A C E " 6 Volume 1 Issue 4 June 1993 Women Veterans VA SURVEYS SEXUAL HARASSMENT Federal Employees SEXUAL HARASSMENT CHARGES AGAINST ATF n a note given to Women Veterans, the Veterans Administration issues the following invitation: "Trained personnel are available to discuss concerns regarding sexual assault and harassment experienced in the military with you in privacy and confidentiality. There is also opportunity to meet with others who were sexually assaulted in the military. Please contact June Schnieder, the Women Veteran Coordinator, for more information at 336-3230 ext. 6587 in the Sioux Falls area. If you were sexually assaulted in the military, you are not alone. Sexual assault can be damaging. The trauma often produces long-term effects that interfere with your day-to day functioning. These reactions do not make a person mentally ill. Rather it is normal to feel differently after an incident occurs. It is important to be able to discuss these issues with someone who understands and cares." A survey form was also given which is being distributed at all VA facilities, and women veterans from outside the Sioux Falls area should inquire at their local VA facility for information. n the last South Dakota legislative session, a Sioux Falls businessman, Bob Koenig, and others tried to change current law regarding sexual offenders to extend the statute of limitations. We heartily support his cause, and would like to see the statute of limitations on sexual harassers, also sexual offenders, extended as well. To those who are interested in helping accomplish this, write your state representative and senator and encourage them to support adding to the law to extend the statute of limitations on sexual harassment to seven years. Although it is obvious that the statute of limitations for sexual harassment of children should be extended until they are old enough to recognize that they were exploited, women also need time to resolve the conflicts involved in their experience, and at least as much time as the IRS needs for filing tax evasion charges.If you don't know your legislators, call us. ixty Minutes has created a furor by exposing sexual harassment at the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a part of the Treasury Department. A January 10, 1993 segment described complaints by twenty different employees. One woman complained that she was interviewed in a motel room and that her supervisor hit on her repeatedly then and after she was hired. The director of ATF, who has been in charge of the Bureau for ten years (roughly the length of the Reagan-Bush administrations), claimed that only a few malcontents were complaining and that there are few sexual harassment problems at the Bureau. Her investigation by the FBI, required by all new Federal employees, dragged on for three times the normal period of time and they made false claims of wrongdoing on her part so she could not be hired. Congressional investigation found them all to be untrue. ATF agent Sandra Hernandez has gone public about her experiences, along with twelve other employees. On May 23 Sixty Minutes again reviewed the matter, and Ms. Hernandez accused the ATF of having staged the David Koresh arrest and resulting standoff in Waco, Texas in order to draw attention away from the sexual harassment matter, and in order to bolster ATF image. I believe that it is safe to say that if 90% of ATF agents are men, and women are complaining of sexual harassment, then it is true that most of the ATF agents are satisfied with their jobs and it is just a few who are complaining. Perhaps it would be a better gauge of the problem if the statistics looked at how many of the women agents had sexual harassment complaints. THE WASH RAG will be published approximately bimonthly by Tesseract Publications, RR #1 Box 27, Fairview, SD 57027 (605) 987-5070 Fax (605) 987-5071. ISSN 1068-2449. Subscription price is $10.00. Freelance submissions encouraged. I s LET'S CHANGE THE LAW! Inside This Issue 1 2 3 4 5 Harasser Rewarded Handbook Being Compiled Harassment Suit favors Complainant Prostitution vs. Sexual Harassment Case study in casting couch politics The Wash Rag  The Wash Rag  CRIME PROSTITUTION VS. HARASSMENT CINDY STEEVER WINS LAW SUIT MARLENA DIETRICH -- CASTING COUCH GRADUATE merican Detective recently went to Las Vegas to hunt down, arrest and thus to eliminate the scourge of society, the prostitute. While it is understandable that communities with children and families find the presence of working prostitutes offensive, it has always seemed that the Nevada population winked at or even encouraged them. One must wonder whether most if not all working prostitutes would not jump at the chance to be a corporate vice-president (whose salary range is probably similar, in many cases) or even to hold down a good steady secretarial or clerical job. Having been in middle management myself, I have even wondered if there was a big difference between being a corporate vice-president and being a prostitute. But I couldn't help comparing the amount of energy the American Detective expended on apprehending women who get their livelihood by providing sex, and the complete apathy that law enforcement has towards employers who try to force the women who work for them to provide sex as a condition of their employment. It is true that most women, when placed in the position of being forced to provide sex to get or keep jobs or to get promotions or pay raises don't think to call their local police, but I think that more of them should. Because employers, by putting a female employee into any of those situations, is basically guilty of pimping, and should be in a criminal court, not a civil court. If convicted, he should go to jail, as well as compensate the victim. By filing civil rather than criminal charges, the woman accepts responsibility for enforcing the law, where if she filed criminal charges, the responsibility for prosecution lies with the state. It seems to me that if the government can expend sizeable resources to control prostitution, it should be willing to expend even more to control pimping on the part of businessmen. I have always suspected that many prostitutes have held down minimum wage jobs where they were expected to prostitute themselves for such meager returns that they preferred the more honest occupation of prostitution, and one can hardly blame them for that. In fact, any woman with an IQ above imbecile wouldn't have trouble with that decision, considering the earnings of prostitution in comparison to minimum wage jobs. Indeed, that may be the rub. Are prostitutes being punished for making too much money for providing sex? It almost seems that the government wants to force women to cut their prices, doesn't it? The government looks the other way when women are under the control of businessmen pimps and providing sex for minimum wage, but when they are functioning as independent business women and are making huge profits, they are prosecuted by the government. There is something wrong with the way this whole matter of sexual harassment is being handled. If it wrong, it is a crime and the government should prosecute, not the victim. A The Women Against Sexual Harassment Rag n Thursday, February 4, 1993, Primetime Live had a segment on Marlena Dietrich. Generally, my knowledge of film stars is embarrassingly limited, and I am lucky to know their roles and films unless there is some scandal. So please don't criticize me too severely for having been shocked. If this program was even close to accurate, then Marlena Dietrich was the biggest whore who ever walked this planet. Her entire being was totally evil, and she had no saving grace. I didn't watch it all, as I found the tales her daughter told to be nauseating. But one thing she said stuck with me. She said that if her mother had enjoyed all the sex she had, she (the daughter) would have hated her for it, but she knew that she (Marlena Dietrich) did not enjoy it, and that sex was something to get over with as fast as possible, to get it out of the way. That is rather startling, since it was apparently the only thing she did in her life. She sang poorly, was a less than mediocre actress, was a horrible mother, etc. Why, then, did she devote her life to the constant pursuit of sex with either men or women? I think that any victim of sexual harassment can answer that. It was because through sex she got power. Her daughter referred often to her mother's power. That is what male employers give women who provide sex to them: Power. It seems to me that Marlena Dietrich's life was a natural consequence of the casting couch which business has now adapted. Women who adapt this means of "getting ahead" are all like Marlena Dietrich to a lesser or greater degree, depending upon how long they have practiced the trade and how successful they have become at using men to get ahead. It eventually turns women into absolute slime, and they drag everyone around them down with them, even those women they work with who don't take part suffer, as they will be punished for not having the same characteristics. There was little or nothing said about Marlena Dietrich's youth, her parents, how she got into acting, but I believe that would be a much more interesting and useful story. Her daughter did say her mother had been forced to get fifteen abortions for the sake of her career, and that each time SHE had been blamed bur having gotten pregnant. What a colossal case of victim blaming that was! Put a woman in the position of constantly having to put out sexually in order to get ahead and then blame HER for having gotten pregnant! If sexual harassment is not stopped, then every woman in our society who is successful will have to be like Marlena Dietrich. Perhaps that is what the men who are controlling the situation deserve, but women deserve better. O indy Steever, who had brought civil action against the Metz-McKennan Federal Credit Union for sexual harassment by her former boss, Clifford Wiese, won her action and was awarded $325,000.00. Way to go, Cindy. Sometimes the system does work, and apparently Cindy got good advice and found a competent lawyer. While this is encouraging, it has seemed to me that the emphasis is on helping women who have been victimized sexually by employers. There is little or no sympathy for women who refuse to get sexually involved with their employers and who are punished not only by the employers retaliation, but also by society which gives them little if any alternative to it. A woman fired on trumped up charges, or whose property is vandalized, or who has pets mutilated or family members publicly humiliated by the enraged employer are rarely believed or given any assistance. C Tesseract Publications is compiling a manual for victims of harassment, Living With Harassment: A Handbook for Survivors. If you have found a way to cope with harassment of any kind and would like to share it, you are invited to write Tesseract Publications at RR #1 Box 27, Fairview, SD 57027-9719. Your name will be included or withheld as you wish. NOW is publishing a Legal Resource Kit for employers which is available from the Now Legal Defense and Education Fund at 99 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013, (212) 925-6635 Fax (212) 226-1066. Sexual harassment has been covered in virtually every form of media since Anita Hill's appearance at the Thomas confirmation hearings. What an effect one woman has had on this issue! Jenny Jones on January 15 had a program on women who had been victims of male abuses of power. One had been spanked by her lawyer, one had sex with her boss before and after performance ratings in order to keep her job. When she tried to complain to his superior, she was told that she had to complain through her boss. Many women complained along with her, and he was punished by getting his pensions though he was not yet eligible. for one. I .