The Wash Rag
Issue 3.2
March 1995

MEN WITH TITS AND INTELLECTUAL WHORES
IF THE SHOE FITS, 
WEAR IT!

Perhaps some have criticized us for our verbal attacks on certain kinds of women who we have labeled "men with tits" and "intellectual whores."  
If we were not clear enough in indicating that we were not, of course, talking about all or even most women, but a portion of the female population, then we apologize.  For those who are offended, all we can say is "If the shoe fits, wear it."  If it does not, of course there is no reason to be offended.  I suspect that for most women who have been offended, the shoe probably fits.
I have repeatedly heard women disdain any criticism of other women, as though all women are sainted and never do anything that could be criticized.  That is as ludicrous as saying that all men are demons.
There is no way that men could reach their dominant status unless women's behavior had encouraged it.  While we have as much sympathy as anyone for the victims of abuse like battering, rape, molestation and harassment, these conditions often go on much too long and if women put up more resistance earlier, they would not accelerate.
There is a story that the wife of Jim Jones threatened to divorce him because of his aberrant sexual behavior.  When he threatened to kill her if she did, she fell in line and the rest is history.  We can only conjecture what would have happened if she had managed to face him in divorce court, but it seems at least possible that he would have been unmasked and lost his following and the Jonestown Massacre would have been avoided.  She was an intellectual whore.
I cannot believe that women's behavior is not in part responsible for the station  
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women have held in society.  One can't expect men to treat us any better than we demand to be treated.  If we allow ourselves to be prostituted for the purpose of survival, then we deserve that treatment.
You can pass all the laws in the world, but the truth is, the laws on the books now are not being enforced.  When someone like Clarence Thomas, accused by many women of violating the laws he was supposed to be enforcing, can be seated on the Supreme Court and stay there, there can not be too much purpose in seeking legal solutions.  The fact is, women must think and act differently than they have in the past
I recently saw a film on the Suffrage movement and was astounded at the courage and commitment of those women who were able to get the 19th amendment encoded into the Constitution.  And I can assure you that they weren't picture-perfect role models.  They were thin or overweight, their hair was sometimes neat and sometimes unkempt.  They marched, they went to jail, they went on hunger strikes, and they even had their female detractors, women who actively worked against the enfranchisement of women!  (Perhaps this is an indication of striking at a root cause).  But they got what they they wanted. What a brave heritage we women have.  Sometimes we live up to it, but sometimes we fall dismally short.


AND GNASHING OF TEETH

The saddest sound to reach our ears in recent days has been the heart-rending wail of those males who believe that they are the victims of what they call "male bashing."
Any woman who has worked years to get a profession and then seen the job she wanted filled by a male with a fraction of her credentials, or had to work under a younger or even older male with few if any abilities for the job, who has had her job accomplishments usurped by untalented males, who has been the victim of dirty tricks and falsehoods, who has been told she will have to provide sex in order to get pay raises or promotions, who has seen the job description for a job she has applied for changed to match the credentials of a male . . . and we could go on but stop here for purposes of brevity . . . has a hard time grasping what they are talking about.  In my estimation, what they are complaining about is being brought to terms with reality.
While men seem to enjoy participating in all of the above and more, they are embarrassed to be identified with activities like these.  They have ruled the roost since the dawn of time with little or no regard for intelligence, creativeness, education, effort or ability, and anyone who thought they would give up quietly is out of touch with reality themselves.  
I suggest a support group made up of Bob Packwood, Clarence Thomas, James Baker, Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy Swaqggert, Clifford Wiese, Wallace Kaye, Dr. Utemark, Martin Greenstein, Benjamin Chavis, the Tailhook officers, Adolf Hitler and Atilla the Hun,  and others accused of flagrant sexual harassment, to sort through their feelings of shock at being caught and publicly humili
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ated and try to develop some way for men to earn to live with reality.
Just to see that group in one room would be the greatest congregation of trash and slime known to woman-kind.  I would think that they'd be ashamed to be seen together.

The WASH RAG is published by Women Against Sexual Harassment, P. O. Box 505, Hudson, South Dakota 57034-0505.  ISSN 1068-2449.  Subscription price is $10.00 a year.  Copyright 1994 Tesseract Publications.

MUSINGS ON THE REFLEC-TION IN THE MIRROR
THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT

I recently saw a film on the Women's Suffrage movement, and was astounded to see many pictures of women who were not slim and well groomed nor dressed in the height of fashion, but portly women in ordinary dress of the era, and they weren't always perfectly groomed.
In looking at these and other photographs of Western women up to the early 20th century, it seems that large hips and bosoms have always been accepted as feminine attributes and attractive.
In pictures I've seen of early Egyptian paintings, both men and women are portrayed slender.  In Hawaiian culture, the more substantial the woman the better.  Her weight was an indication of how rich her husband was. Only in Oriental art is the man allowed to be fat and jolly (Buddha) but the woman is willow slim.  Since Oriental countries traditionally treat women like manure, this should give us some warning of the consequences of allowing ourselves to be trapped by this criteria. Our society is moving in the same direction.
Since small breasts and hips are more typical of teenagers and women in their '20's, it seems that in addition to effecting women's enfranchisement, those women who brought it about may have effected women's fashion.
For now we are expected to see young girls and women who fight nature and try to look like them as the ideal.  That this began to happen immediately after the passage of the 19th amendment seems to be just too much of a coincidence after eons of being acceptable as full-hipped and breasted.  Since younger women, being in the throes of their hormones, were hardly involved in 
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the movement to get women the vote, one must read into this that the ideal is to not be involved in feminist political activity.
As a younger woman, I did fight my battles of the bulge and fiddled endlessly with my hair and nails, but there came a time when it became a matter of diminishing returns.  Not only did I get sick every time I lost ten pounds and immediately gain twelve back, (which has recently been found to be very unhealthy), but I gradually became aware that in order to keep up appearances, I would soon be doing nothing but my hair, my nails, my makeup and trying to control my weight.
I don't really criticize women who do this, as it is their right to do so if they wish, but I regard it as superficial, as there are much more important things than having perfect hair or groomed hands.
Since these things do become harder to maintain with advancing age, it appears to be an additional handicap for older women.
It occurs to me that after one excludes all the "men with tits" and "intellectual whores" from the group of women, one may be left with mostly older, overweight, not-so-well-groomed women wearing somewhat shabby and unstylish clothing.  I don't know this, but it seems to me that constantly fussing over appearances to the exclusion of all else may be symptomatic of being an "intellectual whore" or a "man with tits" or both.
Now at this point I suppose I could just kick back and laugh at all those naive women who have been suckered into buying into this crap.  But it isn't that easy to do when one has two daughters, two granddaughters and four grandsons chomping at the bit to start popping out great granddaughters.  If my weight problems are genetic, then some will surely inherit my weight problems.  If as I suspect, my weight problems are actually the result of exposure to toxic substances ranging from DDT and 2-4D to Chlorine gas and radiation, then they may experience similar exposures and end up overweight anyway.  
So it behoves me to make some effort to expose this trend for what it is:  a blatant attempt to turn women away from self-determination towards the teen-age mentality of appearances to the exclusion of all other criteria which handicaps most women, particularly older women.


FAA FOLLIES
HARASSING MEN?

"Nightline" with Ted Koeppel recently carried a story about training methods in the FAA which were described as nothing short of bizarre.
The investigation into the FAA began, it seems, when men were required to run a gauntlet of women who made obscene personal remarks and fondled them as they went past.
What is particularly interesting about this story is that most of the individuals interviewed on Nightline were women.  It seems that a number of them had complained and their complaints had largely been ignored, and some said that they needed their jobs too badly to complain.  Some of the training had been so damaging as to cause emotional problems.
It seems that the only reason this came to light is because the responsible person, Gregory May, treated men as badly as he treated women and that seems to have been what caused his downfall.
May belongs to a cult, The School of Enlightenment, and members (vis-a-vie, the US Government) receive messages from a 35,000 year old Cro-magnon warrior from Atlantis named Rantha through a channeler.  Others who had received May's training, which was described by Senator Overstar as personal degradation, had become cult followers as well.
Descriptions of the training by current and former FAA employees rang some bells in my recollections of state and Federal jobs I've held, especially Helen Murphy saying she felt she had lost control of her life because she was being told not just when to work and what to do at work, but also when and what to eat, when to sleep, how to spend her own time.  She told of being kept at work into the night and being exhausted beyond endurance.  I had one employer who kept trying to manipulate me into this kind of situation, and when I refused, he concocted a pack of lies and fired me.  Although the job was offered back to me, I 
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refused to go back, as the situation was impossible and the pay wasn't worth the hassle.

TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE


Poster with the cartoon Nancy:

If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem.

MALE FEMINISTS
NOT ALWAYS SINCERE

Ever since my first contacts with women's groups or groups which are politically active in the arena of women's rights, I've noticed a smattering of men who support women's rights.
Some of these appear to be truly sympathetic to causes which benefit women as a whole.  To think otherwise would be more pessimistic than necessary.  Perhaps they loved and admired their mother, a sister or aunt, or are even concerned about the future of a daughter, niece or granddaughter.  Perhaps they even have a smidgen of respect for justice, fairness and truth.
But I've had a number of encounters with men who I felt espoused feminist ideals for other reasons. 
 Some pretended to support women's issues for financial gain.  I can hardly ever forget the printer -- on the board of the local abortion rights organization at the time -- who invited me to submit my pro-choice book, If Men Got Pregnant, Abortion Would Be a Sacrament! to him for printing.  Although he had nearly two months to finish it, he did not follow written instructions and practically all of the book had to be done over, and once it was ready to print it languished for weeks as the deadline neared.  I took the book from him to another printer, and was charged as much for the typesetting and layout alone as I was supposed to pay for the entire publication.  
The book cost twice what it should have, and for this reason I've never been able to turn a profit on it.  The final outrage was that after a week or two, the master copy got stains on it which appeared to be some liquid spilled on it.  The printer who finished the book, who by then had printed it, said that someone had spilled some chemical on it which had darkened in time.
I left the book with the second printer and gave him instructions and told him I had to get the money out of savings and deposit it into my checking account to cover the check I had given the first printer an hour and a half earlier. After I did this and returned, he told me that the first printer had called and told him I had given him a rubber check.  I suppose he had called all of the printers in town. 
I think that the first printer was cozy with feminist organizations to get jobs, and that when he was faced with the prospect of printing a powerful feminist voice, his true stripes came through and he did everything in his power to prevent it from being published.
I believe that some men intentionally get involved in women's groups for the purpose of controlling them.  I can't prove this, but the actions of some men haven't convinced me that their involvement is sincere.  
There is some political benefit to supporting women's issues, as women are more inclined now than in the past to vote for candidates who support their issues.  This is not necessarily bad, but it can be dangerous. Anyone who will espouse an issue just for votes will espouse the opposing side just as fast if 
The really interesting thing about men and women's issues has been the deafening silence of men in the issue of sexual harassment.  There have been so few comments made by men to support Anita Hill, Paula Coughlin, or other women who have made charges of sexual harassment, that I am pressed to recall any at all.  None of the male senators has condemned the way the Thomas hearings were conducted.  The men responsible for the Tailhook scandal got a slap on the hand.  
Some judges have handed out hefty settlements, but by and large, few perpetrators have suffered a fraction of the punishment the victims experienced, and other men in the form of businesses or associations seem always to pick up the tab.  I suppose we women pay for it when we buy a loaf of bread or new shoes.  The men themselves seem unscathed.   
 I get the feeling that sexual harassment is a root cause, and men avoid involvement to try to down-play how important it is.  

JUST ONE MORE AMENDMENT

 At the time the equal rights amendment was floating around and failed because our own state legislature voted against it, I kept protesting to the wording.  My claim was and is that the constitution should be brought up to date by defining "man" to mean "human being" or "citizen of the United States". 
The way the ERA was worded, it might be necessary to have other amendments to cover other groups -- handicapped, gay, etc. Just one simple statement is needed:

27th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
The word "man", including its plural, as used in this constitution of the United States and all its existing and future amendments is defined to include all citizens of the United States without consideration of sex, handicap, national origin, religion or sexual orientation.

I think that this would be hard for people to vote against regardless of their politics, and would gain support from other groups who may feel they lack rights under the constitution as it is currently being interpreted.
The question here is not whether women should carry a gun or get paid the same for equal work or whether gays should marry or be allowed to hold a job but whether women and gays are human beings.  Nobody in their right mind would deny that.  It would be like voting against Big Bird and Barney, though some have had the audacity to do that, too.
I have found it very disappointing that I was taught in school that the Constitution was for all people living in the United States.  I was told I could do anything I wanted to do.  When I realized that was not always so, I felt very hurt. I think that I've spent my life trying to prove I really could do anything I wanted to.  
We know that when the Constitution was written, society had a different form than it does now, and it was definitely not intended to have anything to do with women or Negro slaves.  But the time has come to bring it into the 21st century.  It is a document for all human beings living in the United States, and that is how it should be defined.

GOING PUBLIC -- Anita Hill testifies before a Con- gressional Committee to being sexually harassed.
News Item 10/11/91 


I listen to the newscast
shuffle through a wilderness of memories
enter a thorny thicket --

1945:  my first secretarial job,
long hours, low wages.
One evening the old lawyer asking me
to come in his office,
close the door.

Putting his arm around me
he pretended 
to be concerned about my work
as his hand reached for my breast.

1978:  I am divorced
working in a real estate office
my broker comes up behind me
pats my butt,
puts his arm around me,
squeezes me.
I wriggle free,
but dare not complain.
I need the job.

"JUDGE THOMAS DENIES ALL ALLEGATIONS."
The newscaster's voice yanks
me back to the present.
Were I to testify today
would I be believed?

Ingrid Reti 
San Luis Obispo, CA
from Broomstick
Autumn (#4) 1993