I’ll tell you Why Not!
Arthur Cohen
Dear Editor:
Last week somebody on campus was distributing hundreds of buttons carrying the Canadian slogan for International Women’s Year. While I’m one hundred percent behind the Women’s Movement I must confess that I think that the whole public relations campaign being run by the government is kind of silly.
It seems that the slogan, “Why Not!” shows that the government doesn’t feel that there is any good reason to have a Women’s Year, but that it would be fun anyway. It gives people like Marc Lalonde a chance to make speeches in favour of the Women’s Movement while at the same time the Department of Health and Welfare’s (which he is responsible for) programs often discriminate against single parents (who are usually women).
I’m sure that the price tag for the program will run into the millions of dollars, but I’m not so sure that it will accomplish anything — except perhaps relieve the consciences of certain cabinet ministers. The government could perhaps better use the money trying to bring equality to women in the civil service. One task force studying sexist discrimination in the CBC found that there was plenty of room for improvement in that department and I’m sure that the same holds true for the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the rest of the civil service.
A million dollars would go a long way towards strengthening the Women’s Movement at the grass roots level — if it were put towards such useful things as daycare centres, rape crisis centres, research groups, and prosecution of offenders of the present discrimination laws.
These are the areas where the movement needs to be strengthened; it doesn’t need to be discredited by a government campaign which makes it look silly. Perhaps the cabinet would best discuss the following question at their meeting so that they could come up with a better approach to Women’s Year:
“Why?”.