They just can’t run
things; it would be a rotten
mess.
PRO: You mean with a
woman President, we might
have pollution, race riots,
inflation, unemployment,
drugs, colleges falling apart,
soaring crime rates - maybe
even a land war in Asia?
CON: Now, wait a minute!
You’re missing the point.
You still can’t do some
things. Take football; you’d
get killed on a football field.
It’s better for you if you
aren’t permitted to do it.
PRO: If we had equal
rights I could apply for a
PAGE 3 — January 21,1971
DATELINE: U.S.A. — This women's Liberation demonstration
in Washington earlier this year gives clear statement of the
position as fullback with the
Washington Redskins, but I’d
be hired on ability alone. And
I doubt Vince Lombardi
would have hired a
105-pound fullback in high
heels, regardless of sex. You
don’t have much competition
to be afraid of there. Besides,
equal rights will go both
ways, and open up new jobs
for men too. This means you
too can be a typist!
CON: If women are so
equal, why should we open
doors for them and all that?
Don’t you want men to be
courteous to you?
PRO: Sure, but only if you
don’t put a price tag on it.
For equal pay - $2,000 a
year more in salary - I’ll open
my own doors.
CON: But women in
business are too pushy.
PRO: How come an
innovative woman is pushy,
but an innovative man is
original? How come an angry
woman is a screecher but an
angry man is indignant? How
come an insistent woman is
hysterical but an insistent
man is a go-getter?
CON: What I mean is,
women in business -- they
aren’t feminine.
PRO: And if we’re
feminine, somebody’s sure to
say we’re playing up to the
boss. Either way we lose, so
feminist view on the subject as
Lynne Menefee. (NC PHOTO)
we might as well lose with
higher pay.
CON: You’re not being
reasonable. Women can’t even
drive cars very well, let alone
rule the world.
PRO: The AMA says
women are better drivers than
men because we’re less
emotional about it. The
Highway Department says
men have far more accidents,
especially fatal ones.
Insurance companies often
charge higher premiums for
men than for women. Who
can’t drive?
CON: You still can’t rule
the world.
PRO: We never said we
wanted to. All we want is a
presented in Dateline series by
fair and equal opportunity on
the job.
CON: But women aren’t
equal. Different and
wonderful and I love ’em, but
they aren’t equal by a long
shot.
PRO: Okay, try this: If we
aren’t equal we’ll never make
it no matter how many
opportunities we get, right?
Nothing will change anyhow,
right? So what are you afraid
of? What have you got to lose
by supporting equal rights -
except me nagging you about
it?
CON: Well, not much, but
women’ve got a lot to lose.
PRO: Heh, heh.
FACED OPPOSITION
Dutch Prelates Accept
Bishop’s Appointment
By Hans Bronkhorst
HAARLEM, The
Netherlands (NC) - Despite
opposition to the
appointment by many groups
in this country, the Dutch
bishops announced that they
are accepting the nomination
of Father Adrian Simonis as
the new bishop of Rotterdam
and asked all Dutch Catholics
to do the same.
The bishops made the
decision at a meeting at
Haarlem Jan. 12 after
conferring with the Holy See.
Several groups and
prominent persons in the
Netherlands, including the
Rotterdam diocesan pastoral
council, criticized the
appointment of Father
S imonis--considered a
VATICAN CITY (NC) -
The Catholic Church may not
feel that this is the opportune
time to seek membership in
the World Council of Churches
(WCC), but there is no doubt
the Church should cooperate
with the WCC, according to
the secretary of the Vatican
Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity.
In an article Jan. 11 in
L’Osservatore Romano,
Vatican City daily, the
official, Father Jerome
Hamer, said that the
secretariat is studying the
best means of such
coopertion “with all the calm
and all the seriousness that is
necessary.”
He pointed out that the
question is under study by a
joint WCC-Catholic
commission.
He said that although it is
up to the WCC to decide
whether to accept a candidate
church, “it always remains
spokesman for Dutch
conservatives--and asked that
he not accept it.
The Rotterdam pastoral
council said that the
appointment would create
tension in the diocese and
increase the polarization that
already exists.
Bishop-elect Simonis, 39,
-named to succeed retiring
Bishop Martien A. Jansen,
65-has defended obligatory
priestly celibacy and said that
he disagrees with the call for
optional celibacy made by
the Dutch National Pastoral
Council.
After their meeting here
the Dutch bishops said:
“Pope Paul believes that this
nomination, made by the
Holy See after long and
careful consultations and
for the Catholic Church to
decide whether it is expedient
or not” to seek membership.
“In any case, it is not our
collaboration with the world
council that is in question in
the undertaken study,”
Father Hamer said. “This
study aims only at finding
what forms this collaboration
can best take in the future,
with respect to a full identity
proper to the Catholic
Church and to assure that she
can serve in the best manner
the cause of unity of all
Christians.”
Father Hamer said he is
“well aware of the
exceptional character of an
extensive collaboration
between the Church and a
council of which she is not a
member” because of the
division of Christians. “But,”
he added, “I also know that
on both sides nothing will be
spared in the way of
goodwill, intelligence,
imagination and patience.”
intended by the Pope for the
well-being of the Dutch
Church, must by upheld. For
that reason the bishops are
accepting Dr. Simonis as the
new bishop of Rotterdam in
their college.”
After the bishops’ decision
was announced, the
Rotterdam pastoral council
issued a statment claiming
that the bishops had not
spoken from an inner
conviction and that they had
“capitulated to Rome.”
In their statement the
Dutch bishops denied that
the selection of candidates
for new bishop made in the
Rotterdam diocese had been
rigged by progressive
Catholics trying to block the
appointment of a
conservative as bishop.
The rigging charge had
been made by a spokesman at
the apostolic nunciature at
the Hague.
Church sources had said
that, despite various polls
that showed Catholics in the
Rotterdam diocese preferred
other candidates, the nuncio,
Archbishop Angelo Felici,
had supported the candidacy
of Father Simonis at the
Vatican.
The Dutch Catholic news
agency KNP reported Jan. 8
that, on a list of candidates
the Rotterdam pastoral
council drew up based on an
opinion poll. Msgr. Cornelius
G. Braun, vicar general, was
first. Msgr. Braun was also
first on the lists of candidates
drawn up by the deans of the
Rotterdam diocese, the staff
of the bishop of Rotterdam,
and professors at the
Amsterdam Catholic school
of theology who come from
the Rotterdam diocese, KNP
said. He was also first on the
list of three candidates named
by the cathedral chapter,
according to KNP.
(A cathedral chapter is a
group of priests who have
special liturgical functions in
the cathedral, who act as a
bishop’s council and who
may administer a diocese
when there is no bishop.
Traditionally in Europe,
cathedral chapters have also
proposed the names of
candidates to become bishop
of their dioceses.)
UNITY SECRETARY
Says Catholic-WCC
Cooperation Needed
ARRAIGNED - Sister Elizabeth McAlister (right) was escorted
by a police matron after being arraigned at the home of a U.S.
magistrate late Jan. 12th. She was charged along with others
with conspiring to kidnap a Presidential adviser and blow up
heating equipment in federal buildings. (NC PHOTO)
SOVIET WRITER
The Prayer Of
Solzhenitsyn
IN KIDNAP PLOT
Father Berrigan, Nun
Among Those Indicted
PARIS (NC) - “How
easy it is for me to live
with you. 0 Lord!
“How easy it is for me
to believe in you!”
The words are from a
prayer by Alexander I.
Solzhenitsyn, Soviet writer
and winner of the 1970
Nobel Prize for Literature.
The prayer, printed in the
French Catholic magazine,
Informations Catholiques
Internationales, continues:
“When, in perplexity, my
spirit bares itself or bends,
when the most intelligent do
not see farther than this
evening and do not know
what will have to be done
tomorrow: you pour into me
the serene certitude that you
exist and that you are
watching out to see that all
the paths of the good not be
closed.
“On the crest of earthly
glory, I consider with
astonishment this path
through despair. This path
from which I myself have
been able to send to
humanity a reflection of your
rays.
“All that I shall still have
to reflect of them, you will
grant me. And what I shall
not succeed in reflecting, you
have assigned to others.”
Solzhenitsyn told the
Swedish ambassador to
Moscow in November that he
had decided, “for personal
reasons,” not to go to
Stockholm to accept the
Nobel Prize. Unofficial Soviet
sources had said that the
author might be given
authorization to go to
Sweden, but might be barred
from re-entering the Soviet
Union.
Born in 1919 in
Rostov-on-Don in the Soviet
Union’s Russion republic,
Alexander Isayevich
Solzhenitsyn was educated at
Rostov University and
through the Moscow
University’s Correspondence
Course in Literature. He
joined the Soviet Army in
1941 and was twice
decorated for bravery during
the service at the front.
He was sentenced to eight
years in a forced labor camp
from 1945 to 1953. He
contracted and was cured of
cancer. From 1953 to 1957,
he was in exile in Siberia. He
has been teaching
mathematics in a secondary
school in Ryazan.
By Maxine Shaw
WASHINGTON (NC) -
Father Philip Berrigan, two
other priests and a nun were
among six persons indicted
by a federal grand jury on
charges of conspiring to
kidnap presidential aide
Henry Kissinger.
If convicted, they could
receive life sentences. Three
of the defendants issued a
joint statement denying the
charges.
Six other persons,
including Father Berrigan’s
brother, Father Daniel
Berrigan, were named
co-conspirators but were not
indicted.
Both Berrigans are
presently serving prison terms
in Danbury, Conn., for
destruction of selective
service files in Baltimore in
1968.
All of the defendants were
arrested Jan. 12, a few hours
before the indictments were
announced.
Three of the defendants -
Fathers Joseph Wenderoth,
Neil McLaughlin, and former
Josephite Anthony Scoblick
-- were arraigned in Baltimore
on Jan. 13, and then
transferred to federal
detention facilities in
Harrisburg, Pa.
They issued a statement
denying the government’s
charges, and claiming to have
“neither the philosophy nor
the resources to support such
activity.”
Bail was set at $50,000
each. The priests’ lawyer,
diocesan attorney Francis X.
Gallagher, said he would
appeal the bail decision and
would ask that either the
three be released in the
custody of Cardinal Lawrence
Shehan, or that bail be
reduced.
Gallagher is representing
the defendants privately, not
on behalf of the diocese. He
said he has agreed to do so
free of charge.
Hours after they were
arrested Scoblick and Fathers
Wenderoth and McLaughlin
were visited by Cardinal
Shehan and Msgr. J. Francis
Stafford, president of the
Archdiocesan Senate.
Stafford said later that he
offered the three his full
support. Cardinal Shehan
could not be reached for
comment.
Another defendant, Sister
Elizabeth McAlister, was
arrested in Newark, N.J., and
arraigned at the home of a
judge in neighboring South
Orange. Her bail was also set
at $50,000.
The sixth defendant, Eqbal
Ahmad, a Pakistani studying
in the United States, was
scheduled for arraignment
Jan. 14 in Chicago.
According to the federal
indictment the defendants,
co-conspirators and “others
whose names are not known
to the grand jury,” planned
to dynamite the heating
systems in government
buildings on Feb. 22, George
Washington’s Birthday, and
kidnap Kissinger the
following day.
The indictment cited 22
“overt acts” to support the
conspiracy charges, ranging
from an April 1, 1970, visit
by Father Berrigan and
Wenderoth to underground
tunnels in Washington to such
charges as phone calls and
visits between defendants.
A spokesman for the
YAOUNDE, Cameroun
(NC) — Cameroun President
Ahmadoua Ahidio commuted
to life imprisonment the
death sentence given to
Bishop Albert Ndongmo of
Nkongsamba and two other
defendants convicted of
plotting to kill Ahidjo, Radio
Cameroun said Jan. 14.
Bishop Ndongmo, 44, had
received another sentence of
life imprisonment after being
convicted of plotting to
Justice Department said more
specific details could not be
released until the trial.
Last November, F.B.I.
Director J. Edgar Hoover
testified before a senate
subcommittee that a group
called the East Coast
Conspiracy to Save Lives
were plotting to kidnap “a
highly placed government
official.” He said that Fathers
Philip and Daniel Berrigan
were ‘the principal leaders of
the group.”
Father Wenderoth is the
only person under indictment
who claimed to have any
connection with the group
Hoover mentioned.
At that time, Wenderoth
and other members of the
Conspiracy called a news
conference to deny Hoover’s
charges.
“We would not endanger
human life under any
circumstances,” Father
Wenderoth said then.
The Berrigan Brothers also
denied Hoover’s statements.
In a press release issued in
November through their
attorneys they said that “at
Danbury we have neither the
facilities nor the personnel to
conduct such an interprise.”
They challenged Hoover to
either “prosecute us or
retract the charges he has
made.”
overthrow the head of state.
The others whose death
sentences were commuted are
Gabriel Tabeu and Celestin
Takala.
Ahidjo confirmed the
death sentences of Ernest
Ouandie, leader of the
clandestine Union of the
Populations of the Cameroun
(UPC), which has carried on
guerrilla actions in the
country, and two other
persons.
Sentence Commuted