The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 11

GUARDIAN WOMEN Thursday fjLUgust 2v.l97& 11 US la TWEEDIE fllf iK S'd Paul Foot nition that what needs to be done can only be done by the people. Jimmy Carter says, "I need the help of the American people and, clearly, he not only needs it but is quite powerless without it. Increasingly, the necessities of the future must rest upon a wider and wider acceptance by everyone (as in the Utopian dreams) of personal responsibility. The energy crisis, as one instance, cannot be solved by any leader's decree it can only be mitigated by widespread traint and solved by new discoveries or a grassroots change in patterns of living. Where once a country's problems were selt-contained and the consequences of leadership, good or bad, confined within national or sectarian borders, evefy major problem today from inflation to unemployment depends far more for its solution upon the general public than on any single act by any single leader.

If my analysis has any truth to it, it could take years of replacing failed leaders with new leaders, also doomed to failure; years of the slow disillusionment with leaders that has already set in, before we accept the facts leaders are failing because leaders are no longer relevant. The Utopian future has begun and whether it turns into a dream or a nightmare may depend only on us. ONE of the basic similarities among most Utopian writers is that they almost always envisage a society without leaders. In the more ancient versions, vide Plato, there may be a ruling clique of Wise Men but modern idylls dispense with leaders altogether. It is true that, in doing so, authors tend to stay well clear of the boring bits like who empties the dustbins but the iptellectual interest lies in the very fact of that common denominator the future seen as devoid of any Top Person, or group of Top People, there to tell others what to do.

The stories are set well ahead on undiscovered planets or in our own country circa 2500" AD, glimpsed through a time warp. But even today, anno domini 1979, we are, perhaps, already in transition to that future and though all transitional states are extremely uncomfortable and noisome with Cassandras predicting imminent doom, they are also full of hopeful possibilities and many individuals whose attitudes and actions, consciously or unconsciously, reflect what may come about rather than what has been. Take, for instance, the unlikely figure of Jimmy Carter. Here is the man who has what is often called the most powerful job in the world. A leader of leaders.

During that therein nothing important he can do without, the people and that a- people's democracy, is about to become an empirical necessity. He is the first world leader to recognise this be-. cause he is the most powerful leader of the. most powerful country and therefore the onlv one forced to disabuse himself of the illusion that power- itself is a solution. This Emperor, perhaps, has glimpsed a truth before his people and brought their fury upon his head for saying, in public, "I have no clothes." Italy, as it happens, has been without a Government for six months and the Italians are being that they are ungovernable." This ungovernability has, of course, partly to do with their multi-party system, which in itself reflects a multiplicity of views.

America, with a two-party system, has no such excuse and yet Carter's personal pollster Pat Caddell reports that Americans feel it doesn't matter who is President because the countrv is spinning out oi control. The old world and the new, for different reasons, both becoming ungovernable. The predictable conclusions are dire but they could, more optimistically, be interpreted as ingredients of inevitable change, first tiny and perilous steps away from a reliance upon leadership and into an awed recog most of his tenure as dent of the United States, Mr Carter has constantly been accused of what is seen as the worst failure possible in his situation (far worse than Nixonian dirty tricks) a lack of leadership. Contrite, he says he has finally heard the voices of those who said "Mr President, you haven't been leading our nation" and is going, to change his lifestyle. He has hired someone to coach him in assertiveness, teach him how to move his arms and clench his fists to show forcefulness.

He is now intent on being what they all want him to be, a proper leader. I find the effort at transformation grim. It is easy to criticise the unreconstructed Jimmy Carter for many things. It is possible that he was (is?) a weak and vacillating man, unable to make up his mind, unable to see the wood for the trees. But it is also just possible that he was a kind of sombre incarnation of the future the first American leader ever seriously to convey to his electorate (whether he would or no) that the time had passed when one man albeit American, President, White, Southern and Godfearing could actually be expected to lead -his people in the all-embracing way that they want to be, insist on being led.

Roy Hattersley A. J. Ayer Four just men THIS is the last call or letters io the four brave men who will be filling Jill Tweedie's column or the rest of this month. Between them they stand ready to deal with anything from eternal verities to domestic niggles, from food to fatherhood, from Roedean to revolution. Letters by first post on Monday please to Roy Hattersley, Paul Foot, John Hunt and A.

J. Ayer. We are the ones who give birth and we are the ones to choose what kind of birth we want to give wrote Jill Tweedie last week in a discussion on whether it is better for mothers to have their babies at home or in hospital Where is the place to bring a baby Into the world? SPACE Could it be that the underlying reason for Carter's present unpopularity lies exactly in his erstwhile refusal to pretend to omnipotence when such a pretence (or its reality, Nixonian megalomania) is still so much in demand, so heavily a hangover from history One can quite see, after all, how extremely uncomfortable, exhausting and generally irritating it must be to have elected such a leader. All very nice, on the surface, his fireside chats to keep you briefed, his informal visits to your home, his soliciting of your opinions, just as long as you could be sure that such democratic goings-on were the usual facade, the street theatre of all leaders. But imagine the chill if you begin to think he might be serious, he might actually be expecting you to wrestle with moral and political problems, might actually require your help.

You went to the polls, you voted him in, you're on the way home to get on with your life and you hear him calling you back, asking you thing in the world. I managed to deliver without the use of any drugs. Best of all. my husband was able to stay with my sen and I from birth righl through to the next morning so that his sense of being part of the birth was complete. Fiona M.

Aitkcn. 28 Lucknow Drive, Sutton in Ashficld. Notts. IT IS becoming fashionable to shun analgesic help during labour and worse, to risk dangers to mother and baby by rejecting hosprtal deliveries. Many hospitals enable mothers to attend for a very brief period delivery and recovery only if they so chose.

The miracle of childbirth and shackles somewhat like any other manufactured article. One cannot predict how they will be packaged or stored. No doubt MlleMissMs de Beauvoir will indicate all of these minor matters in due course. Raymond Kalman. Vivian Avenue, London.

SOVIET Russian women have real economic and social equality, outstripping men in many fields due to their greater numbers, greater work reliability and conscientiousness, but emotionally and sexually in their relationship with males, with husbands and lovers, they are the most direlv unhappy and unsatisfied women in the modern, developed world that is, if the Soviet press and media is to be believed. Madame de Beauvoir is deceived or has managed to deceive herself. Olga Franklin. Church Hill, Caterham, Surrey. fortitude she could read all the books most intelligent people have always wanted to read.

She could take up bird-watching, indoor gardening, flower-arranging. She could write to a pen-pal, maybe abroad, possibly learning a new language. I should be most interested to hear how she gets on. Margaret Riddell. 25 Croft Court, Bishopthorpe, York Y02 1RU.

accepted the fact that they would all have an initial health examination and later periodic check-ups. The people, who took up "membership predominantly, but by no means entirely, skilled artisans were not hypochondriacs eager to have their symptoms examined regularly or ana-lvsed in detail. Nor were they, in those days before the NHS gave us free access to the doctor's surgery, attracted because they were unable to afford the medical advice they believed they and their children needed. They were mostly parents nagged bv children rarring to get into the swimming pool and the gym, and to take part in all the other "club" activities. Mum and Dad came to see the kids were all right and found they were enjoying themselves too; and did Grandma and Grandpa.

Enjoyment and sociability were what built up the membership initially The marvellous husband and wife team. Dr. George Scott Williamson and Dr to share some of the burden of responsibility you have just heen making sure he should bear alone. The nerve of it. No wonder you turn around and teW him he's no "leader and, if he's not careful, exchange him for a better-actor.

One of the reasons that the very idea of leadership has been popular enough to endure throughout the lifespan of the human race is that leaders, however repressive, cruel or corrupt, do implicitly guarantee to give the rest of us a precious freedom from responsibility. A democracy that requires anything more is simply another word for hard work and who, willingly, would take that on It may be that Jimmy Carter's major sin is his tacit recognition that, as the planet shrinks, the problems that manifest themselves are so general, so basic and so interdependent that they cannot be solved, as once problems were, by one man or one Government's initiative. He is, unforgivably, admitting if only by his behaviour lies in its safe delivery. My second baby died after a perfect pregnancy and a very normal delivery, until the last five minutes. She was distressed because of an early placental breakdown, and this too late for a Caesarean.

She was resuscitated with a machine, she had the benefit of a hospital paediatrician working night and day to save her. she had the advantage of an incubator, modern drugs, sterilised conditions, and dedicated nurses. She did not pull through. But at least I can rest assured that everything possible was done to save her. How would I have fell if I'd fought for a home delivery Mrs Susan Nichol.

47 Richmond Park Road, East Sheen, London. No suspense ANYONE old enough to have worn suspender belts will not be carried away by your sexy pictures (July 25). They are very uncomfortable garments, without any appeal but the tarty one. Dr Willicks may have had a point in the eighteenth century but now we can bath every day. R.

V. Andrews. 17 Langton Way, Croydon. lnnes Hope Pearse, who were responsible for setting up the Peckham Centre, were not in the business of curative or even preventive medicine, either. They wanted to study health (not illness to look at what is biologically right, rather than what is biologically wrong.

They set up the Peckham Centre to provide an ambiance which they believed would create the conditions in which people would be physically and mentally healthy. The medical examinations were as much to discover whether they were succeeding, in this aim, as to help the Centre members to inform themselves about their own and their families' physiological condition. In her last book The Quality of life Dr lnnes Pearse died last Christmas Day she refers to the medical staff always as bionomists." never as doctors, unless in quotation marks, and her sub-title is The Peckham Approach to Human Ethology. The doctors did not pre John Hunt Against the common threat DOT FRENCH, in her article on the Reclaim the Night march in Cumbernauld (June 26), misrepresented the sincerity of women who support such marches and chose instead to sensationalise and trivialise the issue of violence against women. It is clear to us that she does not understand the issues involved.

Reclaim the Night marches are important affirmations of women's newly found strength to say We have the right to be able to go out on the streets at all times without having to put up with being sexually harassed, intimidated or raped by men." Women arc not powerless victims; women are angry about rape and the that surrounds it. ii is bad enough that women are raped but intolerable the way this society behaves towards them. A woman who is brave enough lo report a rape and to follow through any subsequent court case runs a high risk of being symbol cally re-raped by the police and the courts in an attempt to show that she asked fur it and therefore deserved to be raped. She may bo blamed for -in act of violence against her, which totally denied her autonomy as a human being, and the psychological consequences of which, she has to live v.uh for the rest of her life. Rape is different from other crimes, since il is a violent crime consistently comnutteil by men against women.

It is precisely because of this nature of rape that it is important that it is women themselves who are fighting their own struggle against it. A Reclaim the Night march is an event for women to experience a moment of freedom to walk the streets without being harassed by men and to declare their right to that freedom at all time. Some women feel like celebrating their feeling of freedom and strength in the march, so they paint their faces and may even shout out retaliatory chants for all the times women are raped, grabbed, called at and generally disturbed by men. The marches are for ail women, regardless of any differences in personal lifestyle, as all women share in common the threat of rape and harassment. Women from Cumbernauld organised this particular march becaus." of recent rapes there and to draw attention to badly lit subways and paths which make it particularly difjcult for women to go out at night.

They were supported by women from Edinburgh. Sliding. Glasgow, and other parts of Scotland. E. Alpert.

J. Cottrell. Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. up to report on the of including the Peckham Centre's activities within the terms of the National Health Act, so a to secure maintenance for its continued operation. The committee's findings were reported to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry turned the project down because it was concerned with the study and cultivation of health, not the treatment of disease; because it was bacd on the family, not on the individual; because it was contributory, not free; and was based on autonomous administration." So the Peckham experiment came to an end.

Dr Scot Williamson died soon afterwards. And this raises the curious question of whether the NHS ought to be called the National Medical Service And is there no hope at all that somehow, somewhere, the Peckham experiment could be revived The Quality of Life, by Dr lnnes M. Pearse (Scottish Academic Press, 6.50). THE NEW Maternity Hospital in our area is often less than half full. In order to justify this expense, considerable pressure is often brought to bear on mothers-to-be not to have their babies at home.

Modern obstetrics have their valuable place, but for women who want an alternative and who are good candidates for home delivery, the domiciliary service should be available. In my case I had to fight right until the last month of pregnancy to be delivered at home, in spite of considerable support from my midwife and GP. I was told that the other two doctors in the practice would not come out should I require stitching after an episiotomy (appar- Unsympathetic HOW unsympathetic is the message from Pamela Elliott (Open Space last week) to single parent-to-be Theresa Lipson, victim of cuts in maternity grants. As a one-parent family, Theresa Lipson 's next few months will be extremely difficult and will become progressively more so eventually, such setbacks will be just a drop in the ocean. She has made her choice and, i no doubt will consider somewhat superfluous the sort of advice dished out by the writer.

I am a single parent and a taxpayer, and if it is any consolation to Miss Elliott, no drain, on the country's financial resources. I have been a contributor to the Inland Revenue for over twenty years without a break except to have a baby. In that time I reckon there may have been the occasional one or two Pamela Elliotts enjoying state welfare at my expense. Kathleen Ryder. 20 First Street, London SW3.

Added strength I WAS most impressed by the courage and fortitude of Marge Kent (Open Space, July 19). She- was not explicit about the degree or direction of her disabilities, so some of these ideas for occupying time may be inappropriate. She could take an Open University course a post-experience one following up her career, or something completely new. The OU is very good at. catering for Do we look too much at ill health and not enough at good health, asks Mary Stott after reviewing a book by lnnes Pearse, one of the doctors who set up the Peckham Pioneer Health Centre.

Is there a lesson here for the NHS? not eaten for 24 hours try to get someone to produce some scrambled eggs. No way would I recommend trying to breast feed an infant in the freezing cold bedroom after first breaking the ice in one's drinking water beside the bed. I could go on and on. oven the passage of 15 and 17 years does not lend enchantment. Beryl 31.

Ford. Hornchurch. HAS anyone considered the possible bad effects of a home birth on children in the family I would not like my toddler to be within earshot when 1 next give birth if I experience anything like the pain that I did with her. Janot Glynn. 10 Chesterfield Road, Belper, In haste A FEW weeks ago I was given an abortion on the grounds of depression.

My gynaecologist suggested that I should be sterilised at the same time. I was shocked at first, but having talked to my GP who expressed the view that it would prevent me getting into the same "pickle" again. I agreed. My husband and I were both pretty ambivalent as to whether we wanted another child, and we were not compelled into this action in any way. Nevertheless, neither of us was in a sufficiently rational frame of mind to make this decision in such a short space of time.

However, we were sure that we didn't want to request a second termination. The whole episode now seems like a nightmare. We feel we made a hasty decision through panic. I feel very strongly that no woman requesting a termination should consider sterilisation at the same time. Meanwhile, here I am, two months later, aged 30.

with a 2-year-old child and sterile. My one remote hope seems to be a reversal operation with little chance of success, even if I can find someone to perform it. J.M. Avon. ing the internal fabric, painting the rusted window frames, repairing what semifixed furniture had survived, re-installed the theatre lighting and stage properties.

It was their own centre and they knew how they meant it to be." It wasn't only the amenities the volunteer work force was concerned with. The health check up was vital to them. Women who had formed work parties to clean the floors now made the steri-lisable undergowns and the dressing gowns for overhaul, the curtains for the consulting rooms: men repaired, painted and did essential work on the fabric of the examination department." It was their centre and they got it into business again. They even, in this second, post-war phase, set up their own school in the health centre premises. But financial difficulties grew greater month by month.

And here is the really sad and worrying part of the Peckham story. A small, impartial committee of doctors was set round to thinking about the question, Why not make hospitals more like home speaks for itself. Whether they have in mind hanging floral curtains in delivery rooms or enabling women to have their babies as they please, remains to be seen. Elizabeth Cockercll. 19 Allerton Grange Chapel Allerton, Leeds.

HAVING produced one away and two at home, no way would I wish on any mother the experience of trying to locate a district nurse as the birth becomes iminent, and then arrives too late. Nor would I want to recommend that one should crawl downstairs on all fours a couple of hours after birth to get a cup of tea, or, after having need or help support and counselling. As a social work student working in a health centre. I would be only too pleased to offer such a "service. The service is available and is clearly required, but how do we explain to the public that we are there for that purpose and educate the GP and the hospital doctor to recognise the need for help at this time and therefore refer the patient to us Heather Ironside.

Postgraduate Social Work Student. Nottingham University. Fear talking JILL TURNER considers the idea that anxiety and depression play a part in inducing cancer (July 23). But why the greater emphasis upon the need to express anger rather than the need to express fear Is not irrational anger a reaction to fear Fear predates anger in human experience and anser arises in an attempt to master the fear. Yet the advocates of expressing emotion seldom encourage the expression of this basic and powerful emotion.

In talking with cancer-sufferers it has been my experience that it is in the. sharing of fear that they find new hope, whereas the discharge of anger so often leads back into isolation. Jeremy Hazel). Student Counsellor, University College, Cardiff. area.

It stayed empty until 1942, was rented by the makers of radar equipment until 1946 and then returned reluctantly to the Pioneers. When peace came, the old members were so keen to reopen that they hired a hall and invited the medical directors. About 700 people turned up. lnnes Pearse said, it wasn't the club amenities that they wanted; it was their health overhaul. Of the 875 member families before the war, 550 rejoined.

The buildings were in an abominable state the broken glass roof of the swimming pool was blacked out, there were no windows in its surround, the cork Flooring was thick with machine oil, the paintwork was chipped and dirty. So the members set about cleaning up and putting things right. By day bands of mothers 12 to 20 at a time, came in to scrub and to clean in the evenings fathers and young men were seen in twos and threes or in groups of concerted workers repair I HAVE JUST had my first baby at home and agree with Wendy Carrino's friend that home is the best place, especially for the first baby. Indeed, the domicilliary midwifery service is so good that 1 can not understand how, all other things being equal, women can be persuaded to have their babies in hospitals. Apart from the usually stated advantages (and these arc clinical, hot just emotional), the big one is that the woman has control over her own confinement, on her own terms.

This is quite different from making a few-gestures in the direction of home-like deliveries, or allowing women to make a few decisions. The fact that medical experts have only just got Abortion the YOUR anonymous correspondent is concerned about the lack of counselling available for those considering abortion (Open Space, July 19). I agree that GPs have little time even if they recognise the need to discuss the pros and cons of such a decision. Social workers, however, usually do have the time and are trained to counsel and offer a sounding board for those in such a position. Most medical social workers in maternity units have the time and knowledge to give unbiased help, Taking a cue SINCE when did one have to be an arts correspondent before daring to criticise theatre groups, fringe women's groups or any other? Pollv Toynbee quite obviously had no "pretensions to be a critic of women's theatre (Caryl Churchill.

Open Space last week). She was simply putting the point of view of the intelligent, non theatrical woman, namely that women's theatre is all too often unprofessional and embarrassingly unentcrtaining. If fringe women's theatre groups are really interested in performing for anyone other than themselves and a few others of their political persuasion, then they would do well to drop their mutual self-congratulations and take note of Polly Toynbce's blunt but honest remarks. Judy Hcnshaw. 149 Old Hall Lane, Manchester.

scribe. They tested all aspects of the bodies' functioning, children first, then father, then mother. (Women doctors for women and very young children; male doctors for boys and men) and then saw the family together. Dr Pearse wrote about the father's examination "'Before learning that there were two or three things wrong with himself, the fact that he has listened to twenty or thirty-things right seems to wipe out any resistence he might have had to exposure of his actual condition in the family consultation." She added, It was the rarest thing for anything found wrong to be ignored by the pair. One, if not the other, brought up the matter for discussion in the presence of.

them both." The whole approach seems so sensible, so hopeful. How was it that it couldn't continue The war, of course, was a crushing blow. The. police asked the centre to vacate its premises on the outbreak of war, as it was in a vulnerable ently midwives cannot stitch you up), and therefore, should my GP be unavailable I'd be stuck. In addition to this the midwifery rota was badly organised, leaving only one midwife covering a large district at the weekends, so that should I go into labour at that time I'd be in difficulties.

Eventually, after appeals to the family practitioners' committee and the district nursing officer we won through. My son's birth was relaxed and happy in a way that no hospital, however progressive, couid made it. I was able to concentrate easily on my breathing because I was in familiar surroundings and was up and about until the last minute. Walking into my bedroom to give birth seemed the most natural The State sex SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR'S analysis of the condition of women (primarily in France it appears) causes her to advocate a society in which there are no sexes, and no sex (July 24). It seems that this will liberate (sic) women in general and in France in particular.

They will also cast aside the "shackles" of children and the "restrictions of the family. If they have any sexual inclinations at all, and one must presume that this will be progressively extinguished by appeals to intellect, it will be dealt with by some non-violent and non-habit-forming method. If there is a need (determined by the State, by a committee of intellectuals?) for children then they will be produced. This means of production will be sentiment-free, non-addictive, and (one assumes) akin to the production of fish fingers. The product will be hygenic, productive, inoffensive, without any defect, and to courage and disabled students; she could take private pupils at home; she could take care of children for working mothers, or, if this would be too strenuous, for neighbours needing a short break; she could offer help or advice to handicapped children, possibly through a local group, based on experience with her son; she could do clerical work at home for charity; she could write a book, paint or take up other crafts (can she get to evening classes NO ONE I talk to seems to have heard of the Peckham Pioneer Health Centre.

Perhaps it isn't surprising, for the Centre packed up nearly 20 years ago and it had only two four-year periods of activity, interrupted by the Second World War, from 1935-39 and 1946-50. Yet the Peckham experiment should not be forgotten. It was a guiding star above the horizon of many Progressives in the thirties, before the National Health Service was even a dream, and1 it became, in its very short- life, so world-famous that it drew 10,000 visitors a year, a third of them from abroad. So why did it not survive I visited the Peckham Centre in its heyday and have a bright memory of sunny glass-walled Tooms, a swimming pool, cafeteria, gym and theatre and lots of children and relaxed adults about the place like a country club, only this was iri the heart of -a south-east London borough." Anyone cduld provided they joined as a family and.