There are tables showing the amounts in billions of dollars spent on military production and the number of jobs which come out of it, compared to construction, education, social services, communications and other industries where you often get double the number of jobs per dollar.

Susan: What do women have to contribute to the peace movement?

Kay: A lot of us feel that we need to investigate what women in Canada and other parts of the world have been doing to develop different negotiating techniques. Marion Dewar is a golden example of this. When the native people were marching on Ottawa to get their constitutional rights, everybody in Ottawa was getting very uptight. The police were worried and started building barricades in front of the parliament buildings. The mayor said she'd see what she could do and what she did was ask the residents of Ottawa to open their homes to these people. It may not have sorted out the Federal Government's attitude towards them, but it set up some good relationships in Ottawa and dealt with a tense situation constructively.

Women aren't so concerned with face-saving. We don't stick to one position. We are more liable to say, "This is the bottom line. We've got to do this and what we're trying to find is the way to do it!" Women assume that both sides are working together to find a consensus solution that will satisfy everyone. It makes a lot of difference in the progress that you can make if you start by taking a positive approach.

A group of Canadian women visited Canadian NATO installations in Europe a few years ago. We got to see the Canadian boys in the back room and discovered that we were talking on two totally different planes about solving problems. The men talked about negotiating from strength and NATO's success because Europe hadn't been at war for forty years.

That's their basis for judging. When we were leaving, one of the women said, "You remind me of my kids. You're like two boys in the backyard threatening each other with a baseball bat. Would I offer one of them a gun and tell him to finish it off, or would I think of something a little more positive and constructive to divert them?" Well they didn't like that, but it pointed out the difference in the approach that women take to resolving conflicts.

Susan: Is there a need for a women's peace movement, separate from the mainstream peace movement?

Kay: I think so. Just as there is a need to maintain a women's movement. The mainstream peace movement is concentrating on immediate issues of importance like cruise testing and Star War. Women's organizations involved in peace have as well taken a long-term, wider view of the problems.

Over the 25 years that Voice of Women has been in existence, we've gone through radiation hazards from testing, the test ban treaty, the Vietnam war, as well as a variety of immediate Canadian issues. We've dealt with a series of environmental issues - like nuclear power in Ontario. We've gone into schools during education week to talk to kids about war and what they think about peace. All these have been priorities on the agenda of Voice of Women, but not necessarily of the peace movement. We've dealt with a lot of women's issues too, through NAC, which we've been part of since it started.

Susan: Would it be fair to say that Voice of Women has never, in fact, become part of the peace movement?

Kay: The current debate is whether there will be a national peace coalition and whether Voice of Women will be actively involved or whether it will be a cooperating organization. I think there is a distinctly different place for women who are concerned about peace and it is not necessary to be tied in to the peace coalition. For example, I was at a meeting of a peace organization recently, which has a lot of women members. They had twenty speakers and only one was a woman. It's the same problem that women experience in any other kind of organization, the same kind of exclusion that goes on all the time.