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I remember a baby boy whose name was Kolya, ten or eleven months old, who looked quite different from the rest of the babies who resembled tiny old men. Their faces were wrinkled and they did not have strenghth to move and cry. Kolya, however, was chubby and rosy cheeked. He cried loudly and was in constant motion. When nurses took Kolya in their arms, Kolya would quiet down but did not smile and was sullen.We were not aware how the boy’s name was learned. Probably his mother attached a note to his clothing, or nurses just named him. It was a mystery how this blue-eyed chubby boy happened to be among starving children. Alongside of our train stood several freight trains which rarely moved. The older children were allowed to crawl under them to relieve themselves. One day something dreadful happened.One of these freight trains moved, cutting off a boy’s legs, who at that time was under the train. MOTRIA KUSHNIR WOMAN VIEWS & NEWS IN WOMAN'S WORLD Not too long ago the influential Monthly Labor Review published an article entitled ”Sex Stereotyping: It’s Decline in the Skilled Trades.” The good news is, we are told, that women have made incredible progress in gaining employment in fields formerly closed to females. And there are statistics which ’’prove” the giant leap forward our gains represent. Unfortunately, there is little real evidence that discrimination is on the decline. Most of the changes seem to be the result of insignificant shifts in employ ment numbers which are inaccurately reflected and interpreted on the basis of ’’relative rates.” Statistics will lie unless they are correctly calculated and compared. Much of the problem in the interpretation of employment trends stems from the use of relative rates. For example, it has been stated that the rate of increase of women working in the industrial crafts was eight times that of men. While this fact is true, it is also a rather meaningless marker. Let’s take an extreme but illustrative example to clarify the situation. Suppose there were 2 women employed as craft workers in 1960 and that in 1970 the number increased to 20. In other words, there would be ten times as many women craft workers employed in 1970 as there were in 1960. Further, let us assume that the men’s employment figures went from 8 million to 9 million in the same period of time. This increase would constitute only a 12% rise as compared to the 1,000% increase in the number of women. The increase of 18 female workers compared to 1 million male employees is not, obviously, indicative of any decline in stereotyping; yet, if one were to look at the rates of increase — 1,000% compared to 12% — these 18 jobs would seem very meaningful indeed. Once I and several of the counselors were scheduled to take some of the children to a temporary child shelter. By the time the streetcar reached its last stop it was dark, and we still had a long way to walk. It was cold and the little children tired quickly. They were crying and asked me: ’’Auntie, where are we going?” What could I tell them. I had to pull four five-year-old children, they stumbled and yet kept on walking. Finally we reached the barracks. What became of the children then, I don’t know. It really hurts to remember all of this. But I feel that everyone should know of what happened in Ukraine that year of 1933. Lubov Drashevska The Ukrainian version of this article was published in Our Life, No- 6, 1978. If we look at the example another way, the error of the statistical method is apparent. Between 1960 and 1970 there were 1,000, 018 new jobs in the crafts. Of these jobs, .0018% went to women and 99.82% went to men. The real rate of change is here measured to the total number of jobs — as it should be. So, lady beware of the kind of progress that looks good on paper but that evaporates into thin air when applied to real life. Speaking of cockeyed labor statistics, women’s role in the work force has always been substantially under represented because the Labor Bureau refuses to count females working on family farms as workers employed in agriculture, despite the fact that men have always been so regarded. When the United States was more heavily agricultural — as in the 19th century — such an omission seriously distorted the picture of the number of women employed outside the home. Even today, if a farm household is headed by a male, his spouse’s work on the farm is ignored in the calculations of labor force participation. The owner of the Kempton Grain Elevator in Tipton County, Indiana, however, is well aware of the fallacy of the Labor Bureau’s statistics. Dealing with real life and not paper surveys, he is very willing to recognize the importance of women in the agricultural sector of our economy. His grain elevator boasts a plush rest room for women, a precedent-setting renovation. ’’It’s only good business," he reports, "because more than half the drivers who deliver grain here are farm wives.” Campaigns to rescind state ratifications of the ERA continue to be a threat to the momentum for the amend ment. Though recission moves were thwarted in six states in 1977, women in Oregon came up with a really creative countermove. The resolution to rescind might have died quietly in committee; but Representative Nancie Fadeley refused to tolerate an easy demise.
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