Students Organize New NOW Chapter

Catherine Peebles

Cavalier Daily

Cavalier Daily

1987-01-29

Students Organize New NOW Chapter
By CATHERINE PEEBLES
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer
A group of University students and area residents, who plan to start a University chapter of the National Organization for Women, met yesterday to discuss their prospective goals.
"We want to be very much action oriented,” according to Graduate Arts & Sciences student Debra Aaron, one of the group’s founding members.
NOW members will set an agenda which will include a variety of issues, such as pay equity for faculty and also recruitment and tenure of women professors.
“Out of 50 professors at the Law school, only four of them are women," noted Virginia Law Women President Bettina Altizer, another of the group's founding members.
NOW also plans to bring more female speakers to the University, Members complained that University Union's Speakers Committee invites primarily male speakers.
Sexual assault, lesbian rights, racism, poverty and non-sexist language are other items which NOW plans to address.
The group also will devote time to advocating the pro-choice side of the abortion issue. Members noted that NOW needs to be more vocal in its response to the anti-abortion demonstrators.
One of NOW's primary objectives is to improve the status of women at the University.
"The women's movement is treading water now," Altizer said. "It's suffering with the rise of yuppies and the conservative outlook of this country."
She added, "We to come together and let people know that we're still here and we still want our equal rights."
Although the University tends to be very "status quo,” Altizer said she feels the “time is right" to begin an active women's movement on Grounds. She noted that University president Robert O'Neil seems committed to improving the status of women here.
NOW members said the organization will be more action-oriented than other women's groups on Grounds, Altzel added.
"We can have a louder, stronger, more piercing voice than other organizations on Grounds,” Aaron said.
But NOW also plans to work with the other women’s organizations at the University, Aaron added.