The Velvet Sledgehammer

Women's news with Judy Pasternak for the week of March 7, 1985, incorporating KPFA's Majority Report. Subjects discussed: Katherine Davenport reports on a new law in Montana requiring insurance companies to charge men and women the same rates for the same coverage, including an interview with Ann Brodsky of the Women's Lobbyist Fund in Helena, Montana (00:04:42); Ginny Burson and Karen Sondheim on women's occupational safety and health issues (00:11:23); interview by Mimi Rosenberg with Eileen Carr and Sheila Thornton, the wives of two striking British coalminers (00:15:57); Katherine Davenport interviews Nikki Craft of the Preying Mantis Women's Brigade and Citizens for Media Responsibility on the proposed new ordinance in Los Angeles that would declare pornography a violation of women's civil rights and the ACLU's Janlori Goldman on the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union' appeal of Minneapolis' "Opaque Cover" ordinance requiring obscene materials in bookstores to kept in opaque sleeves (00:33:22); Pasternak interviews Wendy Sanford and Norma Swenson of the Boston Women's Health Collective and two of the authors of the revised version of the classic women's self-help book, The new our bodies, ourselves (Simon and Schuster, 1985) (00:46:40), on why they chose to write a new edition and on the evolution of women's health and medical discourse; Rose Jordan with news for the lesbian community, including Katherine Davenport on Oklahoma City's statute regulating the free speech of gay and lesbian teachers, Nancy Langer from Lambda Legal Defense about Texas Tech students being barred from starting a gay group on campus, Carol Bellamy on the acquisition of the building in which the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center of New York now resides, Susan Cavin from "The Big Apple Dyke" about the lesbian presence in the anti-apartheid movement (01:08:17); notes from the Women's Community Bulletin Board (01:20:49).