smut Ind Black on av near. Smith

Midwest feminist Conference: One View

by Deborah Redman

I came to the Midwest Feminist
Conference half expecting to find
women with hutch hair cuts, bulg—
ing muscles and an occasionalbeard.
But the women (and men) who Came
to the conference could in no way
be confused with members of a
freak show. The large majority
were women from neighboring cola
leges who despelled at once the
fallacy that “any woman who joins
the feminist movement must be a
real dog."

The weekend-long conference he—
gan Friday night with a film that
never showed up That was unforv
tunate, since the film sounded pray
mising. On Saturday, however,there
was a wide range of workshops of-
fered for anyone interested. Because
there were no appointed workshops
leaders, it was up to the people
in attendance to get the discussion
moving. Several of the workshops
I attended dissolved early or ne-
ver really started at all.

One of the workshops, “The Ever—
widening Circle,” was supposedly
about ”campus women's movement
and its relationship to sisters else-
where." Six women came, and the
discussion soon turned into a bull
session where personal grievances
could be aired. Topics of conversae
tion included fashion and makeup,
the pros and cons of douching, and
the effect of white socks on health.
It was interesting to note the diflr
erent personality types and what
each person wanted to discuss.

For example, there was one young
woman, dressed in the all too comv
mon patched jeans and embroidered
linen shirt, who seemed to want
to appear liberated. In keeping with
that image, she discussed her many
aﬂairs, both with men and “the
ladies," as she called them. She

is quite active on her campus,
though, and talked about techniques
she uses to reach different groups
of women.

We discussed the possibility of re
orienting sororities in feminist i-
deas. It was pointed out that this
could provide a strong feeling of
cooperation and sisterhood, rather
than the competition among girls
presently in sororities. One woman
present was an English teacher in
a rural Iowan high school, and did
not appear at all ‘liberated,’ with
her hair nicely done, painted nails
and a secretary—type pant suit. She
said the girls in her high school
were not at all interested in women’s
liberation, at least as far as she
could tell.

Another woman, perhaps in her
40‘s, had had several different ca-
reers in addition to raising chil-
dren, and she provided something
of an inspiration to the others. We
discussed the difficulty of reaching
housewives, since they were often
under the mistaken impression that
the women’s movement required
that all women burn their bras and
become lesbians.

Another workshop was called “Wo-
men’s Movement and Campus Con—
sciousness Raising.“ Women from
colleges with women‘s organiza—
tions talked about how hard it was
to get up enough interest, or find
space to set up offices, or even to
staff the office once it was set up,
But when asked what these organi-
zations actually do, the accomplish»
ments mentioned were not too ime
pressive. Consciousness raising se-
emed to be the big issue.

Often, however, the discussion ca-
me down to the samefact: thepeople
the movement reaches arethose who
are already liberated, That is, the
only women who read Ms. magazine

are those who are alreadyinterested
in the movement, or at least its
ideals.

On Sunday morning the Grinnell
vignette group led some exercises
aimed more at providing a relaxed
atmosphere than giving lazy muscles
a workout. Then the group presente
ed several Women’s lib—oriented
skits adapted from the Alive and
Trucking Theatre in Minneapolis
One concerned three pairs of apes
who gradually turned into Barbie
and Ken stereotypes. As the skit
progressed, the roles became cone
fused until a chaotic climax was
reached and ape-dom was restored,

Another, called “The Four Woe
men," showed four women strugg-
ling for 30 years of their lives, only
to discover “there’s nothing here.
It was all a lie.” At one point in
that skit the line “I fought other
women“ seemed to cause areaction
in the audience,

Perhaps the most powerful perfor-
mance was that of a rape scene.
It was carried out in an all too real
manner, and when it was done, the
other women in the group spontan-
eously came up to comfort the vic-
tim. Following the skits, the aud—
ience actively responded with adv
vice and ideas.

Although the conference was in-
teresting and provided a sounding
board for women’s ideas, I could
not see any concrete results. Per-
haps a follow-up conference of Just
Grilinell women would have been
helpful. AS it stood, it seemed that
outsiders put on a show for a week
end, and everything is again as it
always was. personally, I think
people have been inundated with
movements of all kinds, and are
Just not willing to commit them—
selves to mass efforts of social
reform.

Due to the energy crisis we will discontinue 24 hour operation.

We will be open from 7 to " seven days a week.

effective Saturday, November 17, 1973
McNAllY’S

THE GRINNELL SCARLET AND BLACK NOVEMBER 16, 1973 PAGE 11

Scarlet Ind Black photo by om Matsey

5mm and Black photo hy Doug Halsey

...to large lectures

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