CUERNAVACA, Mexico - Bigger than life, the two statues stride through the park, the mother carrying a water jar, the daughter a book.

The government erected the monument for a previous March 8, International Women's Day. In Spanish, its sign reads: Every conscious woman must dedicate her effort to the transformation of the reality that she lives.

In another neighborhood in this city south of Mexico City, the lavender gate of CIDHAL opens onto that transformation. The organization's work - and workers - illustrates changes in the lives of Mexican women.

CIDHAL, founded in 1969, has been recognized as the oldest women's rights group in Mexico and one of the older still operating in Latin America.

``Our overall aim has always been to contribute to the growth and development in all spheres of women's lives: from personal and family to social and political,'' says RociHo SuaHrez LoHpez, in charge of the organization's public relations.

SuaHrez talks in a gazebo with chalkboards and plants. By her side are a cellular phone and a sleeping cat. Botticelli's Venus emerges from the sea on her T-shirt, which reads in Spanish, ``Woman: Living without violence is a human right.''

``Many people think feminism is imported,'' she says in Spanish. But she notes Mexico has a history of women struggling for rights, including those who fought in the early 1900s for the vote and the Mexican Revolution, as well as the nation's greatest poet, Sor Juana IneHs de la Cruz, who wrote on women's rights in the 17th century - before the United States existed.

``I feel like there have been great advances since I was a child,'' says SuaHrez, who keeps a diary to track the transformation. ``Many things change, and many things stay the same.''

For instance, she says with a mischievous smile, ``my grandmother was a little bit of a witch,'' with an interest in the mystical. SuaHrez inherited that interest, which isn't unusual, considering Mexican women have a long tradition of working as healers.

She smiles often. At 42, she says, ``my heart is very young.'' She explains she has trouble looking serious for photographs, even though she talks of serious subjects.

``At first, I was very rebellious of my feminine role,'' she says. ``I didn't want to follow my mother's path. She married young and had children young and had little support for [professional] development.

``I adopted masculine ways. My friends were men. I wore pants.''

She disdained women as banal and stupid. Then, at age 17, she fell in love, and she began to explore what it meant to be a woman.

Her mother now shares her feminist views, she says, and SuaHrez has a 16-year-old daughter who ``is very informed and autonomous.''

For her bachelor's degree in sociology, SuaHrez wrote a thesis on nongovernmental organizations that help women, with emphasis on CIDHAL. Mexico has 110 to 120 such organizations, she says, and CIDHAL has assisted in the birth of many.

``CIDHAL gives much support to organizations in Central America,'' she adds.

Formerly, SuaHrez directed its documentation center, which collects information, translates when necessary and researches issues. It disseminates information free to the media, other women's centers and any individual interested.

CIDHAL also helps organize conferences, and it refers women to doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

In the main office, bulletin boards display press clippings, as well as information about courses and workshops on yoga, eroticism, quitting smoking, creative dance and pregnancy; a symposium on traditional medicine; services, including a team of women therapists; ecological products for the home; and a compendium of resources on AIDS and women.

``Say no to rape! Report it!'' reads a sign on a door.

Shelves are lined with books on women in wartime, disabled women, feminist art, breast cancer, a medical guide for people who live in villages that have no doctors, domestic violence, domestic workers and day care.

CIDHAL is like a library with these books and more, videos and magazines about women, and clippings from newspapers and magazines.

The material is cataloged in a computer database, which has about 5,000 references, SuaHrez says. CIDHAL also puts out a bibliography twice a year.

The organization has more information on women than anywhere else in Mexico, SuaHrez says. Elsewhere, it's difficult to hunt down these books and magazines. Some can be found in college libraries or in gender studies at the National University of Mexico. Unlike the United States, however, Mexico has no feminist bookstores.

CIDHAL was founded by a Belgian journalist who handled documentation for a center on liberation theology, the theology that urges the poor to organize against injustice. CIDHAL originally stood for Communication, Interchange and Human Development in Latin America.

``But we don't like it because it doesn't mention women,'' SuaHrez says. So, people just call CIDHAL by its initials now.

(At age 95, the founder now works with an organization for older people in Mexico.) Men made fun of the organization at first, SuaHrez says. ``Now there's much more acceptance. CIDHAL is a well-recognized leader of opinion in the community.''

Anne Firth Murray, president of the Global Fund for Women in California, agrees. ``We understand it to be a very good group.''

CIDHAL has attracted grants from Oxfam, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Population Council, Bread for the World and other groups providing international aid.

But a global recession has cut into the aid, SuaHrez says, and CIDHAL is suffering along with other nonprofit groups. It employs eight staff members, down from 20 three years ago. A room for women giving birth is now rented out.

The bulk of international aid goes to organizations that work with the poor, she says. ``They aren't interested in the problems of gender.''

Some think the economic woes besetting Mexico should take precedence over worries about women's rights. But she contends the bad economy hurts women more than men because women are more likely to hold marginal jobs, such as selling tortillas in the street, cleaning people's homes, taking in laundry or even prostituting themselves.

These jobs don't carry benefits, pensions, social security or the chance for promotion. The amount earned varies daily; there's no guaranteed paycheck.

Even women in rich households may have few resources because husbands often control the money, SuaHrez notes. For example, a battered woman might have little money if she left a well-to-do husband.

Differences between poor and middle-class women seem starker in Mexico than the United States. With empathy, however, women can bridge this gulf, SuaHrez believes.

She also points out a few differences between middle-class women in Mexico and the United States: Mexican women make more clothes and food from scratch. But they receive much more help from servants and family members.

In the 1980s, Mexican feminists began working more closely with people in the populist movement, such as laborers, campesinos and indigenous people. She predicts stronger coalitions in the future.

The constitution guarantees equality, and women's groups are drafting regulations to spell out what needs to be done to achieve it.

For example, civil codes recognize the duty of parents to support their children, but mothers have little recourse if fathers fail to pay child support.

There are no resources for single mothers or shelters for battered women, SuaHrez adds.

That's why she views the International Women's Day monument with a jaundiced eye.

``Always women are depicted as mothers,'' she says. ``One of the first actions of feminists here was against Mother's Day,'' not because they dislike motherhood, but because the government provides so few programs or policies in support.

``It's very difficult to be a mother and to develop yourself professionally here.''

TAMPA - The United Nations conference in Beijing gave only a glimpse of the world's organizations for women.

Last fall, the Fourth World Conference on Women in China attracted nearly 30,000 representatives from nonprofit groups. But there are thousands more like CIDHAL in Mexico that sent no one, choosing to spend scarce resources elsewhere.

``There's a tremendous growth in women's groups around the world,'' says Anne Firth Murray, president of the nonprofit Global Fund for Women, based in California.

The fund supports organizations in other countries that promote women's rights and economic self-sufficiency. Since its founding in 1987, it has distributed $5.3 million to 743 grass-roots groups in more than 100 countries.

An example of a recipient is a CIDHAL offshoot called Telemanita in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Begun in 1990, Telemanita produces videos and tapes conferences.

``We have collected videos from all over Latin America,'' says director Catherine Russo, while working into the night, editing film.

Russo also teaches women's groups in Mexico and Central America how to make videos, use them for education and distribute them.

The Global Fund doesn't tell grant recipients what to do. In their own communities, ``they are the experts on what needs to be done,'' says Murray, a New Zealand native who helped found the Global Fund.

The fund encourages organizations to raise as much local money as possible, she says. ``That's the only way you can sustain this in the long term.''

Mairi Dupar, the fund's media manager, knows of four other funds that finance women's organizations around the world. Plans for two more arose from the Beijing conference.

``It is a very powerful thing for women to come together and share ideas,'' says Murray, who attended the conference. ``It makes them feel less alone. They feel empowered and strengthened to be part of a movement.

``Beijing is one step in a long journey toward equality for women. The real action for women is in their local communities.''

As examples, she cites child care, support for battered women and access to legal help. ``That work at the day-to-day level,'' she says, ``that's what makes a difference in women's lives.''

Some issues - such as violence, poverty and political participation - worry women worldwide, Dupar says. Other issues depend on the region. For instance, she says, ``reproductive rights is more of a concern in Latin America,'' where abortion and contraceptives often aren't legal or accessible.

These issues may prove too controversial for some foundations, Murray says. She explains how international development programs have evolved since World War II: ``At first, they built dams and schools and roads. Then, they realized they needed to invest in human resources.''

That often translated into male ``heads of households.'' But donors didn't reap as much success as they had hoped, she says.

``Finally, after decades, it's dawned on people that women make a difference. It's women who are carrying the water, chopping the firewood, growing the food. Basic development work is women's work.''

TAMPA - Without batting an eye, a Nation of Islam member known as Brother Keith vehemently denies that black women are banned from participating in Monday's Million Man March in Washington, D.C., co-organized by the black Muslim group.

``Black women will play a role in the march,'' the Tampa man says, defiantly ticking off their jobs, which include donating money, answering telephones, serving the men, and staying at home and doing what they have done for decades: minding their children and communities.

``Being a womanist, I reacted negatively to that,'' says Cheryl Rodriguez, a University of South Florida assistant professor of Africana Studies. ``I never want to be told to remain at home with my children.

``Telling a woman to stay at home with her children is tantamount to telling her that is her place. They need to think of a way to include black women and not just have them playing submissive roles in their liberation.''

Nationally and locally, black women are outraged, but not surprised, at the exclusion.

``I think the intent is to bring together black men, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions,'' says Iris Wilson, the past president of the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida. ``I find it appalling any time black folks try to segregate each other.

``They are perpetuating the stereotype of women being second-class citizens. How can we demand better treatment from our young black men and the white male power structure if our own leaders are not respectful of black women?''

Mounting criticism has caused march organizers to soften their position. Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height, founder of the National Conference of Negro Women, have been asked to speak at the march, although women still are urged to stay home.

``The men will be physically at the march while we are at home supporting them mentally by teaching our children the importance of the day,'' explains Sister Shelley X, a Nation of Islam member in Tampa. ``We have been charged with the role of organizing a holy day in the spirit of Yom Kippur.''

Ann Porter, president of the Tampa chapter of the NAACP, does not believe the hype.

``However sincere this may be, it is still blatantly sexist,'' she says. ``Women, especially black women, have been an active participant in the struggle for freedom and justice for our people throughout American history.''

Still, a growing legion of black women backs the march.

``I think mentally, black men need some time alone to get themselves together,'' argues YateH Cutliffe, president of St. Petersburg's Citizens for Excellent and Profound Change. ``As a strong black woman, I can stand here before you and say without the least bit of guilt that I don't feel the need to go to Washington. I think our absence will show black men how much they need us, as opposed to us forcing the issue on them.''

The march is no different from the Men's Day celebrations touted at black churches, she says.

``As a black woman who has carried the banner for black men for such a long time, I think it is time for the brothers to give us a day of rest,'' says Michelle Patty, president of Tampa's Concerned African-American Citizens Inc.

Mamie Brown, a longtime civil rights leader in St. Petersburg, concludes, ``It will be invigorating to see all that black male strength.

``If the march is going to be effective, it needs to remain all-male. I think the inclusion of women would gum up the whole thing. It will deter the men from their purpose. It would just turn it into one big party.''

GROUPS THAT HELP

Here are some groups that are working to change the lives of at-risk black boys:

TAMPA

African American Male Summit, Tampa-Hillsborough County Urban League; contact Darrell Daniels at (813) 229-8117.

Brooks' Boxers; contact John Brooks at (813) 251-1907.

Tampa Bay Male Club; contact Chris Redhead at (813) 289-9836, Ext. 324.

Men II Boyz; contact Al White at (813) 248-4339, Ext. 306.

CLEARWATER

The Alpha Institute, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity; contact Joe Smiley at (813) 791-2549.

Ervin's All American Youth Club; contact Ervin Harris at (813) 443-2061.

ST. PETERSBURG Mount Zion Progressive Baptist Church, Project Pairs; contact Sydney Kirkpatrick at (813) 894-4311.

TAMPA - Fighting for revolutionary causes in Latin America, beginning in the late '60s, Margaret Randall didn't view the conflicts much from a feminist perspective.

``I considered myself a feminist, and at that time what that meant to me was... women's issues and how they are affected by social issues,'' she recalls. ``But I still separated that out in my own life. Participating in these revolutionary movements, which were run by men, we were interested primarily in the effects on the people as a whole. I didn't know how to factor in my feminist consciousness.''

Only a little ironic when you consider the activist and author has become renowned for her books on the impact - or lack thereof - that social uprisings in Latin America have had on the women's agenda there.

``The feminist view wasn't really a topic then,'' she says. ``Thinking about your life as a woman was sort of considered a bourgeois luxury then.

``When I came back to this country in 1984, very tired and approaching middle age, I started seeing a feminist therapist,'' says the 58-year-old. ``That sort of completed a circle for me. It's very important for each of us to understand our individual lives, who we are and who we need to be.''

That completed circle, she says, translates into whole human beings. And those most aware of self are the best activators of social change, for the cause of feminism or any other.

Wholeness for women is an issue because so many have suffered abuse - mental, physical or sexual, says Randall, who gave the keynote address at Saturday's second annual conference of the Tampa Bay Association for Women Psychotherapists in Tampa.

``We look at the Holocaust, slavery, the American Indians in this country,'' she says. ``I think we're beginning to look at what's been done to women as a group. The abuse of women has been pandemic, and I think that enough of us have suffered some kind of abuse that it's affected our lives in noticeable ways.''

SHE URGES WOMEN TO REPOSSESS MEMORIES

During her speech, Randall read from her book ``This Is About Incest,'' a collection of poems, prose and photos. She extrapolates from personal experience with memory retrieval and what its social and political implications may be.

``Until we really know our history, repossess our memory, we really can't be healthy human beings,'' she says. ``Our healthiest capacity for action comes from knowing our stories.''

If that approach were widely held, she says, ``we would see a healthier interaction at all levels: in the family, the community and I think also among nations.''

``Unless we take into consideration race, class, gender, sexual identity, age, physical and mental ability - true diversity - if we don't factor that into our thinking on any subject, we somehow come out with a skewed analysis.''

If we look at history as our collective ``story,'' she says, there's a lot of work to be done before many can draw empowerment from the past.

``That's the difference between the history we are handed, which is often from a white, upper-class, male perspective, and history in reality. ``Our stories are thrown out, sort of a loss of memory. Just to know who preceded us and what they did is the only way to know who we are and what we can become.''

She says people in movements for social change have sometimes been narrow-minded on spiritual and psychological issues, while some people dealing with the spiritual and psychological planes have been blind to larger issues of social change.

``I'm interested in a vision that embraces the best of many fields,'' she says. ``My life has been a lot about trying to make connections.''

Randall was born in New York, but spent most of her formative years in the deserts of New Mexico. She left the country in her mid-20s, and for the next 23 years, lived in Latin America speaking and writing on behalf of revolutionary causes and the people behind them. She eventually focused on ways these conflicts affect women, and their lives beyond.

She lived in Mexico, Nicaragua and Cuba, where she raised her four children. Her work also took her to Peru, Chile and Vietnam.

She went to Cuba in 1969 and quickly got a job at a publishing house. Someone suggested she write a book on women in Cuba, and for the next two years she traveled the country doing interviews that became ``Cuban Women Now.''

SHE FOUGHT DEPORTATION

Upon her return to the United States in 1984, Randall was ordered deported under the little-known ``ideological exclusion'' clause of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act. The government considered some of the opinions in her writing to be critical of U.S. policy in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Famous writers, such as Alice Walker, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, rallied to her cause. After four years of struggling through the courts, Randall won her case in 1989. On her own, she says, she wouldn't have had the resources to fight the government.

She retired from college teaching last year, and writes at her home in Albuquerque, N.M., where she lives with a companion. She has had published more than 50 books of nonfiction, fiction, poetry and photography.

``I started reading her 10 years ago, and she completely changed the way I looked at women in the world,'' says Dorothy Abbott of Tampa, who first read ``Sandino's Daughters,'' about women in the Nicaraguan revolution. ``She looks at ordinary women - all women - and sees them as remarkable and their stories as important.''

Randall's writing inspired Abbott, who had worked in the civil rights and peace movements, to turn to women's issues. She's now host of the ``Women's Show'' on community radio station WMNF, 88.5 FM.

On Saturday night, Randall read ``recipe poems'' from her next book, ``Hunger's Table,'' outside Angelica's Mexican Cafe in Tampa. The wind caught her long silver hair and carried her words and the spicy smell of Mexican cooking.

One of her poems, ``Squash Blossom Budin,'' about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, begins: ``This is a recipe from The Blue House, though filtered through another woman's hands.

There were women all over Frida's kitchen, in her bedroom too though she remained the centerpiece: a raging fire.''

When wives try to communicate feelings to their husbands, they often get either stony silence or ``help'' they don't really want.

TAMPA - When Julie married more than a decade ago, she thought she and her husband would be a team, a pair of supportive partners ready to take on the world together.

It hasn't worked out that way.

``I thought he was the one person who'd always be there for me, in my corner,'' says the 40-year-old Tampa secretary. ``But when I have a problem and try to talk to him about it, I get the feeling he just wants me to shut up.''

Other women share Julie's concerns: They would like more support in troubled times.

``It comes down to what we do to men in this culture,'' says Jan Roberts, president of the Tampa Bay Association for Women Psychotherapists. ``We do not teach them to nurture.''

To avoid making her situation worse, Julie asked that her real name not be used. She says she finds her husband's lack of empathy for her work-related problems vexing.

``I just want to vent. I want him to say, `Yes, that is frustrating,' or, `You deserve better than that.' But what he does is try to give me many solutions to the problem, and some of them are really stupid and impractical. It's like he considers my problems to be trivial.''

Roberts says this is a common refrain with the couples she counsels in her private practice in Tampa.

``Women want husbands to hear them and validate their feelings,'' she says. ``But women are blaming themselves when things go wrong at work. Men don't do that; they externalize blame. So they don't understand.''

Sometimes women don't realize that their husbands feel ill-equipped to handle the role reversal.

``Women are conditioned to be the nurturers,'' says Roberts. ``It's scary for the man to feel helplessness.''

Research studies tend to back wives' complaints. Roberts cites a study of marriages in which one spouse was an alcoholic. Wives of alcoholics tended to stay in the marriage and support the husband; men whose wives abused alcohol usually left the marriage.

Julie says she virtually has stopped looking to her husband for empathy.

``I find myself talking to my friends instead,'' she says.

MAKING IT WORK

Many women withdraw from their marriage and turn to female friends for support, says Roberts. But too many unresolved feelings can tax or even destroy a marriage.

Jennifer Barber, 24, and Steve Conover, 25, of Seffner have been married almost three years. They agree their marriage is a good one and they communicate well. As with most successful couples, that has taken a conscious effort.

Steve is quick to credit Jennifer with coming through when he needed support not long ago.

``My grandmother, aunt and stepdad all died within a two- or three-year time period,'' he says. ``I was very hurt. But Jennifer was there.''

``I didn't know what to do,'' says Jennifer. ``I'd never been through that.''

But Steve says he didn't need an expert, just loving support.

``I didn't need to have someone tell me it would be all right,'' he says. ``I knew it wasn't going to be all right.''

Jennifer quelled her usual reaction of trying to fix the problem.

``I knew I couldn't solve it and that I didn't need to try,'' she says. ``When Steve comes home from work with a problem, I'm the one who tries to solve it for him. But that doesn't help him; he usually just tunes me out.''

Stating exactly what you need from your partner is critical, says Roberts. ``Be specific. Say, `Just listen. Do not judge. Do not give me solutions.' ''

She recommends couples lower their stress level before discussing problems. Listen to a relaxation tape, take a warm bath, exercise.

Jennifer, a college professor, and Steve, a high school math teacher, have strategies for stressful days. They sit on the floor, drink coffee and talk. Or, they put their 18-month-old daughter into her stroller and go for a walk, discussing problems en route.

``That's a great idea,'' says Roberts.

``Stress has a physiological arousal component. Exercise lessens that.''

GETTING HELP

Sometimes problems become too great for a spouse to handle.

Lucy, a janitor in her 30s, suffered a back injury two years ago. Although she says she experiences chronic pain, she fears her employer thinks she is faking. (That's one reason she doesn't want to give her real name.) She's struggling to complete her studies to earn her high school equivalency diploma. She says pain medication makes concentrating difficult.

Worst of all, she worries she is a burden on her husband.

``I was a very active person,'' she says. ``Now I'm dependent. When your man is putting your shoes and socks on you, bathing you, putting you in your underwear, it's too much.''

She says she became so depressed that she needed more than he could give.

``For a while, it got too rough,'' she says. ``He didn't understand what was going on. I couldn't explain that everything was building up in me. He didn't understand my moods.''

She sought professional help. It was a wise decision, says Gerald Mussenden, a Brandon psychologist who specializes in the treatment of trauma victims.

People whose spouses have been subjected to such crises as rape, assault, the death of a child or serious illness simply are not equipped to offer the right kind of support, he says.

``There's only so much a husband can do,'' says Lucy. ``Friends don't have the right answers, either.

``I just needed to go to someone who didn't know who I was. I just needed to cry it out.''

Spouses in crisis should try to be tolerant of less-than-perfect behavior from their mates, says Mussenden, who is forming a therapy group for trauma victims.

``The lack of support doesn't come from a lack of interest, but, rather, from a genuine lack of understanding,'' he says.

``The spouse doesn't quite grasp the nature of the problem.

``The spouse often needs help, too.''

For information about the trauma support group, call the Brandon Counseling Center at (813) 681-5958.

TALLAHASSEE - Nobody ever told Alma Gonzalez-Neimeiser the job would be easy.

She's the director of a three-year project to find women in Florida's prisons who killed their spouses or lovers to escape being brutalized by domestic violence.

Her goal: to persuade the governor and state Cabinet that they should be freed or have their sentences reduced.

Ten months into the effort, the 37-year-old Tallahassee lawyer finds herself in an emotionally charged arena in which she must navigate conflicting interests and make gut-wrenching choices if she's to succeed.

Along the way, she says she has riled some domestic violence advocates who think she's ignoring their views and being too conservative in choosing whom to represent.

Meanwhile, she has upset the victims' rights community, which ``does not understand how we would want to get these murderesses out of prison.

``I understand that this is a very controversial issue,'' she said. ``There are many days that I feel that nobody loves me.''

Yet there's progress. Her group has picked 60 women inmates it thinks are candidates for clemency. Forty-four lawyers have agreed to represent them for free.

With luck, her first cases could be before Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Cabinet by September.

BAR GRANT SPURS NEW EFFORT

A 1991 Florida Supreme Court decision was the impetus for Gonzalez-Neimeiser's work.

It said women charged with violent crimes could present evidence of battering as a defense.

A group of advocates known as the Women in Prison Committee began working on behalf of women behind bars who killed to save themselves from being killed.

That same year, Chiles and the Cabinet created three panels of experts to review the role of domestic violence in cases in which women were convicted of murder or attempted murder and to recommend whether clemency should be pursued.

To date, five women have been released under the program.

Then last June, the Florida Bar Foundation awarded Gonzalez-Neimeiser a $300,000 grant to represent up to 100 more women. Her group is called the Battered Women's Clemency Project.

Since then, she has been building an organization from the ground up, creating a 29-member advisory committee and recruiting lawyers around the state.

With the help of law school students, she has reviewed the cases of more than 400 women convicted of murder charges and conducted 118 interviews statewide before settling on the first 60 women the group will represent.

``You're asking them to relive some really horrible moments in their lives,'' she said. ``You're coming in and saying, `Hi, I'm not from the government, but I'm here to help you.' ''

`PIONEERS' ON PATH TO JUSTICE

But Gonzalez-Neimeiser's approach has attracted some critics.

One is Linda Osmundson, director of the CASA domestic violence shelter in St. Petersburg. A member of the project's advisory panel, she said Gonzalez-Neimeiser has distanced herself from those who work with battered women.

``Alma hasn't made a great effort to stay committed to the battered women's movement,'' she said. ``She just assumes she knows everything there is to know.''

But Gonzalez-Neimeiser said she doesn't think it's in the best interests of her clients to be viewed as a ``banner holder'' for domestic violence advocates. Instead, she wants to be seen as a lawyer bringing cases forward with objectivity.

To that end, she faces some daunting decisions: Which cases should be presented first? How many at a time?

Even if they're all worthy, would Chiles and the Cabinet - pressured by a crime-weary public - risk the political fallout of granting mass clemency to a group of convicted killers?

``We're frankly pioneers in this area,'' Gonzalez-Neimeiser said. ``While there was a grass-roots kind of volunteer movement prior to us, we're the first real institutionalized representation for these women.

``We're building a road where only a path used to be.''

It's that kind of year. Or maybe it's the decade, or the century.

Something that started simply, with an earnest, well-intended goal, has become yet another hot topic of controversy.

Take Our Daughters to Work Day began three years ago, started by the Ms. Foundation, as an opportunity for girls to see what their mothers and other women did at work, to expose them to female role models, to introduce career options and to improve their self-image.

Like so many things in our society, that simple goal now has been cloaked in a veritable kaleidoscope of complications.

Charges about the day are hurled from all over the field. The labels placed on it range from bogus to pompous, unproductive to counterproductive, unnecessary to exploitive, political to pathetic.

Some of the questions about it include: Is Take Our Daughters to Work Day misguided?

Do girls really need the exclusive opportunity?

Should boys be included? Is it fair for them to be excluded - discriminated against?

Shouldn't we be showing our sons that Mommy can not only cook, clean and taxi kids around, but also can design a building, write a story, put out a fire, cure a disease, enforce the community's laws?

Is our zeal to influence girls to achieve in the workplace misdirected? Are we misinformed and, hence, misinforming them about the advantages and disadvantages women face on the job?

Are we hiding from girls the issues of job stress and job-related stress? Are we romanticizing jobs over home?

JUST THE FACTS

Of course, everyone waves this study or that, this research or that, this poll or that, to support their particular theory or point of view.

But no matter what you think about Take Our Daughters to Work Day, there are some facts about women in the workplace to consider.

American women began entering the work force in large numbers during World War II - more than 50 years ago.

Today, most women who work do so for exactly the same reason men do - to pay the bills.

Yes. Since World War II, women have made progress. There are women CEOs, law enforcement officers, lawyers, jet pilots, scientists, physicians, astronauts and so forth. Few jobs now are gender-exclusive; most jobs now are held by at least a few women.

Yet, considering we've been at this for several generations, our progress is disappointing in many areas.

Although women make up 40 percent of the work force, they are still paid less than men - about 74 cents to every dollar a man makes. The majority of women still work in pink-collar ghettos such as teaching, secretarial or clerical areas, service jobs, retail sales, nursing.

Even in many of these areas where it might be presumed that, because of their numbers, women would frequently achieve the top job, they don't.

The glass ceiling gets in the way.

STILL LOOKING UP

Compared with the number of women working in those fields, there are few women school superintendents, department store managers, grocery store managers and so forth.

Women hold fewer than 5 percent of all corporate senior management positions. They are more successful at the middle management level, holding about 40 percent of those jobs across the country.

The newspaper industry is no exception.

According to a recent issue of Press- time magazine, only 8.7 percent of the nation's newspapers were headed by women publishers in 1992. Only 19.4 percent had a female executive editor. Although women make up 40 percent of all newspaper employees, women held only 30 percent of the managerial jobs in 1992.

A recent report by the U.S. Department of Labor's Glass Ceiling Commission says that the barriers to the advancement of women and minorities are principally the fears and prejudices of white male executives.

Based on those disappointing facts, Take Our Daughters to Work Day seems to be the least we can do to achieve equity in the workplace.

Or is it the most we can do?

Should Miss America contestants be forced to wear a bathing suit during the competition?

That's a hot question in some circles and one BayLife discussed Monday.

Contest officials are going to take a vote during the contest and go whichever way the wind blows.

I vote no. It's demeaning.

But I'll be in the minority, no question.

Anyway, today seemed an appropriate time to update the beauty/brains query posed here a while back.

The semi-serious question was: If it's either/or, would people rather have looks or intelligence?

The answers were fascinating.

One of the more thoughtful came from an incredibly thoughtful guy.

``I found myself coming up with a third direction: I wouldn't wish, necessarily, for more beauty or brains, but the capacity to be more loving, caring and courageous to act on my convictions. Honest.''

That deep vein also was tapped by others who answered.

``It would be better to develop beauty of character - obtaining as much education as possible, and keeping oneself as physically attractive as one can,'' wrote Jennie Schosker of Lake Wales.

NO GUARANTEES

Schosker pointed out that neither guarantees happiness or success. Dorothy Parker and Sylvia Plath had brains aplenty, she wrote, but ended their lives unhappily. Marilyn Monroe had beauty galore, but it didn't bring her happiness.

To Schosker, both Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Teresa are beauties.

K.J. Reidelbach of Tampa said she'd rather be brainy than beautiful.

Beauty doesn't pay the bills. Nor does beauty guarantee self-respect, happiness or love by others, she said.

Beauty is as beauty does was a lesson taught to Reidelbach and her siblings by her mother, she wrote.

``She used to say, be happy with what God gave you and make the best out of what you have. If you happen to have beauty and brains and if you are happy with yourself, then you are doing great.''

Another anonymous respondent offered this: Beauty fades but ugly holds its own.

``I'm 70 years old. I've heard that expression since I was young and have pondered its significance. In recent years I've had occasion to observe its truth. Most of the beauties of my youth, of either sex, could no longer be noticed for their physical attributes. On the other hand, any number of persons who were thought ordinary in the days of their youth have continued to look much the same. In many instances, they now look better than the former - and faded - attractive people.''

Wilma Chase of Tampa said she'd choose witty over pretty.

``There's no way being lovely to look at would help me in an emergency. Are my looks going to help me decide what to cook for supper or which is the better buy at the supermarket?''

`I CAN HAVE BOTH'

Melba Huddleston of Tampa looked at the question practically.

``I would choose brains. With brains I can seek knowledge - with knowledge I can make myself pretty, beautiful, attractive... consequently I can have both.''

Bettie Fitzhugh of Riverview wrote: ``I'll take brains. Then with my income, I could afford some fantastic plastic surgery.''

Deborah Taylor of Tampa bemoans research that indicates that many people attribute so-called virtues, such as intelligence and so forth, on the basis of looks.

``I tend to see people as units of awareness first. Brains, to me, are the most important part. The package is somehow made beautiful by brains.''

A state lawmaker wants to keep insurers from denying them coverage.

TALLAHASSEE - State Rep. Sally Heyman believes some domestic violence victims are abused twice - once by the people they love and a second time by insurance companies who deny them coverage.

But under a bill sponsored by Heyman, which will get its first hearing today, insurance companies won't be able to refuse coverage to anyone simply because they live in a dangerous setting.

The same restriction would be placed on health-care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, which would be barred from refusing to pay for treatment of domestic violence-related injuries and illnesses.

The measure (HB 467) will be heard in the House Business and Professional Regulation Committee today. It already has the endorsement of women's groups, domestic violence experts and Attorney General Bob Butterworth.

Heyman introduced the legislation based on a May 1994 article in The Tampa Tribune that reported some of the nation's largest health-care providers sometimes deny insurance to battered women.

``I will not tolerate insurance carriers or health-care providers re-victimizing domestic violence victims,'' said Heyman, a first-term Democrat from North Miami Beach.

Insurance companies sometimes deny coverage to domestic violence victims on grounds that it's a pre-existing condition.

The industry says if someone is a high risk because they are injured in an abusive relationship, the underwriter can't ignore that information for the protection of the company's other policyholders.

Heyman said injuries from domestic violence shouldn't be treated any differently than injuries some people receive again and again, such as skiers' broken bones or bad drivers who repeatedly have accidents.

The bill doesn't preclude insurance companies from charging higher rates for domestic violence victims, as they would people who live in other high-risk situations or who are accident-prone.

Insurance industry lobbyist Vince Rio said insurance companies don't oppose the bill, but still want to be able to consider a particular health condition and decide whether to cover it, regardless of how it was caused.

Rep. John Cosgrove, the Miami Democrat who heads the House Insurance Committee, said he supports the bill, but agreed it shouldn't be so broadly worded that pre-existing conditions not caused by abuse couldn't be restricted in coverage.

Other provisions in the bill require licensed health-care providers in the state to complete a one-hour course on domestic violence in order to renew their license every two years and that courses on AIDS include information on domestic violence. The measure also would put tight restrictions on how state money for domestic violence centers is spent so they aren't built with a state grant and then have no money to pay for services.

TAMPA - Angela Brown could become part of a dying breed.

A first-year assistant girls basketball coach at Tampa Catholic High School, Brown knows one day she will give up coaching to have a family. When that happens, she will be joining a growing list of females being called an endangered species because they are leaving coaching.

They are dropping out at a time when females participating in sports is at an all-time high. Some female coaches say gender inequity at home has as much influence on the declining numbers as gender equity within athletic departments.

``Parents at Tampa Catholic told me they were glad to see me,'' says Brown. ``They said they were glad to see a female on staff.''

However, Brown, who is single, says she won't make a long-term commitment to coaching because when the time comes to start a family, her children will be her priority.

``I don't know that I can do it,'' says Brown, 28. ``I can't see doing what [head coach] Karim [Norha] does and have a family.

``He eats, sleeps and dreams basketball. He doesn't have to worry about children.''

Hillsborough High School girls basketball coach Lelani Gordon can't imagine juggling a family and coaching, either.

``I feel like my whole life is put on hold from October to February,'' says Gordon, 35, who is single and has no children. ``I'm not complaining, because I love coaching basketball. I respect and admire people who are able to do both.''

An ongoing study by R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Carpenter of Brooklyn (N.Y.) College shows that in 1972, 90 percent of all women's collegiate teams in the United States were coached by women. today, that figure has dropped to 47.3 percent.

A 1992 Florida High School Activities Association survey says there were 3,759 male coaches and 1,045 female coaches in Florida that year. The report was a one-time gender-equity survey done for the Florida Department of Education.

However, the association's field director, Cecilia S. Jackson, says she remembers when women overwhelmingly outnumbered men as coaches in female sports.

``In 1972, there were more women coaching, but we didn't have as many sports for girls,'' says Jackson, who compiled the survey. ``When the salaries and benefits evened out, a lot of male coaches who would not have touched female sports began coaching girls.''

On average, coaches can earn $2,400 a year as a basketball coach, $1,200 for volleyball, $1,500 for softball and soccer, according to the Hillsborough County school system.

Jackson also says colleges are not preparing young women to be coaches.

``Look at a male team bench and see how many assistants are there,'' she says. ``Then look at a female team bench, and you're not looking at the same thing.''

MATERNAL DEMANDS

Even more critical, Jackson says, is the choice women often face between coaching or motherhood.

``Young women are coming out of college and just when they finally get to the point where they really know how to coach, they get married and make the decision to raise a family,'' she says.

In 14 Hillsborough County public high schools, there are three women coaching basketball, six coaching soccer, three coaching softball and seven coaching volleyball.

``Coaching any major sport is a considerable time commitment,'' says Vernon Kohrn, Hillsborough County's assistant director of athletics. ``It's almost a year-round commitment and when you weigh that against family responsibility, it becomes a source of the decline.

``We'd like to see more males and females get back into coaching. We've got some good applicants coming into the system so I don't see the numbers declining more.''

For the past eight seasons Jo Garber, a former teacher at Bloomingdale High School, has split time between her nuclear family and her athletic family to coach girls soccer. She resigned in February to join her husband in Sarasota.

``On game days I would come home from work, pick up my kids, clean house, get them ready for bed, then go back and coach at the game,'' says Garber, whose teams won seven district and four regional titles with a 115-28-6 record.

``As my three children got older, it became a little easier because I could leave them. But we spent a fortune in babysitting for the first four or five years.''

Nancy Marie White, an anthropologist at the University of South Florida, says changes in American family structures during the past 20 years have contributed to the decline in women coaches.

``Families have lost extended family child-care help provided by grandmothers and mothers-in-law,'' White says. ``People are putting grandmothers in nursing homes while families are depending more and more on outside day care.''

Luckily, Pamela Blanford doesn't have that problem. The Plant High School girls soccer leader says she is able to keep coaching because her husband and in-laws help care for her 3-year old daughter.

``It's hard,'' says Blanford, 35, who coached basketball and tennis before the birth of her daughter.

``If my husband hadn't stepped in, I would have had to resign. He does more than most husbands, and his mother and sister help out a lot, too.''

White says that despite much of the feminist dialogue of the past two decades that sought to promote a balance in gender roles in American society, many women, including coaches, are holding on to the more traditional values that assign females the role of primary child-care responsibility while husbands work outside the home.

``It's true,'' Blanford says. ``The old-fashioned idea of women being home taking care of the kids is still around. We haven't gotten away from that.''

Brandon High School softball coach Angela Slater says the tug of war between family and coaching has led to even more anxiety for women.

``In our society, all the problems of juvenile crime, teen pregnancy and drugs are being blamed on mothers going back to work and not spending time at home with the kids,'' says Slater, 32.

``Most of the time in our society when a woman gets married, her commitment is supposed to be to her family first and career second. Males can expect to have a career and family.''

Slater, the mother of a 6-year-old, 3-year-old and 8-month-old, has been coaching girls softball at Brandon for 10 years. Her husband, Ron, is her assistant coach and a big part of her family child-care network.

``Ron makes it work,'' Slater says. ``I don't think there are many men as unselfish as he is. He wants me to be the best that I can be and he's shown it time and time again.''

Pasco High girls soccer coach Pam Lockliear also depends on her extended family to get through the long days during soccer season.

Lockliear, the mother of a 7-month-old son, has coached girls soccer for the past two years. When she leaves her math and science teaching job at Pasco Middle School, she picks up her son and leaves him with her mother or mother-in-law.

``I felt guilty every time I've had to leave him with someone,'' says Lockliear, 24. ``And if I take him to practice, there is usually a manager or a player who would watch him.

``It wasn't unusual for me to have a baby in my arms while I was coaching.''

ROLE MODELS MISSING

If the number of women coaches continue to decline, some worry there won't be any role models left for young girls to emulate.

That disturbs Blanford. She says she became a coach because she had a female coach she admired. Without female role models, she says, girls will not pursue coaching careers.

``It's visible already,'' Blanford says. ``Many girls are not going into sports because they don't see women.

``My players used to say, `Coach, I like what you do and I want to do it.' I haven't heard that lately.''

Brown, of Tampa Catholic, says she, too, is concerned about being a role model. Her high school basketball coach had a lot of influence on her life and she hasn't forgotten that.

``There are times when I've had to demonstrate a move on the court to show girls that it can be done by a female,'' she says. ``Girls need to be able to see that. Girls need to be able to see women as athletes.''

Lockliear, too, has some concerns.

``I worry about my team,'' Lockliear says. ``I told my husband I don't want to give it up, but the stress of working a full-time job, coaching and trying to be a parent is overwhelming by the end of the 3 1/2-month season.''

USF CAMPUS - The 250 T-shirts pinned to the clothesline flapped in the breeze like so many colored flags.

But up close, the line of shirts stretching from the administration building to the student center at the University of South Florida Tuesday carried painted recollections of 250 women's fears, pain and recovery.

He broke my jaw, but not my spirit. L.M.B.

For 11 years of my life I lived in fear. Never Again. R.K.B.

The Clothesline Project, brought to campus for Women's Awareness Month, started in 1990 after a group of women in Cape Cod, Mass., saw a traveling exhibit of the Vietnam Memorial Wall and decided to create a memorial to female victims of violence.

The war killed 58,000 American soldiers, said Diana Frasier, a volunteer with the Tampa Bay Clothesline Project. During those same years, she said, 51,000 women were killed in America by men who supposedly loved them.

Karen, 29 years. Shot and killed by her boyfriend. Mother. Daughter. Friend.

Survivors of domestic violence, sexual abuse, incest, rape or any violence are invited to paint T-shirts about the incident and their recovery. Since the project began, more than 1,200 local ``clotheslines'' have formed, as well as five in other countries, Frasier said.

``This is an opportunity to give violence a name and a face. Each [T-shirt] has a name and a story. People can't turn from the Clothesline,'' Frasier said.

It is your responsibility as a human being to break the silence. Rain,'93.

``It gives me goose bumps,'' said Paula Crosley, a non-student who visited campus just to see the exhibit Tuesday. ``I think every woman in the world can relate to this.''

What did I do to deserve abuse?

In my dreams, I pull the trigger.

Joy Kobasko, a USF senior majoring in advertising, painted a T-shirt of her own for the line, sharing her anger at being mugged at gunpoint: You saw me, alone in my car... You asked me for directions... And then you put a GUN to my HEAD and COCKED the HAMMER!!! As you robbed me, I saw INFINITY down the barrel of that gun. But you DIDN'T PULL THE TRIGGER!

If I saw you today, here's what I would say. At the age of 19 I learned how to LIVE! You CUT me down and made me STRONGER by doing it and in other words... I'M A SURVIVOR.

``I finally got the final word,'' Kobasko said. ``Now I'm at peace.''

Shirts from across the nation will be taken to Washington for a rally April 8.

My heart is still beating. ... I won. C.L.P.

We live in chaotic times.

Just 75 years ago, American women won the right to vote. But our society still agonizes over the role of women and seems ambivalent about their achievements, particularly in traditionally male arenas.

One message that rings loud and clear these days is that many Americans want to go back to a time when women did not have as many opportunities and men weren't threatened by a society in flux.

Of course, our economy is such that most two-parent families can't afford to live on one income. Little attention is paid to the millions of single-parent families, largely headed by women, who are most cruelly affected by financial hard times.

Women also seem to be blamed for the breakdown of the family, the rise in teen mothers, the increase in juvenile crime and high welfare costs.

What's true is that women have not always made the best choices, particularly involving sex and procreation.

Yes, women continue to receive the message in our culture that their lives are not complete unless framed around husband and family. So it should come as no surprise that immature women will try to achieve that golden ring any way they can, as long as there are immature men willing to take them for a ride on the carousel.

PARENTHOOD TOO SOON

But spiraling teen pregnancy rates threaten our future as a nation. Early parenthood encourages fathers to ignore responsibility and often cripples the mother's ability to parent and also develop job skills.

Children suffer, too, without two parents dedicated to their upbringing.

Frequently, such children don't even have one mature parent devoted to their future. Often there is no one setting standards of acceptable behavior, imposing discipline, encouraging achievement at home and in school.

Many of these children grow up uneducated, without nurturing, destined to perpetuate their own sad history.

Yet, while all this blame is being focused on women, little of it is directed at their partners.

Only recently, in fact, has there been any national discourse about mutual parental responsibility, any significant moves toward demanding that, at least in the area of child support, both parents should be held accountable.

But the jails aren't full of noncustodial, deadbeat parents, and society's scorn isn't heaped upon them in the same measure it is heaped upon the women who bear the children. A typical indictment goes something like this: ``Isn't it mostly the woman's fault? After all, she's the one with the most to lose. She has the kid.''

Yes, she does. But she can't get pregnant without help.

The attitude that women bear more responsibility for pregnancy diminishes men as well as women and often sets the sexes against each other.

FEAR ON THE JOB, TOO

The workplace is another arena that often pits men against women. Since they have the most to lose, men - white men in particular - seem the most conflicted about women's rights and the move toward gender and racial diversity in employment.

They also complain about being unfairly saddled with the stereotype of the uncaring, irresponsible, promiscuous male.

So they are fearful, angry.

As are many women.

So here we are, 75 years into a great experiment on the day that begins Women's History Month, a 31-day period designed to showcase the achievements of women and provide role models for a segment of our population that sorely needs inspiration.

But at this critical juncture in our history, Americans are polarized, at odds over a woman's place in society, her rights, her responsibilities, her obligations.

We too quickly point the finger of blame at women regarding what's gone wrong in America. The blame game is tempting, but it's counterproductive, particularly when it pits the sexes against each other in areas where we desperately need to work together.

Besides, there's plenty of blame and shame to go around.