BY NAOMI CRAINE AND DIANA NEWBERRY
WASHINGTON, D.C. - More than 1,000 young women and men from 40 states gathered here for a Young Feminist Summit April 11-13, called by the National Organization for Women. In workshops, plenary sessions, and in the hallways until late at night, participants discussed how to organize and work together to actively engage in defending women's rights.

Many people at the conference were involved in campus women's organizations. Justina Grubor and Kristin Hilton, members of the Feminist Collective at Mt. Holyoke college in Massachusetts, said they had just restarted the group and were able to get 25 students to come down from there.

Jen Richards, from a community college in Salt Lake City, Utah, said she came to "network with others and let them know there's progressive people in Utah." Three people came from her campus women's group.

Elizabeth Nelson, a law student from Boston, said she and a friend saw the notice about the conference posted on the internet. She said she thought, "there have got to be other people out there" and decided to come meet them.

Among the issues taken up in conference workshops were abortion rights, women's health, domestic violence, rape, and affirmative action. A few weeks before the Young Feminist Summit, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban a particular late-term abortion procedure known as "intact dilation and extraction." In one session Alice Cohan, of the Feminist Majority, stated that the radical right is using late-term abortion to "hit a wild drum beat" in order to eliminate all abortion rights. She pointed out that 80 percent of counties in the United States do not have abortion clinics, limiting access for many women.

Reflecting the political pressures on supporters of women's rights, one participant asked, "Is there another way we can represent the defense of abortion rights? The viability of the argument based on constitutional rights and reproduction freedom is being put into question." She argued that with the advancement of technology, doctors can now follow the development of a fetus much closer and the question of when a fetus becomes a life is being posed more sharply.

Several workshops also took up the attacks on affirmative action. The discussion was enriched by conference participants from California who had been involved in opposing Proposition 209, an anti-affirmative action ballot referendum that passed last year. Jennifer Meister said she was in her senior year at the University of California when the campaign for Proposition 209 started. "There were 15 of us in my campus coalition to fight 209, and others organizing in the community," she said. "Our slogan was `Women and Minorities are Important in Education.' We held debates on our campus, and speeches, rallies, marches, and leafleting. There was a three-week hunger strike by 25 students."

Nadine Loza, a 20-year-old Chicana student from Pamona, California, was also involved in that fight. "We had marches on our campus, posted up all over, and went to San Diego to protest at the Republican convention." Loza had earlier been involved in the fight against the state anti-immigrant law Proposition 187. During the workshop "Women and Affirmative Action," one speaker stressed "Affirmative action means opportunity, not preferences or quotas. We're talking about qualified people." This view was echoed by many others, but there was debate on the point.

Speaking in one workshop discussion, Patti Iiyama argued, "We didn't get affirmative action because of the courts - we fought for it. And you need quotas to enforce it. That's how I'm able to work in an oil refinery," where women were excluded for years.

The pressures on women to meet specific standards of beauty was a big discussion among summit participants. The "Media Images of Women and Eating Disorders" workshop took up how the media affects the self-esteem of women. During the workshop Ayla Gustafson, a high school student from Blacksburg, Virginia, described how her health teacher invited a friend who sells cosmetics to come to the class to hand out samples and tell female students how they could fix their "oily skin," "hooded eyes," and other supposed defects. "The boys were allowed to go play basketball instead," she added. Gustafson is a member of a women's studies group at the high school along with Lindsay Doyle and Erin Mckelvy, who were also at the conference.

The young feminists were eager to join in some actions. On the second day of the summit, many took a few hours off to join in a local "Take Back the Night" march protesting violence against women. The entire conference marched on the White House the final morning of the summit.

Nine regional meetings took place in which participants discussed upcoming activities and plans in their areas. Great Lakes region participants decided to mobilize support for a May 15 pro-choice rally in Milwaukee. Southeast participants made initials plans for a regional day of coordinated action on abortion rights in October. Several areas, including Minneapolis and Massachusetts, planned regional young feminist conferences for the fall.

Pittsburgh and Morgantown, West Virginia, participants planned to work together on clinic defense in Pittsburgh and giving a report-back from the conference to the women's committee of the strike at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. And they discussed organizing a protest against a Promise Keepers rally July 25-26. The Promise Keepers is a right- wing, all male organization that promotes pushing back the gains of women and placing them in their "proper" place in society.  
 
 
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