Newspapers / Meredith College Student Newspaper / Jan. 31, 1973, edition 1 / Page 2
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PAGE 1 1 THE TWIG i MEREVITH COLLEGE the twig JANUARY 31, 1973 Christyle? In H rff-ent chapel program in which the women’s liberation movement was viewed from a totally different perspective, there were several statements made which need to be exam ined further. First (jf all, th(^ whole focu.s of women’.s liber ation is not to condemn men. but rather is to give women’s potentialities as human tieings an equal chantm as those of men. Peofile, il lilan'ated at all, need to be liberated to each other as i)eo[)le, not as one sex against another or as players in a t)ig game of love. •Secondly, the point was made that love does not hurt if it is trui’ Christlike love, and that all we. as “girls”, need to do is ‘'ask Christ into our hearts.” This staten\ent makes the id'',-! of love such a simfile one, one that can be accomplislied by praying a certain prayer. It takes more than a prayer for .1 person to b(' (christlike. In fact, to play upon the RKW theme of “C hristyle.” whatever may be “Christlike” is a full r*M 1 i/,ition of luuTian potential for lov**, not of om* .sex ov**r or umler domination of another. ■•Christyle” is a reali/alion ol what we. as human beings, c.in --be” with ourselves. It is not an “asking": it is rather an acting, in fact, a becoming, JFS Carter speaks out ■ BY Carolyn Carter . ERA must be passed now Since the Equal Rights Amendment will be under consideration in the North Carolina General Assembly this week and next, it is essential that we, as women in a modern society, understand the implications of ERA and the importance of our support of it. Ratification in North Carolina will be an uphill battle, but it must be fought now with determination if women are to have a voice in their own treatment. The ERA states, in three parts, that there will be no federal or state discrimination of rights on the basis of sex, that Con gress can enforce the amendment by “appropriate legislation,” and that the amendment will take effect 2 years after ratifi cation. In order to ensure equal rights of opportunity for wo men, this amendment must be passed, for any other action be sides an amendment will not be strong enough to guarantee these rights. Opposition to this amendment is involved mainly in five areas --protective labor, criminal laws, divorce laws, rights of pri vacy and the draft. In the area of protective labor, the North Carolina laws now state that women can only work 48 hours a week, thereby prohibiting overtime work for women who are able. On the other hand, the ERA will allow equal protective legislation, so that a man 5 feet tall, 140 pounds, will no longer be required to lift more than a woman 6 feet tall. As far as criminal laws go, they will merely be reworded to include “single sex characteristics” (those distinguishing women), whereas the substance of protection from rape or assault will remain the same. The divorce laws in North Carolina are now - discriminatory, so that alimony depends on the “supporting” spouse, not especially the male or female, and child support is made in “the best interest of the child.” One of the most press ing problems for much of the opposition has been that of the ERA’S requiring men and women to use the same public facili ties. This argument is totally absurd since Congress passed long ago rights of privacy for individuals and passage of the ERA cannot take away these rights. Finally, in the area of the draft, the ERA will make women responsible citizens eligible for the draft. However, it also makes available to women the draft exemption of parenthood as well as the military benefits (such as veteran’s pay) which women do not receive for service. Most of the oppositiondoes not realizethat Congress has always had the power to draft women and that they almost took this action in WWH to draft nurses. When we think of the future, we must plan for better benefits. Especially here at Meredith, where so many women follow ca reers in education, must we realize the importance of the ERA, particularly when we are faced with the facts that out of 160 top superintendent policy - making positions in the North Carolina public schools, not one woman is represented, and that out of 203 assistance positions only 6 are women. We are up against strong emotional opposition, but we MUST GET ORGANIZED in order to have the ERA passed. We must be visible; we must talk to legislators; we must, above all, write letters to our state con gressmen. The hearings on the ERA will be at 1:30, February 1 and 8. It is our responsibility as concerned women to care enough about our futures to urge passage of ERA, and we must act NOW. JFS It is ironical... It is ironical that Lyndon Johnson had to die within a day of the peace agreement in Vietnam. It is ironical that we were crying instead of shouting for joy upon President Nixon’s an nouncement. It is ironical that we, as Americans, were in volved for nearly 10 years in a “selfless” war which has sapped us physically, morally, and economically. It is ironical that we have now reached an “honorable” peace agreement in which WF got all that WF wanted. It is ironical that peace has finally been agreed upon after 4 more years of senseless killing. It is ironical that U. S. forces are still stationed in Thailand, ready to “guard” South Vietnam’s chance for democratic freedom. It is ironical that POW’s may now return to their families, both factions changed through the 2-8 years distance. And it is ironical that business in America, just as it has for the past 8 years can go on as usual. JFS Editor’s note: This is the last in a series of articles by Carolyn Carter on student responsibility. If we as women are to assume our rightful roles as citizens with full and equal rights, we must exercise a considerable amount of initiative. We, as students at a woman’s college are in the position to develop our capacity as worthwhile human beings to the fullest. Although ideally there should be no reason tor women to take a secondary role to a man in the classroom, it is nevertheless the unfortunate case that this can be an arti ficially restrictive factor in the development of full and free expression. At Meredith, the emphasis, since the found ing days of the college, has been on encouraging women through lessons and atmos phere to understand their roles as complete persons. Further, Meredith is endowed with the very serious respon sibility to educate young wo men to come to understand their roles. The young woman, Candi Love, who was in chapel on January 24, 1973, is an ex ample of a truly unliberated woman. Quoted as saying, “A woman who loves Christ realizes that he means for her to be in the submissive role to men, and I am happy with my position,” she serves as a blatant negation of the equality of women. Ms. Love’s program was keyed on the as sumption that a woman’s ful fillment is dependent on find ing male companionship. As we affirm our belief in the worth and dignity of every in dividual, the views of Ms. Love are seen to be in direct con tradiction to this affirmation. Ms. Love’s fallacious state ment that “women can be lead ers like Ruth was in the Bible, but only over other women,” indicates a rather limited view of women. We need to acutely be conscious of our unlimited potential rather than being bound by culturally inherent restraints. Indeed the future of the quality of human exist ence is dependent on our re sponse to the creative de velopment of our human re sources. In light of this realization, we must do our utmost to work for ratifica tion of the Equal Rights A- mendment and for the furth erance of our potential as women. Letter to the editor It appears to me the Mere dith community has been ex periencing a wide diversity of religious views — from very fundamentalist beliefs to beliefs with a liberal theolo gical basis. Really one is neither more “Christian” than the other. Evangelism on the campus has reached great proportions -- to save other souls is not the central mean ing of the Christian faith to me. Yet as a community we do live together and share re sponsibility to each other. This in itself implies there must be a level of tolerance. Among members of the Mere dith community, tolerance has reached a new low. To me tolerance does not mean that I must compromise my reli gious beliefs. However, it does mean that I will not accuse others of being “non- Christians” just because their beliefs are not the same as mine. The spirit of Christian love is supposed to unite over and above different “Christ- styles.” As worship chairman, I have been in a position to hear di verse religious concerns. My concept of worship has NOT been expressed in the major ity of the worship services. Apparently this is not known by people who do not know me; consequently, they have felt free to express approval to me with regard to the con tent of the services. At the same time many of my friends have expressed genuine con cern that the majority of the worship services encompass the evangelistic emphasis. I have in a sense remained sil ent during the year expressing my concern about the nature of the worship services only to a few members of the com munity. I now realize that sil ence only added to a growing mood of intolerance among e- veryone, myself included. Hopefully during REW all religious viewpoints will meet together with open minds and with the knowledge that the spirit of love does not depend on belief counts. Dianne Beal Dr. Grubbs on Vietnam -By Dr. F’rank Grubbs The recent agreement on the ceasefire and the further negotiations of the Vietnam war has been greeted with extreme caution by the Amer ican people. Indeed, to my knowledge, this agreement has been more mistrusted than any other in American history. The reason for this, I think, is because the American peo ple are at long last maturing in the area of foreign relations. There was a time when our people trusted their foreign agreements, were generally optimistic about foreign policy and believed in morality in foreign affairs. But as the American people experienced frustration after frustration in dealing with the commun ist countries after World War Two, they developed, slowly it is true, a growing sense of caution about foreign rela tions. This caution seems to have reached a peak with the Vietnam agreement. The reason for this growing caution has been the result of our realization that foreign affairs are run on a purely realistic basis most of the time. Morality and idealism are generally not a part of foreign policy decision mak ing. Our people who have been largely moral in their outlook have suddenly realized that foreign relations are con ducted on a different basis. Thus, in regard to tlie Viet nam agreement, the American people se«>m to feel that the agreement will be broken at some future date by the com munists. They seem to feel, too, that our forces stationed in Thialand are there to re enter the Vietnam War if the agreement is liroken in the futtire. Both jKissibilities are very real. America, then, the' people reason, has not really left the Vietnam War but is simply waiting to see if the communists will abide tiv the agreement or if they will shortly within a year or two reopen tlie conflict. Ttie American [)eople liave also tieen stiocked bv the act ions of their politicians in for eign relations. In 1950 Truman at first announced that no ground troops would be sent to Korea, but within three weeks the President had com mitted ground troops on a large scale, and by hts own authority. In 1964 Lyndon Johnson ran for election on a moderate Vietnam War plat form only to commit the nation to the War on a massive scale three months later. In 1968 Nixon promised to end the war shortly, only to continue it for four years. Based on the agreement announced, many Americans are not sure that tlie continuation was use ful. Nor has Congress es caped its responsibility. This body of the people’s respre- sentatives has continually given American Presidents a blank check on the war. It is little wonder, there fore, that the American peo ple seem to feel at this moment that the Vietnam ag reement is questionable. They seem to feel that at best the United States can hope to get back its prisoners within sixty days. Never has a war “ended” with so little hope that it will stay ended. Grow ing up is not always pleasant, but the American people at this moment seem to have learned many of the facts- of-life regarding foreign re lations. -Many experts believe that this realization is better for our nation than being too trusting and too optimistic about foreign relations. ANNOUNCEMENTS 1. All letters to the editor must be signed in full when turned in to THE TWIG. This policy was stated in the October 11, 1972 issue. If requested, names will be withheld from publication and initials used. Before we can print any letter to the editor this policy must be upheld. For this reason, we have not print-^ ed a letter received this week, but it will be published if a signature is submitted. 2. Due to a shortage in /'SO white paper, this and the previous issue have been printed on newsprint. Until tlie shortage is alleviated, THF TWIG will appear as newsprint. EDITORIAL STAFF Editor Janice Sams Copy Editor Eleanor Hill Feature Editor Renee Lindsey Reporting Staff — Karen Britt. Claudia Denny, Joy Seal born, Norma Heath, Catherine Stover, Susan Webster, Mary Owens, Barrie Walton. Gloria Smith Typists ...Deborah Philli[)s. Su'zanne .Marlin, Susan Welisti-r Faculty Advisers .... Dr. Norma Rose. Dr. Tom Parraniore Business Editor ; u^bv Owen Advertising M.inagers Deborah Phillips, Emily John.son Circulation Manager [.qaine Williams Staff ... Nancy Alvis, Lou Ann Roebuck, Candy Purvis Faculty Adviser br. I.ois Frazier Photographer Berry .Member Associated Collegiate Press. Entered as second-class matter at post office at Raleigh, N.C. 27611 Putdished weekly....except during holidays and exams!! THE TWIG is served by National Educational Advertising Service, 18 East 50th Street, New York. Subscription Rates: $3.70 per year.
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Jan. 31, 1973, edition 1
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