A.
1w £irii man &11
Eighty-two years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Labor situation
looks grim
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 1 1, 1973
Tenants score deosi victor
IN THE ETERNAL war between tenants
and landlords, the tenants have
scored a major victory. Tuesday, Jan. 9,
Gov. William Milliken signed into law
legislation that goes far in restricting the
confiscation of damage deposits by land-
lords.
The key element of the law is that it
defines damage deposits as the property
of the tenant. This places the burden of
proof squarely on the shoulders of the
landlord or management agency should
a dispute arise over a tenant's responsi-
bility for damages. Under the new law
the landlord has 45 days to prove in court
his claim to damage deposit money.
This type of legislation is much need-
ed and has been a long time coming. In
Ann Arbor, where little love is lost be-
tween landlords and tenants, the vast
majority of apartment disputes arise
over damage inspections and cost assess-
ments. Sometimes the landlord's charges
are legitimate but then, as one Ann Ar-
bor attorney put it, "Damage deposits
are money, and landlords have a habit of
keeping them, whether or not there is
good cause."
Now, with the help of the new law, a
landlord will have to go to court when he
says one of the walls in your apartment
needs repainting because you chipped the
paint and you say it was messed up when
you got there.
Much of the rest of the new law deals
with such items as, how much a land-
lord can charge for damage deposits, how
soon they have to be returned after the
lease is up and the use of a checklist to
document damages when the tenant first
moves in.
While a quick survey of local land-
lords showed that most of them already
comply with the new law on these points,
legal restraints are a little more depend-
able than Ann Arbor landlords have
proved themselves to be.
The battle is won but the war goes on.
-LORIN LABARDEE
By BERNICE SANDLER
FOR MANY OF US, the words "wo-
men's liberation" evokes images of
radical man-hating, bra-burning women.
My friends in the women's movement -
and many of them are married - to men
- my friends tell me that bras were
never burned, and that the serious and im-
portant aspects of the women's move-
ment rarely get the full attention of the
press.
Women, and men, too, are becoming in-
creasingly concerned and aware about dis-
crimination against women in education
and in employment.
Despite the myth that, things are get-
ting better for women, the position of
women in education and employment has
been getting'worse for many, many years.
More than 360 college and universities
have been charged with sex discrimina-
tion, with many of our finest institutions
among them, such as: Columbia, Harvard,
Yale, University of Michigan, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, and the entire state university
and college systems of the states of New
York, California, New Jersey and Florida.
In too many institutions, education is de-
signed as though the only people who
ever attended college are young, single,
and male. Women are not seen as serious
students but as pleasant decorations on
the campus, who take history and Biology
in order -to become more pleasant mari-
tal companions.
Yet many women, and many men, are
simple unaware of the discrimination that
exists against women. Too many believe
that when women gained the right to vote
more than S0 years ago, that they also
gained equality. Yet today, women still
suffer from very real economic, educa-
tional, and legal discrimination.
There is a myth that things are getting
better for American women and that the
opportunities are there for the asking. Yet
the average working woman - and I mean
the woman who is working fulltime -
earns about 60 cents for every dollar
earned by a working man. The economic
situation is a good measure of discrim-
ination. Among those who work fulltime,
white men earn the most. Then come
black men, and then white women, and
at the bottom of the pile is the black
woman, who suffers from a "double wham-
my" of being both black and female. In
fact, sex affects your income more than
your race does.
THE DISCRIMINATION that w o m e n
face is similar, although not identical to
that faced by minorities. If you substitute
the word "black" when we talk about
women, you can get some sense of the
discrimination and frustration that women
feel. For example, women are thought to
be "happy at home." Blacks were thought
to be "happy on the plantation." Employ-
ers say that they'd be glad to hire a
"qualified woman," just as they'd be glad
to hire a "qualified" black. Have you
ever noticed that the word "qualified" is
used only with women and minorities?
Have you ever heard anyone talk about
finding a "qualified" man? We call black
men "boys" and we call women "girls."
For many years, people have said "My
colored maid says there isn't any discrim-
ination." Today, many people say, "My
wife says there's no discrimination."
Women are now approximately 40 per
cent of the work force', but most women
are at the bottom of the economic market-
place. Two out of every.three women who
work are in sales, service, clerical or
domestic work, all of the low-paying oc-
cupations. Virtually all of the occupations
that women are encouraged to enter are
low-paying. If you think that a woman's
college degree will earn her a much better
living, you may be in for a surprise.
She's likely to earn somewhat more than
her sisters who did not go to college, but
on the average, if you work fulltime, and
have a bachelor's degree and are femaie,
your median income will be just about
the same as that of a man with an eighth
grade education.
The problem for women, economically,
this is the time when the tips are better.
On the other hand, no one rushes to pro-
tect" nurses or charwomen from work-
ing at night at their low-paying jobs, be-
cause no one else wants these jobs. One
by one, these so-called "protective laws"
that protect women from getting better
jobs, are being ruled invalid because they
conflict with Federal law; Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act which forbids discrimina-
tion in employment on the basis of sex.
Some unions, however, who have a stake
in keeping women out of jobs are using
these laws as a rationale to oppose the
Equal Rights Amendment.
Wonen simply do not have the same
opportunities that men have. The per-
centage of women professionals in this
country is pathetically small: 3.5 per cent
of the lawyers, 2 per cent of the dentists, 7
" mmm mmW#jmssmts# a##masam samasa
"Women workers are concentrated in the lower paying jobs,
earn less money than men even in the same occupation, and
have a higher rate of unemployment than men."
ggryry p"J4' . s A :Y}: "r.n c ;;.: a;.. ::i}" ::."":b5A ::y4 'C
Nixon ignores war protest
ITME UPCOMING peace march in Wash-
ington, D.C., scheduled for Inaugur-
ation Day, must be considered import-
ant, for it comes at a time in our coun-
try's history when our Chief Executive
has moved away from public scrutiny and
has drifted toward isolation.
Who can deny that President Nixon
has been attemptirng to run a one-man
show, choosing to ignore the electorate
which gave him his office, as well as the
Congress of the United States, a consti-
tutional body which is supposed to be on
an equal level with the executive branch.
The major significance of the anti-
war peace march is to show that while
such sentiment has subsided for almost
two years, giving Nixon fair reign to
achieve peace his way, a growing seg-
ment of Americans now feel that he has
abused the trust and patience given him.
Unfortunately, President Nixon appar-
ently either believes that the majority
of the public is behind him-this senti-
ment reinforced by his landslide victory
last November-or he just doesn't care
about the public.
After being falsely promised on Octo-
ber 26 of last year that "peace was at
hand", and instead being "handed" only
more war, the American people now ap-
pear more frustrated than ever before.
Add to this the immense bombardment
of North Vietnam-heavier than any
bombings carried out even by the Nazis
in World War Two - and there are few
Today's staff:
News: Debbie Allen, Laura Berman, Mike
Duweck, Bill Heenan, Terry Martin,
Chris Parks, Judy Ruskin, Paul Travis
Editorial page: Kathleen Ricke
Arts page: Gloria Jane Smith, Jeff Soren-
sen
Photo technicians: Stuart Hollander, Rolfe
Tessem
left who don't question the wisdom of
what Nixon is up to.
The least that one could expect is that
a president, faced with growing public
dissatisfaction with certain policies
would,, in his capacity as national lead-
er, appear before the people and explain
his actions. Nixon has refused to do so.
FURTHERMORE, HE has refused to
even explain his policies to Congress.
Appearing at a breakfast of congression-
al leaders last week, he refused to dis-
cuss Vietnam until the very end of the
meeting, and then left before questions
could be posed. That which he did say
about the war was nothing new or ex-
planatory. And to continue his apparent
"I don't give a damn about Congress"
attitude, he has decided not to appear
before Congress to deliver his State of
the Union speech, a further indication
of the rift between the two governmental
branches.
Past peace marches have been, for the
most part, ignored by Nixon. Declaring
several years ago that they would have
no influence whatsoever on him, he has
previously secluded= himself in the White
House to watch televised football games,
or has hidden out at one of his other
"executive mansions" while demonstra-
tions occurred.
This time however, Nixon will not be
able to ignore the public protests. Unless
the Inauguration bands can drown out
the chants of the demonstrators several
blocks away, Nixon will know that they
are there. And perhaps, just perhaps, he
will realize that American citizens are
still, concerned with their constitutional
right to be heard.
Thus ,the demonstrations must occur
in Washington on January 20. Our
president must be reminded that we are
still a democracy, and that we will never
allow his dream of "a silent majority"
to become our nightmare.
-MARTIN STERN
is one of occupational segregation. Wo-
men are welcome to work, provided they
know their place. No one seems to mind a
woman secretary, or charwoman or wai-
tress. Over the past sixty years, there
has been little change in occupations for
most women are still restricted to "fem-
inine" jobs. Those few occupations that
have opened up to women have generally
been those that are routine, low-paying
and monotous, such as key-punching. On
the other hand, when the salary of an
occupation is rising, then men are likely to
enter it, even if it is a traditional wo-
man's field, such as teaching, social work,
and librarianship.
Regardless of the actual work perform-
ed, if men predominate in an occupation,
you can be sure that it is almost always
better paying and with higher status than
if women predominate. Women workers
are concentrated in the lower paying jobs,
earn less money than men even in the
same occupation, and have a higher rate
of unemployment than men. If you look at
who does the low status work in our
society, such as emptying out the bed-
pans in a hospital, you can be sure ,hat it
is a female, or a minority person, or
both. In primitive societies, you see the
same pattern. What men and women do
varies from society to society, but what is
consistent is that whatever men do is more
prestigious. If women do weaving, it is
mere women's work; if men do the weav-
ing, it is very important, a ritual or a
sacrament.
In many states, unrealistic weightlift-
ing laws "protect" women from getting
better jobs. In California, a woman can-
not work at a job where she carries more
than ten pounds up 'and down stairs. No
one "protects" women from carrying heavy
groceries or from carrying young chiid-
ren. If weightlifting laws applied to preg-
nancy, it would be illegal to be pregnant
in about ten states. Supervisory jobs which
may require occasional overtime, cannot
be offered to women in those states where
they are forbidden from working more
than eight hours a day. In some states,
waitresses cannot work at night, although
per cent of the physicians, 1 per ent of
the engineers. Yet in other countries, pro-
fessional women are not a rarity. Why
are women 24 per cent of the lawyers in
Sweden, and 70 per cent of the dentists in
Denmark? Do Russian women have such
different genes from American women so
that they develop into 75 per cent of the
physicians there, while in our country, the
percentage of women physicians is virt-
ually the same as it was about 50 years
ago, when women first got the right to
vote. No wonder women are angry!
Those of us who picture the typical work-
ing woman as a young single girl, and en-
vision the remainder of women as mar-
ried housewives enjoying the daily wonders
of suburbia are sadly out of touch with
the times. More than half of the moth-
ers with school-age children work. Indeed
women with children 6-17 years old are
more likely to work than wives without
any children. Sociologists who have been
following the women's movement with an
academic eye have pointed out that the
new push for women's rights is directly
related to the increase in the number
of working women. In fact, the new wo-
men's rights movement began back in the
late fifties and early sixties as the num-
ber of women in the labor force began to
rise rapidly, and as women were stim-
ulated by the black civil rights movement
to examine their own civil rights. Before
the women's liberation movement began
in 1968, before Friedan's book in 1963,
President Kennedy, responding to pres-
sure from women's groups, aopointed the
first U.S. Commission on the Status of
Women.
WOMEN HAVE begun to complain,
sometimes, bitterly, about job discrimina-
tion. Although many people erraneously
feel that the women's rights movement is
one dominated by middle-class profession-
als, almost all of the sex discrimination
complaints filed with the Equal Employ-
>r women
More and more of these complaints are
filed every year by women. There is a
revolution of rising expectations a m o n g
women. For the first time in history we
have a national policy and laws that make
sex discrimination in many kinds of em-
ployment illegal, and women are beginning
to realise that they have a chance of being
treated more fairly in the economic Mar-
ket. They are beginning to ask: "Why
didn't I get a raise?" Why do women with
bachelor's degrees end up being the sec-
retaries of men with the same bachelor's
degrees? Why are women with college de-
grees asked to take the typing test, while
young men with the same degrees a r e
asked to take the management-trainee ap-
titude test?
Why do women make coffee, instead of
policy?
Why is the rate of unemployment higher
for women than for men?
Why are women, even those with years
of training continually asked "Are you
really serious about working?"
Why is the number of women college
presidents so low, that if it were not for
the Catholic Sisters, the number of women
college presidents is less than the number
of whooping cranes?
Why can't mediocre women go as far as
a mediocre man?
There is no intention whatsoever to force
employers to hire lesser qualified women
or minorities. If the best qualified person
is white and male, that's who is hired.
What the employer needs to do is two-
fold:
* Good Faith: make a genuine effort
to recruit women. (Good faith does not
mean calling one's white male colleague,
asking if he knows a good man, and then
saying, "Certainly I'd have hired a oual-
ified woman if I could have found one.")
* Equal Criteria: whatever standards or
criteria the employer sets for men.
WE ARE SEEING increasing backlash
and resistance to change. The women's
movement threatens many because it af-
fects all of us. Many men are conscious-
ly or unconsciously concerned about their
relationships with their wives. The wo-
man's movement is threatening because
there is literally one of us in every house.
We are wife and husband, sister and bro-
ther, mother and son, daughter and fatl;er.
We cannot escape each other, nor d' we
wish to do so. The women's movement is
not a passing fad. It will not go away
because so many women care, and so
many men care, too.
With new legislation affecting women
on the campus, a new era has begun. No
longer will women weep or grow bitter
when denied the opportunities that are the
birthright of their brothers. For women
have something else to do. They have
learned that the hand that rocks the cradle
can also rock the boat. And the campus-
and the world - will never be the same
again.
Dr. Bernice Sandler is executive asso-
ciate for the Association of American
Colleges and director of the Project on
the Status and Education of Women.
by critics
11
4
s
r
M,
11
I
q
s
V
I
ment Opportunity
filed by factory
Commission have been
and clerical workers.
Black film industry put down
. p
By DARNELL HAWKINS
THE CURRENT rash of movies
which are produced-directed by
Blacks or in which Blacks are cast
An leading roles, has produced
quite comical responses in th e
news media. Yet, the frequency
and extent of such responses make
them hard to ignore. The Daily
movie reviewers have followed the
lead of the New York Times in
labeling such movies, blaxploitation
movies.
The idea of black exploitation
suggested by such labeling is, of
course, accurate if one is refer-
ring to the millions of black people
who pay $2.50 or more the view
the sickness which Americanscall
entertainment. For, surely, t h e
Times and others could not be al-
luding to the black technicians,
writers, actors and directors w h o
after decades of being denied em-
ployment in the racist Hollywood
movie industry, are now able to
make a living in their chosen pro-
fessions.
Most whites who speak of blax-
politation movies are referring to
neither the exploitation of t h e
masses of black moviegoers, nor of
black professionals in the movie
industry. Who, then, is exploited?
It appears that whites who speak
of blaxploitation tend to be of
liberal or radical political persua-
sion. It is not flesh and blood peo-
ple they see as being exploited.
Rather it is some illusive concept
of "the black image" which is seen
as the victim of exploitation by the
rash of new movies. This "black
image" is merely an outgrowth of
the tendency of liberal whites to
think of blacks as a "social prob-
lem". Blacks, then, become the
embodiment of the white liberal's
search for social consciousness in
himself.
Movies such as Shaft, SuperFly,
Trouble Man and similar movies
featuring "colored" copies of
James Bond are by far the Most
troublesome to these critics. They
are troublesome because, in their
emphasis on escapism, hedonism
and plain old American-style ad-
venture, they have neither social
relevance nor social consciousness.
They do not deal with blackness as
a problem, but instead it often be-
comes an exaggerated virtue. In
other words they violate the white
liberal's idea of what the black
image is and how it should be pre-
sented. On the other hand, black
movies such as Georgia, Georgia,
Farewell Uncle Tom, and The
Learning Tree, are seen by white
movie critics as being less in con-
flict with their notions of the black
image. These movies, despite some
variations, tend to more or less
conform to the liberals' view of
blacks as wallowing in the mire of
existential agony caused by racist
maltreatment, slavery, and eco-
nomic-cultural-social deprivation in
America.
TO A YOUNGER generation of
white movie critics (self-proclaim-
er or otherwise) who have inherit-
ed the liberal tradition, the r e -
sponse to blaxploitation movies has
been somewhat different. Victims
of the inevitable disillusionment of
irrational activism, they have no
desire to be reminded of social
consciousness or problems. A f t e r
having discovered the "Negro" in
the early 1960's and having forgot-
ten him in the late 1960's to dis-
cover the Vietnam War, which like
the "negro" has now been forgot-
ten, these critics are suffering from
a kind of ethical and moral battle
fatigue. Therefore, they are eager
to dispense with their 1960's view
of Blacks as social problems. In
fact, they wish to forget all social
problems. Thus despite some, rath-
er reflexive and elitist put-down
of Shaft-type movies as being mere-
ly black re-makes of James Bond,
these movies are not harshly treat-
ed by younger critics. For per-
haps unconsciously Shaft appeals to
the kind of escapist, 1950's-type
emotions which seem to be gripping
American college campuses a n d
other institutions in the Nixon Era.
The real agony of these critics lies
in the fact that they cannot really
identify with a black James Bond,
and therefore are denied the he-
donistic escapism which past gen-
erations of Americans enjoyed as
when such movies were patriotic
and all-white. For today's crop of
movies with white "heroes" are
often anti-hero of the traditional
type and are far too realistic and
tragic to serve as means of escap-
ism. For example, The Godfather
and The.French Connection. How-
ever, this situation may be re-
medied during the Nixon-Agnew
Era. There is, therefore, a kind
of envy of Blacks and their sup-
posed ability to escape the War,
pollution and crime for two hours
each week for only $2.50 with the
aid of Shaft and company.
"Black Gunn" advertisement
I'
Letters to The Daily
critics reserve for Shaft, younger
critics apply to black movies which
make some pretensions of social
concern and consciousness.
In conclusion, I must say that,
as a black person, I see current
debate over blaxploitation movies
in the white news media as being
quite foreign to me and my own
criticisms of the new black movies.
The criticisms of white movie crit-
ics have little to do with true ex-
ploitation, social relevance or even
with Blacks. Rather they reveal
the frustration and persistent pa-
ternalism of whites towards Blacks,
even black attempts at self-
riofnitnn nr rfr- y np -ni,,rin'
in two segregated wars to save
lemocracy and spread IT&T around
the world? And aren't we now
killing gooks in the first fully "in-
tegrated" war in American his-
tory?
ANY WHITE or black critique
of black movies which .does n o t
take into account these tragic his-
torical facts about the "black im-
age" in America is utterly use-
less. The label of blaxploitation of-
fers nothing new or useful f o r
Blacks who are in the process of
trying to cure the psychological and
physical sickness which we have
exnerienced in America. And I'm
r
Friend of Newsreel
To The Daily:
FOR THE PAST two years I
have relied on Friends of News-
reel to order and, on occasion,
send films to a campus group?
What distributor and what group?
But this financial situation is be-
side the point I wish to make.
Newsreel, the sole local agent for
outtandin ng oltical films. h a s
_ .. _;
.,
...
.< ;
s _.
Y