Atom and Eve

...ach year, NEW holds a conference I to shore up support for its pronuclear position...

...This woman-to-woman approach marks a distinct public relations shift from the paternalistic styles of the past...

...Instead of appliances wearing out, we will...

...People simply did not believe that nuclear power was delivering the cheap, efficient, safe en-Lin Nelson lives in Ithaca, New York, does research on environmental health issues, and works with the National Women's Health Network...

...After whisking away the safety issue, NEW sounds the alarm: By rejecting nuclear power, women risk discrimination and social disruption...

...Eve demonstrates this relationship by feverishly hurling herself along a charted growth curve...

...On the screen, a tired woman is seen pushing a wheelbarrow...

...The industry has fallen on hard times, and conference participants vowed to return to community, industry, university, and government fully determined to overcome any "weaknesses in women's knowledge about nuclear power...

...In an effort to recoup the losses of the past few years, atomic enthusiasts are repackaging and refining the nuclear promise...

...Critics of nuclear power are depicted as a "small but very vocal minority" that "wishes to use a shortage of energy to make fundamental changes in our society...

...It's a promise that takes various forms: Prestigious women's groups are respectfully courted by lobbyists and taken on nuclear tours, while young mothers at home and underemployed women are given a slide show version of nuclear America...

...The program begins by warning of the hardships women, in particular, will face in an energy shortage...

...But NEW participants were troubled last year by press coverage unfavorable to atomic power and the growth of antinuclear citizen alliances...

...The future of energy is the future of womankind...

...In all the world, no other group of women has our freedom—our freedom to choose a lifestyle, whether it's homemaker, businesswoman, politician, or professional...

...literature in doctors' offices...

...Everything is radioactive," the narrator reassures...

...They probably realize that the slide show would be seen as an outrage by groups who have been working on the issues of energy, resources, and technology...

...To bring this important sector of public opinion to "nuclear realism," industry propagandists operate Nuclear Energy Women (NEW), an affiliate of the Atomic Industrial Forum...

...Then the narrator delivers the pitch: "So who is going to be giving up the most as we cut back on our consumption of energy and return to the simple life...

...For those who relish a sense of responsibility and thrive on spirited work, the nuclear industry is the place, according to the manual...

...NEW also establishes awards and scholarships for energy education and assists Girl Scouts working on energy and technology...

...NEW is soft-pedaling its approach to these prominent women's groups, not showing them the rather crude Women and Energy slide show...

...This appeal concludes with the claim that there is "no sound more beautiful in this world than the slish-slosh of a dishwasher...

...The tour participants themselves came away with a slightly less enthusiastic attitude, but still took NEW seriously...

...And NEW circulates A Directory: Women's Organizations and Energy, a guidebook to the nuclear power positions of thirty-six groups, including American AgriWomen, General Federation of Women's Clubs, Electrical Women's Round Table, Girl Scouts, Women and Health Roundtable, Women in Communications, and the National Organization for Women...

...And you may even end up doing your wash by hand—in cold water...

...One important source of our freedom is energy...

...As we share Eve's rapture, we learn that her life of convenience and pleasure is inextricably linked to the unlimited public demand for energy and the unlimited supply necessary to meet that demand...

...Daily household tasks will become a real inconvenience and, no doubt, we'll rediscover the solar clothes dryer—a couple of yards of rope and some clothes pins—fine in the summer, but what about when seasons change...

...Minority groups and society's poor are counting on expanding economic opportunities...

...Since 1979, NEW has been circulating its own twenty-minute slide show, called Women and Energy: The Vital Link, to individuals and groups around the country...

...Adorned in a flowing aqua dress, Eve dances, flits, and gyrates through a world charged with electricity and filled with marvelous gadgetry...

...Accompanying this public education campaign are NEW's efforts to enlist influential women to speak for the nuclear cause...

...ergy that its backers had promised, so the atomic brotherhood in industry and government organized a "nuclear acceptance campaign...

...Without it, we become nothing...

...And it currently is working on a massive media campaign to "bring the nuclear message to mothers at home" by way of "cable TV programs...

...She hurls herself across a self-cleaning stove, caresses a freezer, and fondles a spray iron...

...A central aim of NEW's outreach campaign is convincing women that nuclear power means more jobs...

...from an Atomic Industrial Forum brochure Afew years ago, I had an opportunity to see The Atom and Eve, produced by Connecticut Yankee Power in the mid-1960s and widely promoted by the Atomic Energy Commission...

...The film, designed to spur enthusiasm among women for the state's first nuclear power plant, is a twenty-minute ode to Eve, whom the industry views as the prototypical American woman—one who possesses a virtually uncontrollable desire for products, appliances, energy, and luxury...

...It talks about jobs, convenience, and practicality, while championing economic growth and women's freedom...

...Energy for labor-saving devices in the home will be the first cutback," viewers are told as the projector flashes old prints of women working with an outdated washing machine and doing laundry by hand...

...NEW members met with the wives of nuclear employees and also tried to learn why "little old ladies in tennis shoes" oppose nuclear energy...

...It's tough enough on clothes, but on dishes, it's murder...

...It's important to understand that radiation is a very natural part of our environment...

...This discrepancy suggests that NEW may boast ties with prominent groups in hopes of persuading women to hop on the nuclear bandwagon...

...With the promise of a better nuclear future comes a warning: If you oppose nuclear energy, you will jeopardize the gains women have made, and you will risk all: jobs, security, public safety, and freedom...

...But not to worry...

...But neither did I come away with the conclusion that we have solved our nuclear waste management problems...

...It has been around since the world began and comes from the sky, building materials, food, even the air we breathe...

...NEW has a central file that lists the names of women scientists available to testify to the safety and benefits of nuclear power...

...It is a matter of the utmost importance, the narrator says: "Today's woman has a lot riding on the outcome of our energy dilemma...

...Last year, NEW took eighteen women—a college president, representatives from the League of Women Voters, a state senator, corporate executives, and a member of the American Association of University Women—on a trip to the Hanford, Washington, nuclear site and the Las Vegas test area...

...With it, we become whatever we wish to be...

...NEW's directory says it maintains liaison with the American Medical Women's Association, but the AMWA's national staff says there is, in fact, no such liaison...

...They saw how carefully huge amounts of defense wastes were handled and how tight the security is," said Renae Cook, NEW's program manager, in an energy publication...

...What's more, such work is patriotic, for "by not using nuclear energy, we're endangering our entire way of life...

...The list identifies some groups as decidedly pronuclear, some as vacillating or noncommittal, and some as warranting NEW's attention because of their antinuclear leanings...

...The slide show tries in a peculiar way to play on feminist sentiments by claiming that energy use has been at the forefront of the battles for women's rights: "Labor-saving devices have done as much to shape women's destiny as suffragettes or liberationists...

...To sway public opinion, NEW undertakes various outreach projects...

...Without sufficient energy, women's lives would once again become burdensome, the narrator intones...

...Atomic energy, we are told, requires only a small amount of fuel (cut to slide of tiny uranium pellets), is comparatively inexpensive, and has "a most enviable safety record...

...The Atom and Eve, along with other so-called clean-atom booster films, reached a broad audience in the 1960s, but by the 1970s, the nuclear industry and the Federal nuclear bureaucracy realized they still had a serious public relations problem on their hands...

...Any diversion from the nuclear path foreshadows a bleak future, according to NEW...

...Another NEW exercise is an annual energy tour for national women leaders...

...Fortunately, more than thirty-five years ago, man harnessed another ace in the hole—nuclear power...

...I'm glad to have had the opportunity to visit the waste facilities and learn more about the nuclear fuel chain...

...Such aggressive targeting would backfire," says Corky Bush, who heads the University Women's technology project...

...Images of shortages, school closings, unemployment The industry is bringing the nuclear message home to mothers via cable TV, leaflets in doctors9 offices, and tours of power plants that offer babysitting services lines, menacing street youth, blackouts, looting, and widespread disturbances are flashed on the screen...

...We are told that the Three Mile Island accident released radiation the equivalent of two chest x-rays for nearby residents...

...According to the speakers at the 1982 meeting, NEW is making headway with such groups as the International Association of Professional Secretaries, the American Association of University Women, the Girl Scouts, and several state and local women's organizations...

...Nuclear waste disposal is no great problem, the slide show promises...

...Working with the Atom: Careers for You, a booklet NEW is peddling, is full of accounts of women and men who have made the move from dead-end jobs to challenging employment in the nuclear industry...

...The nuclear industry has fled the Garden of Eden, abandoning the mindless Eve who pranced around The Atom in the 1960s...

...Through the YWCA, the Girl Scouts, and similar groups, NEW members tell young women about the opportunities for job security, advancement, and creativity in the nuclear field...

...At the 1982 annual con-Iference, women were offered sessions on "How to sell ideas under pressure," "Answering the tough questions," and "The risks of faulty communication...

...Because pollsters and advertising experts reported that women lacked nuclear enthusiasm, the industry began targeting the female market as a political force to be reckoned with...

...working with school associations such as PTA...

...One person's version of conservation must never be the cause of another person's deprivation or unemployment...

...Recent surveys confirm that women are more apt than men to criticize the nuclear power industry...

...Formed in 1975 by fourteen women employed as professionals in the industry, NEW ("newer than NOW," boasts a promotion brochure) has a national president, a program manager, fifteen regional boards, and more than 500 members...

...All ends well when Eve and her Atom move into the safe, clean, and highly productive energy future...

...Viewers see an outstretched hand displaying three pills and are informed that "supplying all the electrical needs of the average American home for an entire year would produce about twenty-fifth of one ounce of high-level waste, about the same as three aspirin tablets...

...Her lust for convenience and luxury can only be sated by The Atom, seen pulsating center-stage as Eve prances about in a display of flirtatious and servile gratitude...

...After arguing the case for energy consumption, the NEW show moves to energy alternatives, glibly dismissing geothermal, solar, and hydroelectric power...

...Recognizing that opposition to nuclear power has come from some religious organizations, NEW has attempted to approach them for discussions...

...NEW reports participants were gratified to see women "taking hold of technology," surprised and relieved that the waste disposal operations were so "benign," eager to learn more, and in favor of further contact with NEW...

...I found the tour to be very informative," says Lenore Loeb, who used to head the energy task force of the Missouri League of Women Voters...

...The show ends by applauding women for past contributions to such human rights issues as the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and religious freedom, and urging them once again to take the lead, this time in bringing the country around to a "rational energy plan...

...Solar, for instance, is depicted as exorbitantly costly: "Even the most economical of these solar systems costs at least fifteen times more than any other method of generation...

...Officials of the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women told me that their organizations are aware of NEW but don't sense being the target of a NEW hard sell—and probably for good reason...

...offering a tour of local generating facilities with babysitting services...

...And I did not feel that I was the victim of a snow job...

...In 1979, NEW organized teas in homes across the country for Nuclear Energy Education Day (NEED...

...It has ventured into the world of the 1970s and 1980s, recognizing the political and social attitudes women hold...

...NEW purports to give women the facts, to appeal to their powers of reason and good sense...

...Have you ever tried to wash things by slamming them against a flat rock...