A2 - Wednesday, April 14, 1982 - North Shore News

strictly personal

by Bob Hunter

As my wife pointed out to guests the other
night, I’m the feminist in our household. She's the

redneck.

Fve been a strong believer
in equal rights for women
ever since I can remember,
for the simple reason, if
nothing else, that my mother
had to work for a living from
the time I was very small. |
know how tough and unfair
it was, being a woman in the
job market.

I can see for myself that
while old bastions of male
supremacy are crumbling.
much of the progress in the
last few decades for the
women's movement amounts
to tokenism.

In the critical areas --
money and power -- time has
almost stood stll. | can see
my mother, again, making

half what a male waiter
made even. though = she
worked twice as hard and

often twice as long.

Indeed, we have a woman
as Speaker of the House of
Commons and now we have
a woman on the Supreme
Court of Canada, but
Parliament remains” an
overwhelmingly male arena.

The average woman's

wage is still only 59 cents to
every dollar earned by a
male, even though women in
North America and Europe
make up 40 per cent of the

work force. Their unpaid
labor at home amounts to 40
per cent of the Gross

Domestic Product.

Housewives are left out of
the Canada Pension Plan on
the grounds that most
spouses are non-working
dependents who. Stay. al
home. Such a= stereotype
may have been true in the
Sixties. when the plan was
devised. but it doesn't reflect
reality in the Eighties.

According to the In-
ternational Labor
Organization, women = and
girls constitute half the

world’s population but put in
two-thirds of its working
hours. As a United Nations
conference

on women
reported.

“One of the most tm-
portant and most ignored

health problems in the world
of the 1980's 1s that millions
of women are suffering from

WORK TO BEGIN IN MAY

New M Creek bridge will cost $730,000

A Burnaby firm has won a
$161,629 contract to build
the new “M” Creck bridge.
14 kilometres north = of

Horseshoe Bay on the
Garibaldi Highway 99,
Highways Minister Alex

Fraser and West Vancouver
Howe Sound MLA Allan
Willams have announced

Work on the new structure
ys expected to begin
sometime in mid May with a
completion date — set
November A work

for
crew

averaging five will be em-
Kingston

ployed Con

OPEN
TUE S..WED.,THURS., FRI.

9AM 7PM

SAT MON OAM 5PM

food MEN A WOMEN

struction submitted
lowest of seven tenders.

Highways ministry crews
are preparing approaches to
the new bridge

“M"™ Creek bridge was
washed out by a log and mud
shde last October and was a
timber trestle structure built
in 1957

The new bridge will rest
on a skewed abutment
spread footings and an
abutment founded partially

thé

on

on rock and partially on
stecl H-piles It will be a
single span steel girder

structure 41 4% metres long

- wear

wife the redneck

chronic exhaustion.”

Last autumn. travelling
through Thailand, Singapore
and Hong Kong, I noticed

that women working on
construction sites were
lifting loads that looked
every bit as heavy as the
men's.

It was a gnm_ kind of
equality, and not at all what
women are after, but the
sight of female labourers
straining under the weight of
wheelbarrows loaded with
bricks was a reminder that

the greatest barrier to
equality is the sheer cost
involved.

Equal pav for equal work
is beyond doubt a perfectly
legitumate demand, yet who
pays for Ww? It is the same
problem with inequities in
the Canada Pension Plan --
they will be enormously
expensive to correct

But there is one area
where progress can be made
without waiting for an
economic breakthrough.
and that’s in the reform of

laws which do not go far
enough to protect women
In England. Prime

Mimster Margaret Thatcher

with a 10.8 metre roadway
and (wo concrete parapets

The highway has been
served by a single Bailey
bridge over “M”™ Creek
Traffic as) controlled — by
traffic hghts and oat will
remain in place until the new
bridge is completed

Total cost of the new
bridge. including

engineering supervision and

matertals wall be $730 000
which does not include
preparabon of the ap

proaches, cost of which wall
be tabulated when they are
completed

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SUPERCHUTTERS

has yorned the demand that
rapists be jailed. adding her
voice to that of Lord Chief
Justice Lane. who recom-
mended that convicted
rapists should be sent to
prison in all but) “wholly
exceptional circumstances”.

This) year, the British
Parhament wil! vote on a bill
to establish mandatory jail
terms for rapists, yetif there
is a similar campaign in
Canada, its voice hasn't been
properly aired.

Years ago, as a reporter, |
used to have to sit through
rape tnals where | couldn't
believe the ordeal the victim
was being put through by
defence lawyers and judges

alike. Essentially. nothing
has changed since those
days.

The proof of the failure of
our courts to defend women
against rape is the fact that
only one victim out of four
reports an attack.

It is not just that men
estimate their chances of
being senously punished as
very low. women themselves
clearly have little faith in the
system.

There is too much of a
record of lhght sentences and
a low percentage of
VICtIONS

econ-

If the victim knew that her
assailant was going to be
imprisoned, not just allowed
to walk away with a fine.

she'd be that much more
inclined to testify
On this. my wife -- the

redneck -- and | agree

GIVE BLOOD.
ap ONE LE

Tne Canadian Red Cross Society

coffee

JOE STONEHOUSE

ORC

archibald clarke & defieux Itd.

? | fel

insurance brokers & consultants
347 bewicke ave., north vancouver, bD.c.. canada V7M 3€9

or
Ham & 2 Eggs any style

with Yankee Hash Browns (diced
w/onions), toast, juice, tea or

phone for VISA
reservations 921-8161 wmattercard

Terry Clarke,
president of
Archibald, Clarke
& Defieux Ltd., is
pleased to
announce the
appointment of Joe
Stonehouse to the
position of sales
representative.

brunch

2 FOR 1 SPECIAL!

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thru April

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