Feminist Foes of Initiative Aim Ad Campaign at Women

Releasing a television advertisement aimed at women, the feminist-led branch of the anti-Proposition 209 campaign mounted a last-minute effort Friday to turn women against the initiative.

The 30-second television ad features a woman being stripped of such professional garb as a police hat and doctor’s stethoscope while a narrator warns that the initiative “strips away affirmative action, which gives women jobs and education.”

“Want to be a doctor? Police officer? Hard hat? Forget it!” another narrator says as male voices chant, “Take it all off.”

In what “STOP Prop” leaders described as a metaphor for women’s vulnerability in the workplace, the final frame shows the woman as a victim of sexual harassment, her lingerie partly showing.

“This ad is designed to be provocative,” said STOP Prop Co-chairwoman Lorraine Sheinberg, who orchestrated its volunteer production. “This ad is designed to alert women to the fact that our futures are at stake. And it’s not white women . . . it’s every color women.”

The STOP Prop group has geared much of its campaign to women, whose support of the initiative has been somewhat weaker than men’s. In the latest Los Angeles Time poll, 50% of women favored the measure, compared to 55% of men.

The initiative, which would amend the state Constitution, forbids state and local government affirmative action programs.

Citing a hotly disputed provision called Clause C, opponents have argued that the initiative would weaken sex discrimination protection in California.

Proposition 209 backers immediately condemned the ad.

“It’s outrageous. It’s irresponsible . . . they have brought campaign ads to new lows,” said Jennifer Nelson, a spokeswoman for the Proposition 209 campaign, which says sex discrimination laws would not be diluted. “It carries the anti-209 message to women that they cannot compete without preferences.” STOP Prop organizers said they were buying time for the ad Friday and could not say exactly where or how often it would appear.