Public Opinion from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania • 26

26 PUBLIC OPINION Wednesday, May 7, 17S international Women's Year has meaning UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (AP) This International Women's Year, proclaimed by the United Nations for celebration around the world, is not all empty formality. It is also solid progress. Inspired by the occasion, governments are granting gains to women and women are pressing for more. Well before the year began, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced that Australia would ratify a 22-year-old U.N.

convention admitting women to public office on equal terms with men. In December, it did. Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica, declaring IWY open, committed his government to lay down the legal framework for rapid movement toward sexual equality. But he warned women liberationists to avoid "overtones of bitterness or recrimination." Early in IWY, Uganda sent the first woman ambassador to the Vatican a 27-year-old Catholic named Bernadette Olowo. She noted the coincidence as she handed Pope Paul VI her credentials.

On Feb. 27, as women cheered in the gallery, Guyana's parliament authorized the government to ratify two International Labor Organization conventions putting women on an equal plane with men in the world of work. Early in March, Queen Elizabeth II's government in- Mother's Day Is May 11 International Women's Year emblem is a stylized dove facing right. troduced a bill in the British Parliament to outlaw discrimination against women in recruitment, hiring, dismissal or promotion of employes or selection of business partners. By apparent coincidence, an act requiring equal pay for women adopted by Parliament in 1970 will take effect three days before the year ends.

A Norwegian act giving daughters born since 1964 the same rights as sons went into effect Jan. 1. Meanwhile, Rep. Bella Ab-zug, has introduced a bill in Congress to keep up the IWY momentum in future years through a commission, conference or other device, and Rep. Patsy T.

Mink, D-Hawaii, has put in another calling for a White House con-ference on women in Bicentennial year 1976. Italy's Ministry of Justice is consulting women's associations on legislative reform to benefit their sex. The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare is looking into women's work problems and Mother's Day Starts At Tobeys Now! proposing International Women's Year. The Women's International Democratic Federation, with headquarters in East Berlin, made that proposal to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in 1972.

The idea caught on with governments. France, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Egypt, Tunisia and the Philippines came up with a resolution that was approved by the commission, the Economic and Social Council and finally the 1972 General Assembly, proclaiming 1975 International Women's Year. Intensified Action The year was dedicated to "intensified action" to promote equality between men and women, to insure women's full integration in economic, social and cultural development, and to recognize the importance of women's contribution to international cooperation and peace. The high spot will be the U.N. Conference on the International Women's Year in Mexico City June 19-July 2.

The Mexicans expect 1,500 delegates from 140 countries plus 5,000 spectators and journalists. A special committee, chaired by Princess Ashraf Pahlevi of Iran, and the women's year secretariat here, headed by the highest ranking woman U.N. official. Asst. Secretary-General Helvi Sipila of Finland, have been hammering out a proposed international plan of action for the conference to review and adopt.

The plan calls for "achievement of equality between women and men" and, in what seems a suggestion for quotas, says "special measures on behalf of women may be necessary for those who are worst off economically and lack influence in society." Official Emblem Valerie Pettis, artist with a New York advertising agency, has designed an official IWY emblem that combines the the Ministry of Health into their health problems. Syria has promised to review existing laws and afford women practical equality with men by giving them equal opportunities to reach decision-making levels. Tropical Storm Abe Australia decided to use men's names as well as wom-en's in naming tropical storms. Female members of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union on March 9 adopted a women's rights charter demanding that the constitution be rid of discriminatory provisions and women have an equal chance with men for jobs and promotions despite pregnancy, maternity or married status. Two days earlier, women U.N.

employes handed Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim a petition asking that he campaign to recruit and promote more women in the U.N. secretariat and meanwhile appoint an ombudswoman to deal with staff members' complaints. The petition was signed by more than 2,750 men and women employes. There is no ombudswoman yet. But Waldheim long has been trying to put more women into the secretariat, where men now outnumber them four to one in executive and professional posts.

He complains that governments do not put up enough women candidates. Like many other events, the Irishwomen's manifesto and the U.N. women's petition were timed for the neighborhood of March 8 International Women's Day, which grew out of 19th-century walkouts of American sweatshop seamstresses and was adopted as a world holiday at a 191 1 conference of Socialist women in Copenhagen. Klara Zetkin of Germany, who put the proposal before the 1911 conference, later turned Communist. Her latter-day sisters carried the operation a step further by I CHECK WITH I CYCLE 1433 Lincoln Way East TAX LICENSE SPECIAL NOW GOING ON LIMITED TIME ONLY! i i.

SENATOR WILLIAM J. MOORE Announces The New Hours at His Legislative Contact Office Will Be WEDNESDAYS THURSDAYS 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All interested persons are invited to use the facilities of the office located in Room 310, Chambersburg Trust Chambersburg. peace dove, equal sign and biological symbol for woman.

It is being printed in news- papers and magazines, put on stamps, medals and sweat- shirts, and made into badges, pins and other jewelry. The World Federation of United Nations Associations gets a sizable cut of the proceeds from commercial uses and passes nearly all of it along to the United Nations it-self, which would have difficulty accepting the money directly. The U.N. share goes to finance IWY ac- tivities. Meanwhile, various observances reflect their individual concerns.

Israel's Council of Women's Organizations issued an ap- peal to women of neighboring countries for peace and cooperation "as mothers and wives." In Egypt, President Anwar -Sadat's IWY message called on women to draw up plans and programs for the realization of the ob- -jectives of our people." Algerian women formed a committee to promote the agrarian revolution by organizing volunteers to train -and mobilize participants. Col. I.K. Acheampong, Ghana's chief of state, called in his IWY proclamation for the abolition of "discrimina- tory attitudes, beliefs and cus- tomary practices" hampering women. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere spoke on Women's Day against the practice of polygamy and the payment of dowries for brides, claiming they kept women unequal.

There were spectacular demonstrations. In Tokyo. 2,500 women rallied against sex discrimination. In Peking, more than 1,000 women ran a relay race in Tienanmen Square. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Ministry of External Affairs is sponsoring production of a movie on "Women in In-dia." Her Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued 1.5 million IWY calendars.

President Gerald Ford only lately finished appointing the U.S. commission for IWY. Its 39 members include a few men and a lot of women. Boston feminist Fran Hosken has written in her newsletter that there is little backing for women's year from the U.S. government, "which has quite other priorities." and that "the U.S.

effort is negligible." Pam Curtis, a public affairs officer with the IWY secretariat in the State Department, takes issue with that. She says. "There is an awful lot going on behind the scenes Obviously the woman was not aware of what was happening and her comments could not be justified." But Mildred Persinger, U.N. observer for the Young Women's Christian Association and chairperson for the IWY NGO Tribune, says, speaking as an American, that the U.S. financial contribution to IWY "has been so pitiful compared to the contributions of other countries" that it's embarrassing.

"I think the boys in Washington the Congress, partly, and the administration," she says, "haven't found out yet that this (IWY) is a politically sexy issue." Marine returns from sea duty Marine Staff Sergeant Dale K. Minnick. son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry S.

Minnick, 311 Middour Fayetteville, has returned to the Marine Corps Base, Quantico. Shoes StotvK fclld narked r7 mm down IS $07m ii)QQ nLL A re NovjOnld, jj I FOR ioi 1 XW MOBILE DISHWASHERS NOW SAVE HER HOURS OF KITCHEN DRUDGERY Jk WITH THE GIFT SHEU flLWflYS L0VE! I ONE TIME ONLY I LIMITED QUANTITY! NEVER BEFORE! 'Xffrfy NEVER AGAIN! rWHT'l i wmM $1 99 JP E3 1 MIX lilliVV -Snapo on and off almost UJ K-ije Lpr any ho! water faucet w'rss No installation required 'SyJ "levels, 0 washing cycles plus Model DW-3CDMTPY 'Sfo P'e-wash and hold option Disc cioseou! jfibiyr Easy roll away storage may be 1 SJ installed permanently nwm for 226 West King Street Lincoln Way East Shopping Center SAVE 54" To7" TXete. cuii Menu I I other sqUsftr DRESS SCHOOL CASUAL I I i i omyt i V. after a Mediterranean deployment with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263. He participated in various training exercises while embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Guam, including "Alien Gold." involving units of the British and U.S.

Navies. The squadron also helped In support amphibious training maneuvers conducted by elements of the French Foreign Legion at Toulon, France. Minnick visited several Mediterranean countries, including Italy and LINCOLN WAY SHOPPING CENTER LINCOLN WAY EAST CHAMBIRSBURG WAYNESBORO MAIL 17 MAIN ST. 3 i Shippensburg Chambersburg Spain..