The Wash ag
Issue 3.3
August 1995

ONE OF THOSE GOOD NEWS-BAD NEWS DEALS
PSEUDO-WOMEN OR PSEUDO-FEMINISTS.
A FARCE WHEN IT COMES TO WOMEN
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
I was amused to see that other women are finally getting on the band wagon to find that women are not always sainted.  MS. Magazine for March/April 1995 featured an article by Susan Faludi, "I'm not a Feminist But I Play One On TV".
She talks about "pseudo feminists", women who try to act like feminists but who oppose virtually all the feminist agendas.
I thought that I had called them "pseudo women" but in reviewing back issues cannot find any copies of the issue in which I used that term.  Since I generally keep both a reading copy, a reproduction copy, two disk backups, plus the original hand-written materials, it is rather startling that all of these materials had disappeared from my files.  
It gives new significance to the break-ins that I have been complaining about to law enforcement.  A letter to the editor of MS of course brought no reply at all.  In the process of looking for these materials, I also found that an issue that I did in October/November of 1994 was totally missing as well.  Since that was the original "Men with tits" issue, and I had reiterated my arguments in the January issue which was widely mailed, I did include a copy of that to her as well.  
I had quit writing mainstream materials because I felt that my ideas were being plagiarized, and thought that by writing feminist materials, I would get around the plagiarists, but apparently women are as disgusting as men in that regard.  The most infuriating thing about the theft of my ideas by this person is that she is exactly the kind of person that I was talking about in these articles.  These women have no intellect at
(page 2, column 3)
 all.  They'll do anything to get what they want.  
In any case, I am so elated to see the idea promulgated in a wider readership that I am somewhat mollified in my anger at being systematically robbed.  The Pandora's Box of women themselves being responsible for determining their own fate is one that will not be popular with women, as they enjoy being able to lay the blame on men alone.  They must get off their proverbial asses and start determining their own status, or they will remain second class citizens forever.
Why should men give up their superior status unless they have to?  Would you?  Of course not.  Nobody would.  Women, by accepting male mores and playing men's games by men's rules, keep themselves in chains.  Whoever makes the rules wins the game.  The only way that women will ever win the game is to stop playing by men's rules and start making them themselves.
That is what the suffragettes did.  That is what those women do who go into predominantly male occupations.  That is what Katherine Hepburn did by wearing pants and Margaret Sanger did by promoting the use of birth control.  They broke men's rules and started making their own.
When I repair my own lawn mower, install a wood burning stove, replace the pop-off valve on my hot water heater, or build a greenhouse for my seedlings, I am breaking the rules men make for me.  I don't do them in order to do that, but usually because I can't get anyone to do them for me or can't afford to.  But men want me to be so helpless that I can't do them for myself, hence must either pay outrageous prices to get them done or get a husband (who I must pay with sex) to do them for me.
While I understand why other women prefer to submit and pay the price for these services, I cannot respect them for doing so for that reason.  Relationships should be for compatibility, not for purposes of manipulation.  I think that is why the divorce rate has skyrocketed.  In the old days, there was no effort by women to have a life.  Men have responded to their meager gains with hostility and paranoia (e.g. Rush Limbaugh) and this has escalated into a confrontation.  Women who keep relationships going usually do so by prostituting themselves.  It wasn't meant to be that way and it should not be that way and it must not be that way.

My subconscious has given me a fascinating new concept on getting men to pay attention to women's problems.
During recent years (along with my advancing age) I've had increasing problems getting service and products that are adequate, particularly from some men.  
I have been driven to the brink of madness by what was either their incompetence or intentionally bad service.
In order to maintain some semblance of sanity and keep putting one foot in front of the other, I found that if during some leisure moment, I would mentally lay them out on the floor on their backs, place a loaded shotgun in their mouths and pull the trigger, blowing their heads to kingdom come, I would find a slight feeling of satisfaction that I had done justice for myself.  I had no hope that anyone else would do justice for me.
After some months of this ritual to calm my jagged nerves, I realized that after I had blown their heads off, the men seemed to act as though nothing had happened.  The realization startled me.  I expected that blowing their heads off would destroy them, but they seemed to continue functioning afterwards.
Perplexed, I once again placed the target male prostrate on the floor, got myself a much larger gun like a bazooka, this time placing his erected penis in the barrel and pulled the trigger again.  
To my amazement, he shot like a rocket into the sky.  The next target of my mental exercise jumped around like the Tanzanian Devil, yet another blew up like a balloon and exploded.  It became almost more interesting to me to see how they would react
(page 2, column 2)
 to the mental injury than that I had done it.
In retrospect, I think my mind gave me a great truth through this silly if vindictive exercise.  
My mind told me that reasoning with men about my problems was a waste of my time.  If you can blow their brains out without any reaction, then surely there is no point in making laws expecting them to respect them.
But when I destroyed their sex organs, there was a violent response.  I was striking a blow that actually hurt them.
I wish I could say how to bring some force to bear that would do harm to their sexual being that would have an effect on their attitudes.  Should we castrate men who are anti-woman?  That seems extreme and improbable.  I've always said that if all of the women in the world refused to have children for one year, they would attain total equality and possibly sexual superiority in that length of time.  
Think of it.  In a month or so, manufacturers of morning sickness pills, OB doctors and nurses would begin to feel the pinch.  By six  months the manufacturers of maternity cloths, baby furniture, pre-natal vitamins and other medications and shower gifts would be desperate.  In nine months, hospitals, diaper and formula manufacturers would start to hurt, by twelve months, the manufacturers of baby toys and foods, pediatricians and home builders would recognize that their business was slacking off, etc..
Whether that is the equivalent of putting a loaded bazooka over a man's erected penis and pulling the trigger, I can't say, but it seems to be in the right direction.

I have been surprised that so many people are up in arms about the moves by Congress to eliminate what has been called affirmative action.  Frankly, I don't believe that I ever actually benefited from it when I worked, and believe it was actually used against me once or twice.
This is the way it worked:
The employer had a position open.  He wanted to put a man into the position, but he already had a zillion men in equal positions, and government regulations forced him to promote a woman.  He looked over the applicants and chose (surprise, surprise) one of the women who was providing him with sexual favors.  Because he had promoted a woman, there was no way I could claim discrimination because of sex, even though my credentials ran rings around her, and probably most of the men who had applied as well.  If he had promoted a lesser qualified man, I could have claimed sexual discrimination.
The law as it was written gave employers the leeway to pick a poorly qualified woman even though there were well qualified women who applied.  In this way, he could point to this appointee and use her to prove that the law was flawed, which it was, although not in the way he was using it (to prove that women could not do that particular job).
I believe that my chances of getting promoted or hired were better without affirmative action because I was skilled in my profession, not in sex.
The fact is that affirmative action has been poorly administered.  If the Nation's former chief of the EEOC was accused of sexual harassment while he was chief of that organization, and then was named to the Supreme Court in spite of corroborating evidence that the harassment occurred,
(page 2, column 2)
 then the entire program is a farce, an expensive farce, and little more than lip service for women's rights to equal opportunity and freedom from sexual harassment in the work place.
In general, I have found that the affirmative action rhetoric is used to refer more to racial minorities than to women anyway.  An article in the March 17th New Yorker refers to it almost exclusively as a law to benefit blacks and Hispanics, and though I recalled a brief reference to women when I first read it, could not even find that reference when writing this.  
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 On a personal note, I have found these past several months very difficult on several levels.  It was nothing short of devastating to find materials very similar to my own being used in a national publication, and then finding my own copies having been stolen from my house.  At a time like that, one wonders why you even try. 
I had an accident which physically made it very difficult to get the things I had planned done.  Because I had made arrangements to have work done on my home, it has been very hard for me to get this newsletter out like I intended to.
On top of all that, plans to attend the UN's Fourth World Conference On Women NGO Forum in Beijing, China were ongoing and had to be attended to whenever necessary.  Due to this I am very late in this issue.  I apologize for the delays, but there seems to have been no way of avoiding them.
I look forward to the UN Conference and its opportunities to meet women from many countries and from all over this country.  It is hoped that I might have some opportunity to hear what the various Non-Government Organizations will be saying about sexual harassment. Geraldine Ferraro will represent the United States.  It has not yet been decided whether Hillary Clinton will attend.
 I am afraid that in the light of the pathetic situation of women in countries like India, Saudi Arabia and some Latin American Countries, the subject of sexual harassment will be glossed over.  I hope that I can link it to the treatment of women everywhere, as only one of the tools men use to dominate women.  Indeed, it seems to me to be the first step on the way to cheapening women so much that female babies are abandoned to die in gutters.
I see the problems in arrangements as an attempt to subvert the purposes of the conference.
Matlock on June 8, 1995 had an interesting story line which featured sexual harassment.
While the woman Matlock was representing refused the sexual overtures of her boss, also a lawyer, one of the other women in the firm as well as a former female partner, both claimed that he was just not capable of sexual harassment. 
As it turns out, they had both been sexually harassed by him as well.  The former employee had taken favors from him in exchange for sex, eventually had gotten video of him in action and was blackmailing him, using the proceeds to set up her own practice.
The other had and was still providing sex to him in exchange for favors.  When she knew he was approaching Matlock's client, she hoped to be off the hook, and was very disappointed when she turned him down.  Her son, angry that his mother was being exploited, had murdered the old goat, of which Matlock's client had been accused.
I was very impressed by the depth of understanding this segment showed of the sexual harassment issue.  The lives of every one of these women were disrupted by their experience and none would ever be the same afterwards. 
There were several other media depictions of sexual harassment situations.  On April 11, With Hostile Intent was about a police woman who experienced sexual harassment at the Long Beach, California police department.  It was particularly good in its depiction of the ways that men use to wear women down and get them to quit trying to compete.
She Stood Alone:  The Tailhook Scandal was an ABC Movie on May 22, 1995 about Lt. Paula Coughlin's ordeal.  It was interesting to see the events unfolding as they occurred.  If there were discrepancies, we didn't notice them.  Barbara Pope, Assistant Secretary of the Navy was the person who pushed for an investigation from the
 (page 3, column 2)
beginning. It showed Lawrence Garrett, who was at the time of the event the Secretary of the Navy, as being present at one of the rowdiest parties at the Tailhook convention.  He was forced to resign after the investigation.
The Laurie Bambenic Story was about a Milwaukee, Wisconsin police woman who had made a sexual harassment complaint against her employers.  Her husband's ex-wife was murdered.  It is interesting how former friends turned against her and had to sneak around to give her information/advice.  She was subsequently acquitted of the murder charges with the implication that her ex-husband had had his wife killed by a hit man to get out of paying alimony and child support.  Because of her sexual harassment complaint, he had an easy time getting the police department to frame her even though there was evidence that she had not done it.  This truly shows law enforcement and the justice system at its worst, and residents of Milwaukee should feel genuine shame that such an outrageous misuse of the law occurred in their town.


IN THE NEWS
TOO GOOD NOT TO PASS ON:
Thanks to PBS for the April Series, Discovering Women, which highlighted a number of women successful in science.
Melissa Franklin from Toronto, Canada, a specialist in sub-particle physics, was profiled.  She was not hired at her Alma Mater, the University of Toronto, because of anti-woman sentiment, but was hired by Harvard University.  She was involved in the Super-collider project that was cancelled.
Also profiled was Lynda Jordan, a biochemist who studies enzymes.  She grew up in a Boston housing project that was very rough.  Her mother was a divorced single parent who was on welfare.
She attended North Carolina A&T, a Negro school.  When a graduate student at MIT, her experiment notes were stolen.  Instead of quitting, she did the experiment over and had to carry everything home and keep it locked up.  She got a Ph.D. from MIT and won a fellowship to study in Paris at the Institute Pasteur.  She is now a teacher/researcher at North Carolina A&T.
In a rare moment of candor, another of these women, an archaeologist, for whom I cannot find my notes, admitted that she had been very lucky in that she had never experienced sexual harassment, but that she was aware of the problems other women had and felt it must be very difficult to deal with.  She pioneered the analysis of the petrified feces of ancient civilizations to give clues to their life styles.  I recently saw the same methods used on a Time/Life series about ancient civilizations by a man, but no credit was given to her having originated the method.  
So many things that these women said and did rang true to me.  The ways that women have to outwit the system in order to succeed can be bizarre and even crazy.  I recall carrying all of my work around in a brief case with a combination lock that I had to change nearly every day in California.  If my health had not failed, I would probably still be doing it.  It just isn't fair.


TO SUBSCRIBE
To The Contrary continues to be a fascinating program because Bonnie Erbe makes it a point to give different viewpoints, even a once a month chance for prominent men to address women's issues.
On April 1, they discussed Brown University's discrimination against female athletes by eliminating Gymnastics and Volleyball from their athletic programs.  They also cut two men's teams, but because of the emphasis on men's sports, it was felt that the cuts were none the less discriminatory .
On May 21st, they felt that the sexual harassment issue has gone mainstream in the Senate and the Boardroom.
The Senate had then found reason to investigate the charges against Bob Packwood, but of course, since then the decision has been made not to have public hearings.  Packwood has been accused of advances to over 24 women.  He is in addition accused of tampering with evidence by altering his personal diary when it was subpoenaed and using illegal means to try to get a job for his wife.
The advertisements bankrolled by large corporations which are intended to make people think about sexual harassment have been well received by women.  They felt that some men are offended by sexual harassment as well as women.
The CEO of W. R. Grace has lost his position.  I can only hope that it is the Peter Grace who I heard on the National Press Club broadcast some years ago trivializing sexual harassment and implying that he participated in it.
Betsy Hart, the outspoken conservative, said that women should confront their harassers, should not flirt and make suggestive comments.  The consensus was that women owning their own businesses should help reduce sexual harassment.
  Like all conservatives, Betsy has a simple minded attitude towards the problem.  You simply don't confront the person who signs your pay check lightly, or if you do, you are very soon job hunting, and that is not an option for women who are the sole support of children, elderly parents or handicapped family members.  
Most recently, Del Laboratories, a manufacturer of products of women, has been
(page 4, column 1)
sued by 15 former female employees for the sexual harassment that they experienced from CEO Wassong.  He used vulgar language, left his fly open, and used the office bathroom in front of them.  They got 1.185 million dollars.
Japanese women are breaking the code of silence about sexual discrimination.  A group of women are complaining against their company, Kanemachshu.  Japanese law forbids discrimination, but companies are allowed to make the steps to prevent it themselves.  That is just another fox guarding the hen house scam.
A VA study shows that 90% of female veterans experienced sexual harassment.  25% were raped or threatened with rape.
Kathleen Jamison of the Annenberg School of Communication has written a book, Beyond the Double Bind:  Women and Leadership.  It is about the double bind women face in trying to be successful.  If they are aggressive, they are accused of being strident, if they don't, they are not taken seriously.
Kenneth Gribbits, a Rockland County New York elected official has been accused of sexual misconduct and using public funds to finance a love affair.
Sandi Lucas, a former CIA agent won a million dollar award in a sexual harassment suit against the organization.  She was exposed to verbal abuse and ended up doing secretarial work and cleaning after she left the organization.  She and other female agents of the CIA accused it of being run by an old boys network.
The governor of Washington has been accused of sexual harassment by a former employee.  The investigating committee cleared him of the charges.  The governor said that he was unaware that the pats on the back were offensive to her.


PBS DOES IT AGAIN!
DISCOVERING WOMEN
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 1995, Tesseract Publications.
 Ever since the apparent loss of some back issues of The Wash Rag, I have tried to decide whether I should ask if any of those I mail to might have kept copies of some of them.  This seems incredibly vain for me to believe, but the hope that someone might have stuck those particular issues away for some reason is too strong for me to pass it up.  This is a list of the issues that I believe are missing.  I would be eternally grateful if anyone had them, if they would send me copies at P. O. Box 505, Hudson, SD 57034-0505.  
Between January and May 1993
Between April and June, 1994
October or November 1994
In particular, I am interested in getting a copy of the issue where I used the phrase, "pseudo women".

ALL ANIMALS ARE CREATED EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
George Orwell
Animal Farm 
FROM THE EDITOR
FROM MY DREAM WORLD

. . . that Government of the pimps, by the pimps and for the pimps shall not vanish from the earth.

from the Gettysburg Address as it should have been written