2 Local Feminists Honored at Bread and Roses Awards

Looking out over the pink-and-white Crystal Room on Saturday and smiling at the women gathered for a springtime luncheon, Gloria Steinem remarked, “This is probably the most healthy thing that has ever happened in the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

The delighted, amused audience could not have agreed more. It was the 1986 Bread and Roses Awards of the L.A. Westside caucus of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Not a fashion show, this luncheon, but a chance to raise money “to awaken, organize, and assert the vast political power of women,” and to “develop the next generation of feminist women candidates,” as the caucus has dedicated itself to doing since its formation in 1971. And an occasion to honor two local feminists, Helen Astin and Joan Palevsky. And to listen to a panel chaired by former Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke on the feminist agenda for the next decade.

“Bread to sustain the body and roses to sustain the spirit,” the program announced, a theme carried out in event committee member Marjorie Fasman’s centerpieces of pastel roses and slender wheat stalks embedded in round loaves of bread, and in the award itself, sculpted by Kandy Stern, of a woman holding bread and roses. And much to sustain body and spirit through four hours of affection, laughter and girl talk about aid to the Contras, the TWA strike, the Larouche candidates in the Democratic party, the peace movement, the great and youthful looks of Gloria Steinem and Yvonne Burke, and the future of the planet.

A busy afternoon held together, it was clear, by everyone’s affection for Astin and Palevsky. The women were in a mood to honor them, as was later evident when City Councilwoman Joy Picus messed up her mascara crying fondly while she clapped for Palevsky.

Astin is the associate provost of UCLA’s College of Letters and Science, a professor of higher education there and one of the founders of the university’s recently established Center for the Study of Women. Palevsky is vice president and director of community education at Immaculate Heart College Center and a philanthropist whose giving has long included feminist causes.

Academic Activist

Jean Lipman-Blumen, the Thornton F. Bradshaw professor of public policy and organizational behavior at the Claremont Graduate School, gave Astin, known to her friends as Lena, her award. Highlighting what she said was Astin’s 14-page resume, Lipman-Blumen praised her as an academic activist who worked for women’s rights in academe and the workplace, has written on the psychology of women, studied career development, and was a pioneer in affirmative action.

Alluding to the fact that Astin is a native of Greece, Lipman-Blumen, quoted the ancient Greeks--Euripedes, Protagoras and Plato--and had a go at the Greek language, apparently her first from the struggle and laughter of it. Euripedes and Protagoras came off as early male chauvinists--”I hate a clever woman,” and “Man is the measure of the universe,” they said. Lipman-Blumen praised Astin for ignoring them while embodying Plato’s insight that “those who have lamps will pass them to others.”

So much for the Greeks, and on to an old feminist, Mae West. Astin, Lipman-Blumen said, also embodies West’s philosophy: “Too much of a good thing is simply wonderful.”

Gloria Steinem, a founder of the caucus and founder/editor of Ms. magazine, presented the award to her friend Joan Palevsky, glad to be finally able to say something publicly, she said, about “this much too private a person.”

‘Woman of Resources’

Referring to Palevsky several times as a “woman of resources,” Steinem said she was the first woman philanthropist to use her resources to support other women and feminist issues, and did so long before the founding of the caucus.

“She is still among the minority to do it,” Steinem said, “and it takes self-respect.”

Chiding Palevsky for shrugging off credit when it is given, Steinem said, “Joan is our spiritual mother. The love we feel for her centers on our need for her strength and wisdom.”

“Oh, shucks,” responded the Nebraska-born recipient of all that praise.

On to the panel, where the presenters and recipients were joined by moderator Yvonne Burke and Lucie Cheng, director of both UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and the Center for Pacific Rim Studies.

What comes to mind when you hear “the feminist agenda?” Burke asked them.

“Women are a third world wherever we are,” Steinem said. “We’re low on technology, low on capital and labor intensive. We should look at the agenda and organizing tactics of women in the Third World,” for solutions, she said, rather than the Horatio Alger culture held up as a model here.

Push in Political Area

“I think of the political area,” Palevsky said. “These economic questions have to be addressed, but the push will be on to elect more women to positions of power. . . . When women will be confident that women will have positions of political power . . . they themselves will become more confident also.”

“On the verge of an industrial revolution it is important to take control of the means of production,” Lipman-Blumen said, acknowledging the current one taking place in communications. “We need to take over the means of communication.”

Differing with the other panelists on stressing the similarities of women, Cheng said she found it difficult to talk of sisterhood and was aware of the differences and diversity of class, race and culture, and the oppression that often accompanies the differences.

“We do not need to stress our similarities. They do not reflect reality,” she said, adding that it did not matter. “Unity can be built as long we share (certain) beliefs and a vision of the future.”

Astin called for the nurturing of the next generation of scholars, feminists and activists, saying “I want to have young women work with me.”

Burke ended the day on a hopeful note for the future of low-on-technology women and their continuing movement: “My daughter, who is 12, is teaching me to use the computer.”