Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu
From: travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Discrimination studies?
Message-ID: <6491@columbia.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 17:39:50 GMT
References: <57397@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: travis@douglass.cs.columbia.edu (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Followup-To: soc.feminism
Organization: Columbia University
Lines: 53
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R


In article <57397@aerospace.AERO.ORG> twinsun!uunet!orc.olivetti.com!jan (Jan Parcel) writes:
> [my daughter will be writing a paper on ]
>
>	3. There is still significant institutional discrimination against
>	   women in America.
>
>My question: are there particularly good sources on this that offer the
>sort of statistics that would convince establishment types and young boys
>who assume everything is equal except AA?  (Alternative ideology, such as
>defining equality of opportunity as including women's concerns such as child 
>care, while important to explain to my daughter, rest on more groundwork than 
>she is likely to be able to stuff into a report.)

Try "Beyond Power" by Marilyn French.  The book's length and scope
might make it hard to get through, but it has a balanced tone
throughout.  That is, it is careful to document things and
differentiate between various feminist analyses and solutions.  It has
a slightly more global perspective than many other books I've seen.

This would also be a good time for her to write to NOW, and get source
materials.  Of course, such a request would be better received if it
were accompanied with your daughter's application for membership.

Perhaps she could write to Pat Schroeder, and ask for details on the
plans for contraceptive research Schroeder put forth recently.  She
might also have submitted a bill on comparative worth.  On a related
note, your daughter could go through LA papers, find whichever
organizations were instrumental in getting comparative worth
legislation passed there.  I'm sure they have reams of literature
lying around.  (Seattle, too?)  If you have hip legislators in your
district, write them, too.

Perhaps your daughter could simply watch TV for a few weeks with a
logbook, identifying in shows and advertisements what roles each
gender plays: who makes what types of decisions, who speaks more, who
appears more, who is active or passive, who's wearing the clothes and
who's not, and what point-of-view does the camera take.  Apart from
the paper, this type of concentrated analysis might make her much
sophisticated in terms of the social role that the television medium
plays.

Finally, there's also the possibility that your daughter could
document any existing discrimination in a local institution, such as
in her school system (who gets promoted?  who's doing the supervising?
who has the education?), or local medical/legal institutions (Are
there battered women's shelters nearby?  Are they funded?).  Getting
and analyzing the information, contradictory as it will be, would be
quite an educational experience, I would imagine.  Or hey, maybe there
will be no local discrimination at all, and this experience will turn
your daughter into a young Phillis Schlafly.

t

Arpa:	travis@cs.columbia.edu	Usenet: rutgers!columbia!travis