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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 1984)
Pago 4 Daily Nebrcskan Tuesday, November 27, 1C-34 Oh O ) II II U J IS HffU wm an u It U in VI I 3 I U v.. W VIALMJ Uki V tion. Because the unions are community centers, it follows that they should pro vide a positive atmosphere for men and women. They believe the magazines are a negative influence. Those gainst the ban argue that tak ing the magazines off the shelves would be a violation of First Amendment rights. Others say its a moral decision and the board should not make that decision for the student body.. Banning the magazines would not vio late any laws. The unions can sell or not sell any magazines it wants to as long as it isn't preventing the publishing of any thing. The supporters of the ban are avare that the Union Bookstore would probably continue selling Playboy and Playgirl even if union concessions don't. It's a striclty symbolic gesture, and a well intentioned one. Tonight the Union Board will decide whether or not to sell Playboy, Pent house and Playgirl magazines in the unions. There are good arguments on both sides of the tesue. All three magazines are undeniably exploitive. Many sociologists and feminists maintain that such magazines contribute to undesirable attitudes about women (and in the case of Playgirl, men.) These magazines are successful because they have pictures of and stories about sex and attractive people. That in itself isn't necessarily wrong. There's nothing wrong with erotica. But when people are depicted as sex objects, or if they are depicted as lesser because of their gender that constitutes discrimination. Those who would like to ban the maga zines from the unions say it Would be a symbolic gesture against sexual exploita- Career-min But before the board decides whether or not to ban the magazines it should consider the precedent it will be setting if it doe3 ban them. The concession at the Nebraska Union sell3 magazines about violent sports. It could easily be argued that those maga zines encourage violent behavior should they be banned? The concession also sell3 a wide variety of hunting magazines which support violent behavior should they be banned? Another argument against the ban in volves questions about the origin of the discrimination. The Nebraska Union sells other magazines Seventeen, Mademoi selle and Glamour essentially women's magazines, but they promote an "ideal" similar to the one Playboy doe3. These magazines are designed to help women make themselves attractive to men by using make up, clothes and exercise. You'll rarely find an articb in these pulps on the art of conversation or quantum physics. Are these magazines a reflection of society's desires or are they promoting an impossible and undcsireable image for and of women Cn their own? The answer is probably a little of both. The magazines are popular and people strive to achieve those elusive "ideab." Who is to say whether society or the edi tors are responsible for what that "ideal" happens to be. Todd Knobcl, a board member, has a good idea. The issue should be put on the ASUN ballot next spring, he says. That way, those who the decision effects will be able to make the decision. Until then, the unions should continue selling the maga zines: - asdi U0771 sirives to overcome a W: e are told by the experts that new mothers forget the pain of childbirth almost instantly. The theory is that they are so enamored with the product, they blank out the process. They develop delivery room amnesia. Well, I don't know about that. But I do think that working mothers develop another sort of amnesia: child care amnesia. By the time the preschoolers become teen-agers we have forgotten the old anxieties. The panic when a babysitter gave us notice, the stress when we had to research a new place, the unease when we were not quite sure whether this per son, this home, this center, was just right. fcl Goodman I had a refresher course in child-care crisis this fall when a friend of mine was, as they say, between babysitters. Being "be tween babysitters" is a lot like being between jobs.. It's an optim istic description of a terrifying condition. You don't really knew you are "between" jobs or child care until you find the next one. What you do know is that sud denly the life of the most carefully-planned family is revealed atitsmostvulneralfepoint Everything from the mortgage, to the career, to the happiness of the children hangs by the thin thread of child care. My friend's stress brought it all back to me. The ads in the paper, the Interviews, the visits to nursery schools, the uncertainty, the re adjustments even the time I came home to find that my miss ing 4-year-old had been allowed by a new sitter to walk to the supermarket alone. It's ccsier to talk about it all now. The 4-year-old is 1 6 and has no memory of the events that worried me. She is not, in any notable way, lopsided. It is her policy, I believe, to refuse to allow me to invent childhood traumas to feed my working mother guilts. But I was struck again by how little has changed in the way we deal with child care. Today 45 percent of the mothers with infants and CO percent of those with kids between 3 and 5 are working out side the home. We have more day-care suppliers and many more day-care needers. Finding care for children is the same frantic, fractured experience; success still hinges on luck and money. I know this has an enormous effect on working couples with children. But I suspect that it also colors the lives and minds of young couples, and especially young career-minded women, who do not yet have children. The old conflict in the career woman's life was between love and work. The current conflict is between children and work. You cannot talk to a woman, age 30 or more, without touching on the fear of or desire for children. The issue is important to men as well, but not as vital If you follow the bottom line of most two working-parent marriages whose salary pays the babysitter? Who chooses the day care cen ter? S these young women, who have inherited the much lauded "new choices" of our era exper ience these choices as conflicts. The decision to have or not to have a child is often framed in personal, even psychological terms. Am I ready? Can I cope? But in reality, they hinge on some thing quite objective: child care. I wonder how different the decision-making process would be if the women knew there was a reliable, high quality, affordable name the other adjectives child care? At the beginning of the women's movement, there was a popular slogan: The personal is political. Issues like those of balancing work and family life were not just pri vate problems, but also public ones. Today we plant every tub on its own bottom. Each family is expected to seek out its own cMdcaresolii&mric4ttrnararige of enhanced and attractive pos sibilities, but from limited opticus and chaos. We do this thwarted "by the waiting lists at the best ill -J-JL It jiff" f s -7 f-r'j K2, ,K,tZ v HBRe IT 15, .CHieF... THE HM SlMPUPieQ TAX FORM and Zoning laws restrict free marke H ecently, grumblings have been heard from the august citizenry of Lincoln over the selective waiving of some zoning requirements for certain property owners. The specifics of the dis pute are relatively unimportant, they simply represent a more public manifestation of the con tinuing hassles which zoning regu lation presents to local government ( -. jim -Rogers centers, fearful of sex abuse or neglect, skeptical about finding a Mary Poppins, and fiercely pro tective toward our children's own well-being. My own child-care anxieties are behind me. My friend's crisis is in remission. The worst is over by the time our children are 5 or 6 years old. It's no wonder that child-care amnesia sets in so quickly. But if we forget, nothing changes. And right behind us is another wave of women on the brink of motherhood whose eyes are wide open. () 1S2I, T Bostsa C!sfc Uvmpsptr ComsxjV (uMastffa Post Wttirs What is more interesting ij the almost universal assent which zoning laws enjoy in the face of rather slim evidence that .they are employed in the public inter est. In fact, they are almost the foremost example of state inter vention on behalf qf economic and social elites and a concomit ant opposition to the free market system when it does not serve elite interests. Zoning laws began to receive serious attention on a grand scale only after around 1916. Since that time, a rather amazing con sensus of opinion has developed in support of these laws. It is undoubtedly safe to say that except for protection against crim inals, few other forms of govern ment regulation receive such uni versal acclaim. For example, last year in a property law class of mine, the professor asked the class whether anyone -did not agree with the propriety of zoning laws. Out of a class of about 0, only one stu dent raised his hands in opposi tion: Obviously, yours truly. Usually in such cases I men tally resort to the old adage that truth makes my lone voice a major ity of one. Suprisingly resort to mental apologetics was not neces sary in this case. Much to the chagrin of my classmates, the professor, the veritable mouth piece of the gods in the typical freshman law class, opposed zon ing as well. Nonetheless, I would be surprised if the percentage of opposition to zoning ever reaches beyond the scant 2.5 percent it received in that class. Irrespective of the lack of pop ular support, there are supris ingly strong arguments in sup port of the view that the abolition of zoning regulation would advance rather than hinder pub lic welfare. Such arguments have apparently persuaded some rather large cities, most notably Houston and Denver, to not imple ment zoning laws. The two most obvious uses of zoning is for the protection of the old, entrenched wealth of a muni cipality (usually called "preserv ing the downtown") and for class discrimination (which usually pro ceeds under the pseudonym of "protecting the character of the neighborhood"). Perhaps in no area of state regulation b there more explicit rsvslation of the use of govern ment power on the behalf of ex tant wealth than in zoning. A3 a community begins to grow and its character begins to change, the wealthy elite usually attempt to preserve their rather substan tial fixed investments in the down town area by employing zoning laws to oppose market forces. The interest of this class in pre serving their status and control from the economic challenge of new and vital entrepreneurs is typically the outer perimeter of the "public's" interest hi stringent commercial zoning control Residential zoning regulation h&3 a similar utility for keeping "undesirable" elements out of neighborhoods through the use of minimum lot tlzzz, structural requirements and so forth, .By avoiding the subdivision of lots into smaller units, for "example,' poorer Individuals are effectively kept out cf the "better parts of town. Finally, a wor d needs to be said about the potential aasthstic dam age to a community. The zoning proponent claims that the repe al cf the zoning !aw3 would invite destruction of the beauty and social cohesion of a neighborhood. This need not be true. It need be noted that even with zoning, this type of disruption and dislocation occurs. But under a system cf zoning thesa who bear the brunt of the cost usually are not compensated -for their sacrifice for the public good. This is in stark contrast to-a market approach to land use. Older con ceptions cfcovensntsnd mibance can be rcimpknented which pro tect property interests rather thansaeksoklytospur'econcmic development." CyC-, ; a L-ihia si'l C