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OUR LIFE MONTHLY, published by Ukrainian hational Womens League of America Vol. XXXII JULY 1975 No. 7 Editor Marta Baczynsky CAMILLE SMORODSKY SUMMARY OF WOMEN'S TRIBUNE Mexico City — June 18th — July 2nd The Women's Tribune, held during International Women's Year, provided a platform for women from all parts of the world to voice their grievances, to compare notes and hopefully, to carry home solutions to many of their problems. The difficulty with an international women's con ference lay in the fact that most problems are unique rather then similar, particularly with respect to the religious and civil laws in a given country. For example, while delegates from the United States were concerned with ecology, rights for women in employment, and after divorce, education — countries like Indonesia were concerned with legally limiting polygamy to two wives, while Mexicans were concerned with the problem of family planning and the effect it would have on their moral upbringing as imposed by the Catholic Church. Each delegate presented the problem of women in her or his country in the most favorable light — presenting the law governing the rights of women and the history of the country's feminist (if any) movement. Many delegates, however, used the Tribune as a forum for presenting their political ideologies. It was no wonder that Betty Frieden, considered a liberal in the United States, after listening to some of the speeches said, "Communism is no guarantee for equality of women." Yet this appeared to be the attitude of most of the Latin Americans and a third of the world nations. When population control in the form of family planning and abortion was discussed, the majority of nations seemed to feel that if the United States did not use the food they produced, there would be no need for family planning. In most instances, we were presented as a sel fish consumerist society which exploited the poor countries of the world. I was proud, as a member of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, to present a different picture that of an organization that arranged scholarships for students in these same countr ies and contributed a heavy share to the maintaince of orphanages and the poor. We brought up the plight of Ukrainian political prisoners at least three times on the floor of the Tribune as well as in session, calling for a general amnesty for International Women’s Year 1975 We hold these truths to be self-evident that all MEN and WOMEN are created equal ....... these women and their husbands. When we mentioned a general amnesty for all political prisoners, we were approached by delegates from Bolivia and Chile, all of whom had heard from the Soviets that we were "fascists," and who were the surprised by our appeal. We replied that we were concerned with all women who suffered. Although the Soviet delegation did much to keep some of the latin American delegates in line, many ex pressed their sympathy with the plight of the Ukrainian political prisoners and took materials greedily. The greatest surprise was how little the Soviet delegates knew about recent events in their country. For example, on the floor of the Tribune they publicly denied ever having bought wheat from any country in the world — and claimed to have been the ones to pro pose unilateral disarmament. They were stunned when we told them of the United States wheat purchased by their country and that the Soviet Union was the one who did not sign the unilateral disarmament treaty. They pro fessed ignorance and asked if we were absolutely sure we had our facts straight. One Soviet delegate asked me why we were so concerned about five women in prison. I asked her how many women she represented in Ukraine and she replied, "45,000,000". I then asked her why her govern ment is so concerned about five women, one of whom is paraplegic and four ill in other ways, if 44,999,995 women are so happy. Our most successful and fulfilling work, however, was in meeting other delegates on a person-to-person basis. We were fortunate to have met the delegates from Switzerland, France, Mexico, Colombia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, West Germany, Ghana, Egypt, Iran, representing various women's organ izations, with whom we established not only a rapport but close friendships. For me, personally, I found that my blonde hair was a passport. There were few persons 20 НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ, ЛИПЕНЬ-СЕРПЕНЬ 1975 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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