‘Women are dying out there. Life preservers are coming their way.’

A meeting held one evening last week in the faculty cafeteria of Pierce College was billed as an informal rap on New Directions for Displaced Homemakers and Returning Women.

Displaced homemakers, a term adopted by Congress, means women who have been pulled out of their chosen careers as housewives by divorce or the death of their husbands. Returning women was coined locally by the Pierce College office of Gender Equity. It refers to displaced homemakers who are going back to school.

About 70 women and a handful of male journalists showed up, many apparently drawn by word that it would be led by Jackie Joseph of LADIES (Life After Divorce Is Eventually Sane). That is a group of ex-wives of Hollywood entertainers, including Patti (the former Mrs. Jerry) Lewis and Lynn (the former Mrs. Michael) Landon. The LADIES have been traveling around the country spreading their message, which is, in Joseph’s words:

“Women are dying out there. Life preservers are coming their way.”

By life preservers she means the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984, which, according to its preamble, “contains the largest set aside of vocational training dollars targeted to female populations in U.S. history.”

The act provided money for a Sex Equity Coordinator in every state and has meant a surge of funding for the Pierce College of Gender Equity, originally created in the 1970s to root out sex bias at the institution. The office now focuses much of its energy on the needs of returning women, helping them to pursue non-traditional careers from agriculture to welding.

“Welding--don’t rule it out,” said Nan Ramirez, co-director of the office. “There’s a lot of money in that field.”

Ramirez urged the women in the audience to get information from about a dozen organizations such as the “women helping women” program of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Valley Women’s Center, which had set up booths for the meeting.

Then came the LADIES. Joseph and several other members were there, although Patti Lewis and Lynn Landon were not.

Joseph, the former wife of actor Ken Berry, is an actress herself. Even in a casual outfit consisting of an open gray sweater and slacks, she looked the part--graceful and self-confident.

As a speaker she was skillful, able to use plain talk but still capitalize on her celebrity aura.

Because of its members, she said, the group was often “invited to do media.”

“Local media-wise, they’d be curious, they wanted to discuss our ex-husbands and we’d say, ‘That is old news, but what you should know is there is this wonderful group in your community and for all those ladies who are dying out there, this is where they go to start over again.’ ”

Joseph suggested that divorced women join support groups, go back to school, contact churches and mental health clinics for help, even call old friends who dropped them after the divorce.

“They don’t know what to say,” she said. “They know you feel embarrassed. Then too much time goes by. And they’re embarrassed for letting all the time go by.”

Joseph asked if anybody wanted to rap.

A young woman asked how long the emotional healing should take after a divorce.

“It takes as long as it takes,” Joseph said. “I know that sounds like a flip answer.”

“Doesn’t four years sound like a little long to you, like really dumb?” the woman asked.

“No it’s not,” Joseph said. “Are you in a support group?”

The woman wasn’t.

“Until I was in my support group, I didn’t begin to work it out,” Joseph said. “I didn’t even know that there was an out to work. I was just going to be the former Mrs. Somebody who was walking around being cheerful but was nothing. And that was it.”

A older woman wearing a black cape said she had been married 30 years and her children were grown.

“And my husband said, ‘What else is there?’ ” she said. “He’s fairly young. He’s 54. But, he says, ‘What else is there?’ We’ve just got kind of a rut in our lives.”

“Gee,” Joseph said. “Let’s figure out something for her to take home.”

It was too late, though.

“He’s moving out of the house,” the woman said.

Another young woman stood in front of the audience and told her story: marriage at 18, a divorce 5 1/2 years later, no job, no education, then an attempted suicide.

“I think that was about the best experience I had in my life, surviving that suicide attempt,” she said. “I’ve had professional help. I discovered for the first time I can go to school and get an education and use the skills that I have. I am so happy.”

Everyone applauded.

Near the end of the meeting, a woman with a slight accent said she had begun divorced life with high hopes but was losing them.

“It’s very disappointing,” she said. “Socially, I find it is very disappointing. There are no opportunities.”

She repeated that four or five times.

“You’ve got to learn to control all that venom that comes with it,” Joseph advised her. “It’s poison.”

“I know,” the woman said, with poison still on her tongue.

After the meeting, several women who had not spoken approached the disappointed woman. They all talked for several minutes and exchanged telephone numbers.

Later, begrudgingly, she admitted that it had felt good to meet others like her and she thought they might get together sometime to talk.