Daily Nebraskan
Monday, April 11, 1983
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Women's Week
A time to change
outdated
attitudes
Women, this is your week.
And men, this is the week to recognize women and get
involved in the many activities brought to campus by the
Women's Resource Center and the University Program
Council.
These two groups have done an outstanding job of
organizing a week-long calendar of events, speakers and
entertainment, all of which have significance for both
women and men.
Women's Week, April 10 through 17, is a time to
learn and to enjoy. With that in mind, we'd like to draw
attention to the serious issues being considered by the
various events - and we'd like to show the lighter side
by giving a few outlandish illustrations depicting the
attitudes women faced in the not-so-distant past.
The agenda shows a balance of the difficulties facing
women and the successes that have been achieved.
Among the problems to be discussed are date rape,
abusive relationships, stereotypes, health problems,
mothering, racial disadvantages and career planning. Other
programs emphasize women's achievements in art, writing,
athletics. Plains history and Nebraska government.
One of the highlights of Women's Week is the Friday
luncheon where we have the chance to meet and talk with
the newly appointed women in Gov. Kerrey's administra
tion. Kerrey has done a fine job of seeing that women
are not overlooked in positions of power; now it's the
university's turn to voice concerns to these women and
show that we are eager to give them our input and
support.
Such women as Mayor Helen Boosalis and the other
featured guests who serve as directors of state agencies
bring to mind the progress that women have made not
only in politics but in all walks of life. It seems fitting to
compare this to the plight of our female ancestors, who
had little hope for respect, let alone equity.
The April issue of Ms. magazine looks at several laws
which are hard to rationalize at any point in history.
For example, "No woman in San Francisco can spray
her laundry cloths by squirting water out of her mouth;"
"A Michigan lav permits a man whose wife has left him
to follow her down the street removing articles of her
clothing one by one because they are 'his property';"
and in Kentucky, no female can appear in a bathing suit
on any highway unless escorted by two officers or armed
with a club. This doesn't apply to females weighing less
than 96 pounds or more than 200 pounds, "nor shall it
apply to female horses."
These statutes are only humorous when you consider
the ignorance that gave rise to them. Let's hope the fifth
annual Women's Week can make strides in continuing
to fight the ignorance which keeps women, even today,
from achieving equity.
M
Daily
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When Ronald Reagan wants to show how much he
thinks of the little guy, he drinks a beer in a blue-collar
bar.
When he wants to show how much he thinks of the
rich, he gives them a tax cut.
The three-year tax cut that Reagan pushed through
Congress was an across-the-board cut, which means
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that the actual effect of it is regressive; the rich have
and will gain a lot more than it than anybody else.
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that
Reagan's tax cuts, combined with his very selective
spending cuts, will make the rich richer and the poor
worse off. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated
that the poorest families will lose about SI 50 each this
year because of the tax and spending cuts, while those
families with incomes between $40,000 and $80,000 will
gain an average of $1,800 each from the tax cuts, accord
ing to the February issue of Dollars and Sense. Families
with income of more than $80,000 might gain an ad
ditional $15,000 each.
The final installment of the Reagan tax cuts this
summer will only deepen the income gap between people
in this country. Family income in the United States had
become slightly more evenly distributed during the last
30 vcars - until this recession. Beginning in 1979, the
share of income going to the lower 60 percent of the
U.S. population has declined, while that going to the
upper 40 percent of U.S. families has increased, according
to the Census Bureau.
The poorest fifth of families saw its share of the
national income decline from 5.2 percent to 5 percent
from 1979 to 1981, while at the nation's
richest fifth of the population increased its share of the
national income from 41.6 percent to 41.9 percent.
One of the main reasons that the poor managed to
gain as much as they did during the last 30 years
was the development of certain parts of the welfare
state. In 1950, the federal government spent $7.5 billion
on transfer payments; in 1980, it was $205 billion. But
with Reagan's attacks on all federal spending except the
Pentagon' budget, transfer payments are less equalizing
than they were in the past.
Without these transfer payments, the economy would
have been immeasurably more unstable and top heavy.
The difference (or at least one big difference) between
the Great Depression and the recessions of the 1970s
was the greater income distribution; we didn't fall
into another abyss because the middle class is larger than
it was in the 1920s and because the lower class is not as
desperately poor as it was then.
Poor families are 85 percent better off in absolute
income, even after an adjustment for inflation, than they
were in 1950, according to Dollars and Sense. How
ever, this may not continue. The recession (in which the
people on the bottom always suffer most), the regressive
tax cut and the ideologized selfishness of Reagan's social
and welfare policies are doing a job on the middle and
lower classes in America that not even a glass of beer
can disguise.
Hu Na wlm deserved U.S. asy!
By defecting here, Hu Na has performed a public ser
vice worthy of a citizen. She has caused discomfort to
some people here and in China, who deserve it.
When the 19-year-old Chinese tennis player defected
during a California tournament last July, the Reagan
administration should have immediately said to Peking:
Anyone within our borders has an absolute right to apply
for political asylum. This is a legal, not a political process,
so butt out. There is no way this process can end other
than in a grant of asylum.
n
George
Will
And this is true also for the 1,000 Chinese (of the
10,000 now in this country) who have become enemies of
the Chinese regime by seeking asylum.
Instead, the administration dithered for nine months
and did so for - it is glaringly obvious political reasons.
As this is written, a decision - the right one - is near. The
appeasers (the word fits) have lost their battle to have Hu
granted something less than political asylum, some in
definite but temporary and revokable permission to
remain here.
Although Peking demanded it, there never was a
possibility that Hu would be "sent back." Persons denied
asylum are not extradicted to the country from which
they are fleeing. They can go to any nation that will take
them. Taiwan (I know, 1 know: we have declared it a non
nation) would take her. Would Peking like that?
In the agreement within the State Department, the
human-rights advocates defeated those people who rise
every morning wondering what they can do that day to
please Peking. The department recommended to the
Immigration and Naturalization Service that Hu be given
political asylum. INS also always takes the State Depart
ment's recommendation. But not this time. Fortunately,
it is up to the attorney general to make a fina.1 decision.
Hu will get political asylum.
The INS is reportedly in a snit because the State
Department did not furnish what INS considers sufficient
reasons for its recommendations. In 1980 the law was
changed, so there no longer is a presumption that persons
fleeing Community countries have valid reasons for fleeing.
But when asked why she wants asylum, Hu gives per
suasive reasons, including threats aimed at forcing her to
join the Communist Party and tear ot becoming a victim
of factional strife. It is absurd to ask why anyone would
want to escape from one of the world's most repressive
regimes. But she has what the law requires: a well-founded
fear of persecution, were she to return.
When Hu was playing for China and lost a match, her
team captain would say it was a sign that "I had not
sufficiently studied Marxist-Leninist thought." Her grand
lather, a coach, was purged for neglecting the Communist
dimensions of tennis, whatever that means. A player was
sentenced to a year at hard labor because he threw his
racket during a match abroad - a sure sign of capitalist in
fluence. Hu has been severely criticized for fraternizing
with foreigners while abroad, and - oh! bourgeoise
deviationism! - wearing tennis clothes with American
brand names.
We may be past the period of ludicrous enthusiasm for
China, the period when, as Pat Moynihan says, many
Americans returned from China more impressed by the
absence of flies than the absence of freedom. But there is
in the United States a lobby devoted to pleasing Peking,
and therefore terrified of truthful talk about Peking. The
core of the relations with particular countries often be
come single-minded about reducing "friction" with, and
increasing the contentment of, that country.
What Peking's advocates say is wrong with granting Hu
political asylum is actually what makes political asylum so
pleasing: It is offensive to Peking. Thus it is welcome evi
dence that the U.S. government can assert itself against
Peking.
Political asylum for Hu is offensive to Peking because it
is a clear comment on China's ugly, irrational totalitarian
ism. (No one from, say, Denmark, could be granted
political asylum.) Political asylum also is splendidly offen
sive because it .clearly expresses disbelief concerning
China's assurances that Hu would not be persecuted were
she to return.
In this episode, Peking has shown disrespect for U.S.
legal processes and confidence that the U.S. government
would cave in to pressure. Why? Because from the
Shanghai communique (1972) through the Reagan ad
ministration's capitulation concerning arms for Taiwan
(committing the United States to phase out sales), the
United States has earned Peking's contempt.
Finally, the fact that Reagan's administration contrived
to make a long-running problem and embarrassment out
of what should have been a quick, easy decision illustrates
this administration's failure to communicate certain core
values to certain recesses of the bureaucracy.
(c) 1983, The Washington Post Company
