The Other Press March 22, 1995 Women have had enough of paying more Gender-based pricing hits females' pride and pocket books alike by Calinda Brown VICTORIA (CUP) — That pen stain on your shirt will cost you $5.50 to get out if you’re a woman, $2 if you’re a man. It’s called gender-based pricing — charging women more than men for the same goods and services. Joanne Thomas Yaccato, president of Women and Money, Inc., wants it stopped. “Women are no longer accepting these price differences,” she said. Five dollars here and there might not seem like much, but Yaccato estimates over a 40-year career, gender-based pricing will cost a businesswoman $1 million more than her male counterparts. Yaccato, author of the book, The Balancing Act, started an awareness campaign against gender-based pricing in June 1994. She said it “fuelled a fire” of women’s anger at discriminatory pricing. “Women are notorious for talicig about [gender-based pricing] among themselves instead of putting it in the laps of the people practicing it,” Yaccato said. Now, she said, women are starting to fight back where it counts — with their money. Eighty-five per cent of the consumer dollar is under the control of SUBWAY Now Hiring *hiring full or part-time employees *flexible hours, day/night now available *training provided for friendly, responsible individuals with good math and reading skills. *a willingness to learn is required and you must enjoy working with people. APPLY IN PERSON 8:00 am to 10:00 am 521 - 6th Street (next to Starbucks) New Westminster, B.C. V5L 5H1 discrimination UCKS BOARDWALK BILLI 782 Columbia Street New Westminster VF eet PB Tables Tuesdays 11AM-6GPM Monday - Thursday - 11AM-6PM * Buy 1 Daily Lunch Special & 1 Hour Pool for $10.00 | -* All you can play pool $10.00per person (lot Valid with any other promotion) ARDS OP/03/za 1 Hour Pool & Receive Next 1/2 Hour FREE BOARDWALK 6 BILLIARDS 782 82 Columbia St. - 527-8819 = Hi women, Yaccato said, adding she believes women could use that control to force industries to change — much like the recent consumer revolt by Rogers Cable customers that forced the company to back down from a price change. Kerry Slavens, editor of Focus on Women magazine, agreed. “Nobody changes without pressure,” Slavens said. “We need equity in pricing. If we’ re moving to a balanced society, the marketplace should reflect that.” Yaccato started a petition campaign to have a private member’s bill introduced in the House of Commons to make gender-based pricing illegal. She is using California’s recent law as a precedent. California criminalized discrim- inatory pricing in March 1993. Companies found breaking the new law face minimum fines of $1,000. Maximum fines of $25,000 can also be levied. But Yaccato doesn’t think women should wait for legislation. “Start challenging establishments that practice this,” she said. “Get vocal, sign the petition.” She said the main industries practicing gender-based pricing are hair-dressers, dry-cleaners, retail clothing outlets and contracting services. But big-ticket items like cars are also priced based on gender. In 1994, the Harvard Law Review found women pay 40 per cent more on average than men for cars. Black women paid the most, white men the least. Michael Willie, sales manager for Willie Dodge Chrysler of Victoria, disagreed. “No one says, ‘Oh, it’s a girl, I’m going to make more money,’” Willie said. “Consumers nowadays are buying smarter than ever. Women are very assertive. They say, “This is my bottom line.’” Yaccato believes that is a solution to ending gender-based pricing. “Education is key,” she said. “Caveat emptor always applies.” Yaccato also recommends buying non-fashion items, such as shoes, in the men’s or boys’ department and trying and get dry-cleaning done under the men’s category as ways. to save money. However, she said speaking out is most important. “Start asking questions. “Why does my brother pay less for the same haircut?’” she said. “And tell companies, ‘Don’t use gender as a pricing category.’” Justice denied former Black Panther System fails Jamal, prescribes death for journalist by Joe Silvaggio TORONTO (CUP) — When we think of political prisoners many of us conjure up images of a phenomenon that exists exclusively in distant, foreign, less-democratic nations. We tend to overlook the possibility that our North American justice systems possess inherent political forces that motivate certain unjust legal procedures and decisions. Mumia Abu Jamal is a revered black journalist, a former member of the Black Panther Party, an inspiration to a generation of black youth — and a political prisoner on death row. Many are outraged at what they see as a blatant breach of justice in a country that regards itself as a democratic model for the rest of the world. Jamal revealed himself to be a dissident voice through his passionate political journalism in the United States. His political resistance began at age 13, when he took part in a protest against segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, in which he was beaten and arrested. At 14, he was co-founder and minister of information for the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party, a black resistance movement. In 1970, Jamal was featured in a front-page article about the Panthers in the Philadelphia Inquirer, making him highly visible to the FBI’s operation against the black movement. This operation left 38 Party members dead and compiled files on 18,000 people and 600 organizations. As a journalist from 1970-1981, Jamal had many of his columns broadcast on National Public Radio: With his unique poetic style and deep, resonant voice, he inspired all who shared his experience, earning him the title, “voice of the voiceless.” In 1980, Jamal was elected president of the Association of Black Journalists and Philadelphia Magazine voted him as one of its top “people to watch” in 1981. But the magazine’s editors weren’t the only ones who considered him someone to watch. There were some powerful figures who saw Jamal as a threat. Former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo was one of these figures. For more than 20 years, Rizzo led a campaign of terror against the city’s large black population and in each case Jamal was there to protest and expose the injustice — from vicious cop raids against the Black Panthers to the 1978 siege of the MOVE commune. At one press conference, Rizzo fumed about the “new breed of journalism” and pointed to Jamal: “They believe what you write, what you say. And it’s got to stop.” Three years later, Rizzo got his wish. In the early morning of Dec. 9, 1981, Jamal was working as a taxi driver when he saw his brother being beaten by a police officer. Jamal got out of his cab and took a near-fatal bullet wound in the stomach. He was found sitting on the curb, bleeding, while the officer lay dead. Jamal was arrested for the murder despite four eye witness accounts that claim to have seen a third party shoot the officer and then run from the scene. Jamal was found guilty of the murder of a police officer at a trial riddled with constitutional rights violations. The trial featured Judge Albert Sabo, known in the legal world as the “King of Death Row.” Sabo, member of the Fraternal Order of Police, has sentenced more men and women to death than any other sitting judge in the U.S. He started off by denying Jamal the right to represent himself and then barred him from the court room when he protested. Jamal’s court-appointed lawyer was unprepared and repeatedly asked to be relieved. In a city that is over 40 per cent black, only one black person sat on the jury. Prosecutor Joseph McGill secured the death sentence by telling the jury that Jamal’s membership in the Black Panther Party and his use of the slogan, “Power to the people,” proved that he was a “cop killer.” McGill told the jury, “You are not asked to kill anybody. You are asked to follow the law — the same law that will provide him appeal after appeal after appeal.” In other cases, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that this same argument required automatic reversal of the death sentence. In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Jamal’s appeal. There is no denying that racism is inherent in the justice system — and no surprise that the southern U.S. leads the nation in the number of prisoners on death row. As Jamal wrote in the Yale Law Journal, “You will find a blacker world on death row. African Americans, a mere 12 per cent of the national population, compose about 40 per cent of the death row population.” With 1.5 million people behind bars, the U.S. is by far the world’s biggest jailer, imprisoning blacks at a rate far higher than South Africa’s apartheid rulers ever dreamed. America’s death rows currently hold 2,800 people — mostly blacks and Hispanics, and almost all very poor. Recent polls in Canada show an increased demand to reinstate the death penalty. It would appear that many Canadians have enough faith in the state to let it decide who lives and dies. This see Panther, page 5