CODE PINK

http://www.codepinkalert.org

MEDIA ALERT: Sept. 11, 2003



BEFORE ARNOLD GOES ON OPRAH TO HELP CLOSE HIS ‘GENDER GAP’ CODEPINK WILL JOIN OTHERS WITH A PROTEST OUTSIDE THE CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY CONVENTION WHILE HE SPEAKS

(SEE CODEPINK STATEMENT ON ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S UPCOMMING APEARANCE ON OPRAH BELOW)

WHEN: NOON - 2 PM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH

WHERE: Outside the LAX Marriott - 5855 W. Century Blvd.

(at Airport Blvd) LA, CA at the California Republican Convention

WHAT: Schwarzenegger is the special guest speaker at the California Republican Party Convention Luncheon Celebration of Republican Women's Leadership. Outside, CODEPINK and other women’s groups will join forces with immigrant-rights advocates to protest the candidate.

WHY: Schwarzenegger has a documented history from the 1970s to the present of making degrading comments publicly about women and reported acts of sexual harassment.

Immigrant-rights groups decry Schwarzenegger’s campaign co-chairman former Governor Pete Wilson and their support for proposition 187, the actor’s 16-year-long relationship to an English only organization called US ENGLISH which has ties to right-wing nationalist groups, and his promise to revoke the bill that would grant undocumented immigrants driver's licenses.

Schwarzenegger with his wife Maria Shriver are scheduled to appear on the season premiere of the Oprah show next Monday. According to USA Today Sept 12th, in California, the syndicated show reaches 1 million viewers, 86% of them women. CODEPINK is inviting women across the county to participate in a letter-writing campaign to urge Oprah to ask Arnold tough questions about his degrading comments and actions towards women. Read the CODEPINK statement below.

ENDORSERS: CODEPINK, the Feminist Majority, Rainbow Sisters Project, Women's Network, Mothers for an Aware America (MAA), CISPES-LA, and the Los Angeles Greens.

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http://www.codepinkalert.org/CodePink_Vigil_Information_Arnold_Protest.shtml.

CODEPINK STATEMENT ON ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S UPCOMMING APEARANCE ON OPRAH:

CODEPINK calls on Oprah Winfrey to use the opportunity of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance on her show to ask him to apologize for his outrageous, rude, degrading and disempowering statements and acts towards women. His wife Maria Shriver defends him as a wonderful husband, generous and supportive to many women he works with, while it seems he has no difficultly descending into disrespectful public comments and unacceptable treatment of other women. His excuse has been that his words were to achieve another aim, such as to increase the awareness of bodybuilding or to sell a movie.

"Does he really believe any woman should be verbally abused to achieve his goals?" said Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK. "When asked about his statements, he continues to defend himself with answers that make matters worse. When is he going to apologize to the women of this country for degrading them for his own gratification?”

This is an opportunity for OPRAH to "use television to transform people's lives, to make viewers see themselves differently and to bring happiness and a sense of fulfillment into every home," as her

mission statement expresses.

We call on OPRAH not to exhibit special preference by having only Arnold Schwarzenegger and not the other leading California gubernatorial candidates on her show – either don’t have him on or have all of the frontrunners.

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