TE Michigan Daily Edited and managed by Students at the University of Michigan Saturday, May 8, 1974 News Phone: 764-0552 Too pretty to work? IHINK ABOUT IT for a minute. How would you feel if you were a young woman who had worked steadily and hard in an automobile factory and were fired be- cause you were "too pretty"? With today's consciousness of women's liberation such an occurrence would seem hard to believe, however it did happen. Peggy Hughes, a 28-year-old woman, worked for a month packing heavy machinery at$5.11 an hour for International Harvester in Rock Island, Ill She was fired on March 15 because, in the words of Henry Woods, an investigator for Illinois Fair Employment Practices Com- mission, "male workers found her so attractive they were distracted from their normal duties." Woods contends that the firing violates sex dis- crimination laws, and that is an understatement! According to Hughes, "The personnel manager told me that I would be reinstated when a new job opened up." However, later she said that the general foreman told an official of Local 1390 of the United Auto Workers that she received "too much male attention." Harvester has no comment on the issue and the Illi- nois Fair Employment Practices Commission is handling the case. ONE HAS CAUSE TO wonder if the hierarchy at Inter- national Harvester have their heads in the sand. How could they realistically fire a woman on the grounds of her apoearanee or how much she distracted the men around when she was a good hard worker? Apparently Harvester likes its woman, if they must hire women, in the offices as secretaries or a similar posi- tion where she won't get her hands dirty or flaunt her femininity in "the wrong places." Hughes conceded that sometimes her male coworkers would ask her how the job was going and lift something for her. "They wouldn't even-ask," she said, "they would just do it. I would say, 'You better get back to your own job."' Some of the men even aske her out, yet each time she refused. Think about it. Hughes did nothing but her job, and she was fired because she was attractive to men. The men were distracted from their jobs, she was not distracted from hers. SUCH AN ACTION causes us to ponder why Harvester did not fire the men who left to help Hughes who did not want their help. It would seem like a far better way to run a business, to fire the people who were not doing their jobs than to fire one that was. Wake up, International Harvester! You may have been able to get away with those kind of antics before, but you won't get away with it much longer. -ANDREA LILLY solit ary voice in e Intro eate By JAMES WECHSLER MOST OF THE unsigned mail that crosses any journalist's desk can be hastily scanned and discarded. Anyone who broods shoal hate mes- sages from those who valorously neglect to sign their names should throw away his typewriter and head for the hills. But occasionally t h e r e arrives a very different brand of anonymous let- ter, a kind of lonely cry in the night that is a reminder of the inhumane isolation inflicted on the defenseless by bully-boys who proclaim them- selves "normal" and "healthy." Amid the current local stormover Intro ?, the New York City Council measure that would formally ban discrimination against homosex- uals in housing, public accommodation and em- ployment, a handwritten communication came in the other dayl. It deserves contemplation by those engaged in the crusade to save New York from tse alleged menace of the proposed bill. It was iri a sense an open letter to such strident voices, and to politicians who are nervously evading the issue. It read: "I am 17 years of age, and a senior at one of the city's most reputable high schools. I am a homosexual. It is really difficult to relate how I discovered this phenomenon, but I. will assure you it was not due to any teacher I ever had, nor any fireman I saw with limp wrists. "I AM ON the football team, and I date ,irls, and therefore I have created a pretty normal facade. I am normal. I know that many of the guys on the team would never accept this, nor would my parents. I feel very alone not know- ing also any public figures I can use to model my life after (in a homosexual sense). "Thanks to people like you firemen, people who feel that they're gay from ages 9 to 14 will never be able to lead a respectable life. Thank you, uncles, aunts, mothers and fathers. All the gay 'idols' are in the past - Michesangelo, daVinci, Proust. If Intro 2 is not passed, all I can say is that would represent a monumental failure for New York - the civilized place. What are you afraid of?" The letter was signed: "Unfortunately Anony- mous." A FEW HIGH SCHOOL principals and football coaches may mindlessly view tne setter as cause for more intensive screening of their rosters this autumn. One hopes more rational responses will be evoked in most places.. In fact this plaintive message illustrates again both the sadness and absurdity of the attempt to "cure" homosexuality by denying its existeece or driving it underground. I have no way of knowing whether the letter's author is a big left tackle or a fleet halfback, football players find themselves frequently lock- ed in embrace or rolling on the turf with their adversaries. Will youths who exhibit a special zeal for tackling be suspected of unmanly oassion? Or will players he required to sign oaths of sex- ual orthodoxy? Presumably some sectors of learned psychia- tric opinion will contend that the letter-writer cotd have been "saved" if his condition lad been acknowledged in childhood. Whether society has a right to judge what sexual mores constitute salvation is a matter of deepening dispute, espec- ially since the Kinsey report shattered many popular conceptions of "normalcy." BUT WHAT is utterly clear from this letter- as from an abundance of literature on the sub- ject - is that the youth who wrote it has felt compelled to hide his sexual identity rather than take what he sees as the intolerable risks of dis- closure at home and in school. By his own ac- count, he has even been moved to protect his secret by dating girls and presumably simulating physical interest in them. His furtive life seems a poor triumph for the guardians of public moral- ity. City Council enactment of Intro 2 will not suddenly liberate all those who have been lead- ing counterfeit lives; neither will it lead to wild . rampages. Firemen who have private off-duty homosexual relationships will not begin wooing members of their company on the way to a blaze, and male teachers will not construe the law as a signal to chase little boys down hall- ways. ITS PASSAGE will have a primarily psycholo- gical effect on the social climate. It will be seen as one more step toward an acceptance of declared homosexuals as human beings rather than as dreaded members of a leper colony. It will reduce some of the dreary hypocrisy that envelops the whole subject of so-called "aber- rant" sexual behavior. It may ultimately rescue some other youths from the poignant, bitter soli- tude and elaborate deceptions described in the letter published here today. It may gradually help make such crude, cruel epithets as "faggot" and "queer" as intolerable to sensitive citizens as ethnic slurs. The furious incivility of the campaign being waged against Intro 2 and its sponsors is ap- parently undiminished. For some leaders of the attack, the recurrent debate often seems a desperate way of establishing their own sexual credentials. Politicians who crumble under the assault are dubious embodiments of either virtue or virility. Jaies Wechsler is Editorial Page Editor of the and no exhaustive examination system is likely to New York Post. Copyright 1974-The New York unveil his identity. After all, the most aggressive Post Corporation. YOU ARE THERE The von Hindenberg rides again -E JO- MftASGHLN ES(ORCt-r By DICK WEST WASHINGTON (UPI) -This has been a good week for vis- ionaries. There was a groip of iu:.iris- tic scientists at Princetn dis- cussing plans for space colonies that eventually would :-onse most of the world's oh sitaros. The earth would then -e used primarily as "a be-!,i-iIt sIce to visit for a vacati'mu' 'ie of them explained. And we had Sen. :r:y Gold- water, a far-out Arizona ssepub- lican, telling a group of ia- tin writers that the anssver to American's transportati an prob- lem is the dirigible. He said dirigibles could lift heavy loads, reduce ioltiiion, lower noise levels, stay ataFt :or extended periods and ->)p ,.te where no airports or sinways existed. ns-n0 lMsA..ss cusony~., p ly, struck me as being a hit science-fictionish. An aerial transit systein that operates quietly without da-nag- ing the environment is some- thing right out of "Star Trek." So I decided to check it out with the Future Is Yester-y Foundation, a privately enlov- ed "think tank" and rescarch 'enter whose motto is "Prsgress Through Retrospection." "Is the Senator letting his imagination run away from hoss or is his idea actually within the realm of possibility?" I asked Sam Harkenback, the foinda- tion's advanced projects direct- or.,, "Definitely the latter;" 1'r- kenback replied. He beckoned me to follow- 'in to an airstrip behind the imin laboratory. There he potinod to a large cigar-shaped :be .t su- spended from a tall tower. "So that's a dirigible," i -aid wonderingly. "How does it work?" "The principle involved here is to take a big bag and fill it up with some type of ;as tat is lighter than air. The og will then float aloft. Add a prapel- ler to give it forward thrust and a rudder to control dtrec- lion and yoi're got a convey- ance for passengers or carlo." I said, "It still has an other- Vorldish ring to me. Why . the dirigible shaped like a c'gar rather than, say, a Tiparilta?' Harkenback explained that extensive tests were cond-icred at the foundation's praing grounds. By tossing 'both into the air, researchers estaalished that a cigar is 37 per cent more buoyant than a Tiparillo. It would appear then, lia! I owe Goldwater an apology. He may have his feet in the clouds but he's still got his head on the ground. THE SPACE colony concept sounded plausible enough. Put "THAT," he said, "is nour Goldwater's presentation, frank- basic dirigible."