The nontraditional woman is breaking into the male domain, where her wages and advancement will be on a par with her male counterpart. That entry will not be easy without very special training. In this area, a woman's greatest problem is her own low self-confidence, caused by sex role stereotyping. Many women will not succeed in employer-financed training programs where their special needs are not addressed.

WEM was established to help women become technically proficient in machining while preparing for the difficulties and challenges they will encounter in the industry. Though WEM does not always agree with employment practices, through counseling and role modeling it prepares women to face these realities. One-third of the participants are sole-support mothers, eighteen years and over, and former recipients of social assistance.

At WEM, women receive a wage rather than training allowance. This helps to change their self- perception from dependent to independent. They, too, are hampered in their attempt to provide a better future for themselves by of inadequate housing and insufficient child- care. These problems continue to haunt them after graduation.

EDUCATION

The extravagant fraudulence of contempt for women and respect for mothers, described by Simone de Beauvoir, extends across every social status. Seventy-five percent of the women who present themselves for employment counseling at Times Change support themselves and dependents. Clients under forty years of age generally have less than a grade twelve education. Those over forty generally have less than a grade nine education.

There is no average difference in employment history between a woman with a grade ten and a grade twelve education. Women with BAs are in competition for the same jobs as women with only grade twelve. The great hoax perpetrated on middle-class women has been the emphasis on remaining in school to' attain a higher education, without acquiring a marketable skill.

We now see women with degrees who cannot enter the traditional business environment, because of today's automated offices.

Retraining is essential, but these women are fearful of taking a risk. There is no guarantee of success at the end, and the cost of training can be high. Not being eligible for government assistance means every step outside the house will cost them child care fees, plus tuition, plus transportation. These women gravitate toward local, low-cost adult education classes at night, which often lead to no improvement in their situation.

BRIDGING PROGRAMS

Without bridging programs to help them discover their needs, resources, and educational options, they will not learn to translate life experience into marketable terms. The additional specter was raised at New Directions of newly separated, vulnerable women being speedily parted from their limited finances by professionals offering services they can ill afford. Without the counseling, workshop instruction and support groups available at New Direction, this over thirty-five, separated, divorced or widowed client group would never find the community resources to which they are entitled.

Seventy percent of these women still have children at home. Many are homemakers who have not worked for twenty years. Though well educated, their skills are now obsolete. These women don't receive public assistance, and were middle class until their husbands left. They also meet with an indifferent reception from those helping agencies designed for women on social assistance. Yet, the majority are struggling to support house-holds on incomes under fifteen thousand dollars a year.