The Wash Rag
Vol. 1 issue 3                                 December, 1992                              
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ذ'Ceven-1-cenذ
ب'ب
DID SEXUAL HARASSMENT CAUSE
A WATERTOWN WOMAN'S DEATH?
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ذ(FEVEN-1-COLذ
ب0بEarly in October, the local media carried
stories about the death of a Watertown, South
Dakota woman, Gwendi Nordseth, whose car
exploded in Phoenix, Arizona.  The ب1بArgus Leader ب0ب
story mentioned that she had been trying to find a
lawyer who would help her file a sexual harassment 
complaint against a former employer.
According to that story, she was driving down
the street when the vehicle exploded.  A nearby
business caught the event on one of their security
cameras, and their film showed nothing thrown at
the vehicle before it exploded.  It seems interesting
that such a device was filming her vehicle at the
time.
A subsequent article claims that the death was
apparently a suicide and that foul play was ruled
out.
It is absurd to believe that a woman driving
down a busy street would douse herself with
gasoline and then proceed to ignite it.  It is more
probable that an employer against whom she was
threatening legal action somehow got what
apparently was basically a Molotov cocktail into her 
vehicle with a remote detonator, and detonated it as 
she drove.
Those of us who have had pets mutilated and
killed, children publicly embarassed, property
vandalized and have had problems getting another
job after filing a sexual harassment complaint
understand the vindictiveness of a male employer
who is being accused of sexual harassment.
I believe that it was murder and that the
Phoenix police department, itself probably almost
all if not entirely all male, covered it up as a
routine old-boy-network function.  Women, wake up
and do something about such a gross infraction of
the law.  Next time it may be you, and your
supportive husband, father or brother may be unable 
to help you, and you may find yourself living in a
homeless shelter begging lawyers whose main
interest is not protecting the innocent but in getting
a new vacation home, for help.  I know that it is a
terrible feeling to know that not only men, but
women as well, don't have time to help you when you 
have such a problem. Whoever executed Gwendi
Nordseth is now scot free and waiting for his next
victim, if he doesn't already have one.  .
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آANITA HILL ON PRODUCTIVITY
ذ&)JFeven-2-colذ
ب0ب
Anita Hill, in a speech to corporate lawyers
made a statement which is so obviously true that
it is an embarassment that it had to be said:
Sexual harassment reduces productivity.
The stories of women trying to take shorthand
or type while being handled intimately, or trying
to work on a production line in which a male
supervisor has tampered with her equipment to
make it nonoperative because she refused to have
sex with him, or who lost computer files or had
documentation altered after she had broken off a
relationship with an administrative male all
dramatize the chaos going on in that woman's life
making it virtually impossible for her to perform
even basic and routine business functions
adequately.  
It is absurd to blame poor productivity on
employees in lower levels of the heiarchy while
management engages in head games including
sexual harassment.  Instead, American businesses
should be blamed for making their places of
business into whorehouses, with themselves as the
pimps, and the hapless women who need the
income from their jobs cooperating more or less as
they are coerced into that position.
How can a business -- or a country -- prosper
when half of the population is being judged on its
sexual rather than its professional performance.
This does not in any way let married women
off the hook.  To those particular employers who
do sexually harass women working for them, the
married woman is little more than another pimp's
whore.  The reason single independent women are
more likely to make sexual harassment complaints
is because they don't have a "pimp", so they are
fair game for that type of employer to exploit.
Once she finds a "pimp" to marry or live with,
then that employer will back off and give her
space.
It is a little bit like the practice of male
canine when marking their territory, perhaps not
entirely as distateful, or . . . perhaps it is.
ب'ب                
ذ&&JF          ذ
      NOVA DISCUSSES HILL'S
     CHARGES AGAINST THOMAS
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ذ&)JF          ذ
ب0بNova on Iowa Public TV on October 13, 1992
was advertised as a retrospective of the Thomas
hearings.  It largely showed a variety of black men
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and even women objecting to the spectacle of a
black woman quietly recounting the experience of
being sexually harassed by a black man.
ذ)FEVEN-1-COLذ
Nowhere to be found was any reference to
that black man having been responsible for
stopping sexual harassment at the time the events
she described took place. There was no speculation
as to how well he might have performed in that
capacity if he himself were guilty of the crime.
It was also not noted that if the charges were
true, then we now have a liar on the Supreme
Court who will probably again lie if it suits his
needs. If the charges are true, he is also open to
blackmail by anyone having proof of this or any
sexual harassment which Thomas did. Thus every
decision he makes could be controlled by whoever
had information of that kind.
Also absent from this analysis was any specu-
lation as to how many of the Senators who voted
to approve Thomas might be guilty of sexually
harassing their female employees at some time in
the past, and were even as they voted thinking, "If 
I am every similarly charged, I want Thomas to be 
in a position to vote on the matter." The answer is, 
of course, probably most if not all of them.
Although the program did indeed include the
moving moment when a U. S. Senator, face to face
with Anita Hill, said, "Why in heaven's name did
it take you so long to come forward with these
charges," it did not speculate as to whom she
might have complained who might have listened or 
done anything about it.
Picture this.  You are working for a very
powerful man (and all indications are that Thomas 
always was that when Anita Hill worked for him).  
He is the most powerful person with whom you
have contact.  He has many connections in high
places, and probably has friendly relations with
all of the other powerful people you know. And
not only that, he is in charge of the organization
which is responsible for legal action against
persons guilty of sexually harassing their
employees.  To whom would you complain?  The
FBI was probably the first place she had the
opportunity to complain where Thomas didn't have 
more power than she did.
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آب1بTHE WASH RAGہ ب0بwill be published approx-
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Copyright 1992 Tesseract Publications
 ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ا„اْا„ا  ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„اْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا 
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ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا 
ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا  ا„ا ْا„اْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا
ْا„ا ْا„ا ْا„ا 
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Nova's retrospective was a pathetic piece of
conservative propaganda intended to lull us into
accepting the whole affair as an embarrassment to
black people, and thus something we should all
forget about.  That will not happen as long as
Thomas sits of the Supreme Court.  He is a
potential powder keg.  You can bet that special
interests are fighting over proof of Thomas'
transgressions, if it exists.
As far as I can determine, that particular
Nova was not shown on South Dakota Public
Television, at least not in October.
ب(ب
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آWHICH IS BETTER,
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آPACKWOOD OR INOUYE?
ب0ب
ذ&)JFeven-2.colذ
The large number of articles regarding the
sexual harassment complaints against Senator
Packwood of Oregon indicates that many are
shocked that someone who claims to be a feminist
could sexually harass his female employees as
regularly as he did.  I wish I could be so lucky.
It occurs to me that this is what it is all
about.  Employers hire women ostentatiously to
perform work for them and instead they pimp
them, effectively making them into prostitutes.
Why it should surprise so many women that
Packwood would act as he did and then try to find
out damaging information about his accuser is
amazing to me.  Those who are hurt by his
betrayal are not very experienced with men, as a
man will say or do anything to get a woman's
trust and sexual favors.  This was different only
in that Packwood took the whole women's move-
ment down the garden path instead of just a few
of them.  He was no different from a rock star
who wears tight pants and shaves his head leaving 
cryptic symbols of hair to get women's attention.  
It indicates that the women's movement has a
naive side to it which is always looking at the
surface and rarely considers the motivations of 
those they deal with.
Much less outrage has been expressed about
Daniel Inouye's escapades with his female
employees, or charges that there has been a
conspiracy to cover up his acts of sexual
harassment, because he was openly hostile towards
women's issues and women apparently expect men
of his type to sexually harass them.  Tsk, tsk,
apparently my naval career wasn't a total loss, as I
learned very young how inventive men can be in
pursuit of sex.