Pine Lake History - 1976 - 1989

              Pornography dipped in violence j
By LIZ DELAHEY
OLDS, Alta. ( Staff) - Alberta
Women's Institutes want hard core
pornography banned and erotic
material placed under the counter.
Delegates came to that decision
even before attending a workshop
which featured clips of Playboy
movies appearing on American TV
channels and scenes from video-tapes
available from Red Hot
Video in British Columbia. Gang
rape, bondage and other forms of
violence against women were com-
President
keys in on
pornography
OLDS, Alta. ( Staff) - Kathryn
Habberfield, the new president of
i Alberta Women's Institutes, ex-pects
pornography will be the
AWhs major issue in the next
i year.
AWI branches are working on
the issue now. The challenge is to
make members aware of the prob-lem,
she said .
In other discussion of her new
role, the Langdon district woman
said she is the first provincial presi-dent
to hold a job outside her
home . She told members she would
be delegating responsibility and if
they found that a problem, they
should nominate someone else .
Habberfield works three days a
week in a Calgary women's cloth-ing
store. She says her boss, Don,
Hunter, is most understand ing
about giving her time off for AWI
business since a former AWI presi-dent,
Bette Ballhorn, is his mother-in-
law .
Habberfield taut school for
three years before she married and
became a farm homemaker for 30
years. When her husband Gordon
died almost six years ago, she didn't
know what to do with all her time .
A job was the solution .
A daughter and son- in- law, who
works for an oil company, built a
house about a mile away and rent
the farm . Habberfield lives in the
old farm home and commutes to
Calgary to work. Her other married
daughter works in real estate in Ed-monton.
She says AWL has a bright fu-ture
.
' Where else can you find an
organization that has education at
every meeting?
" If we can make the organization
a priority for young women and
they find we're a worthwhile orga-nization,
they will join," she said.
mon themes of the material ' dis-played
.
Morgan Price, a public educator
and former sexual assault centre
worker, said two alarming trends
have emerged since 1978 involving
violence and children .
There has been explicit use of
violence in pornographic material
showing rape, sexuaassault and
bondage. The insidious part is the
victim is shown as initiany resisting,
but in the end, liking it. The porno-graphy
industry has started to link
By LIZ DELAHEY
OLDS, Alta . ( Staff)- Much has
been accomplished by the farm
safety program taken on by Alberta
Women's Institutes, but the job is
not done yet, - Kaye Rowbottom
told members at the annual con-vention.
The retiring president said
women must learn to operate farm
machinery so they can intervene in
an emergency. She said two deaths
could have been averted in the
province had women known how to
shut off the power takeoff, or re-verse
the tractor to release accident
victims.
The 2400- member organization,
which is celebrating its 75th anni-versary,
began co- operating with
Alberta Agriculture's farm safety
branch almost two years ago.
AWI's safety coordinator, Dorothy
Williams of Cessford, Alta., report-ed
30 safety workshops were held in
1983 with an average attendance of
two dozen or more and another 20
have been scheduled or already
held in 1984.
The institutes received a $ 2200
grant from Alberta Agriculture to
help run the program in 1982 and
Rowbottom, said in an interview,
another $ 5200 had been received
March 31 . It will be used for
workshops, television spots warn-ing
of home and farm safety haz-ards,
bumper stickers and safety
reminders to be put on farm ma-chinery.
The series of three minute
television commercials, to be shot
on the Rowbottom farm, will be
given to local stations for public
service announcements.
violence to sexuality and it's usual-ly
acted out against women.
The second trend is the increas-ing
use of children in pornographic
material .
" Children are used to sexually
arouse the consumer but are also
portrayed as sexually aroused
themselves," Price said .
Such material has a double mes-sage
.
It not only legitimizes incest
and child molestation, but also
shows children enjoying it ."
Basis of increase
Price traced the increase in Por-nographic
materials to a decision in
1970 by the American Commission
on Obscenity and Pornography.
That body of 16 men and two
women placed much weight on
Danish studies done in the sixties
by a researcher named Kutchinsky .
He didn't distinguish between por-nography,
sex education and eroti-ca
. At the time only frontal nudity
and pubic hair was shown in por-nography
.
The researcher found no link
between pornography and vice and
sexual crime. TheU. S. commission
found there was no link between
pornography and violence . Because
of the commission's recommenda-
" We've found out the true way to
a man's heart is through his stom-ach,"
Jones said . Workshops where
WIs invited husbands to a potluck
supper were the best attended.
The AWI safety workshops,
which were co- ordinated provin-cially
and carried out by branches,
brought honor to two members.
President Kaye Rowbottom of
Drumheller and safety co- ordinator
Dorothy Williams were presented
with awards from Alberta Agricul-ture
earlier this year .
Another project
While the safety program contin-ues,
the delegates also voted to
retain another project- support for
two native branches, the Cadotte
Lake Cree Women's Institute and
Little Buffalo Women's Institute .
The Cadotte Lake Cree branch also
has set up a play school and is
looking forward to buying portable
school rooms for a token amount
and turning them into a WI com-munity
hall . Three members from
these branches attended the con-vention.
Another project has reached a
Findings from d whole series of
researchers show that exposure to
violent pornography, even for a
short period of time, promotes a
negative attitude toward women.
Price said pornography rein-forces
traditional power and is a
block to forming a warm caring
relationship.
Janice Sich, of the Calgary Co-alition
Against Pornograph , said
as long as the pornographic in-dustry
is able to make money, it its
Safety lessons always useful
happy conclusion, Rowbottom re-ported
. The $ 4000 Provided by
AWI and matched byCIDA for the
Bangladesh Mahila Samity has
bought sewing and embroidery ma-chines
to train women in the cot-tage
crafts so they can earn money
and enrich their lives. The project is
under the umbrella of the Associat-ed
Country Women of the World
( ACWW).
Senator Martha Bielish, who is
area vice- president of the ACWW,
told members regional meetings of
the association will be held in
Edmonton Nov. 8, 9 and 10 and in
Truro, N. S . in May 1985 . Primarily
the meetings familiarize members
with the way the international or-ganization
works and offer a forum
for suggestions of how it could
work better. Biehsh said there will
likely be a restricted enrolment.
f
At the national level, Bernice
Noblitt, president of the Federated
Womens Institutes of Canada,
urged members to support the Ade-laide
Hoodless home fund so the
oat of an 80,000 self sustaining
und could be reached by 1985, the
end of her term .
Williams asked members to do
an assessment in their ar of the
number of disabled farmers to de-termine.
how many are trying to