The Wash Rag
Issue 2.1
November, 1993

SEEING SEXUAL HARASSMENT AS IT IS!
ON THE JOB

Recently I received a call from a woman who works in a sheltered workshop for the handicapped asking for help in a harassment situation.
She reported that she had been repeatedly exposed to verbal harassment by one of the men she worked with, and that her complaints to her supervisor had largely gone ignored.  I made a couple of suggestions as we talked.
Several weeks later I called to see how she was doing.  She said that things had improved.  "You know," she said, "I found out that he has the IQ of a five year old."  She felt he just needed to be trained not to exhibit sexually harassing behavior.
Not that I take credit for her turn about, as all I remember telling her was that she did not deserve to be treated that way, as well as passing on some phone numbers, but what a wonderful response to the treatment that she had received.
In truth, it seems that most verbal abuse is immature behavior.  It is juvenile school-boy pigtail-pulling which has never developed any maturity.  Now a really mature harasser will behave something like this:
In the mid-eighties I had a chance to work swing shift for a national delivery company in Sioux Falls which was reputed to pay high wages and give good benefits.  I was elated, as the work was not complicated and the hours, swing shift, were tolerable.
I was taken on part-time and temporary, which meant that they could let me go any time.  Since I knew I had good skills in this particular job (I'd done it off and on for thirty-five years) this did not bother me.
I was aware that the supervisor seemed to require one of my co-workers in the sup- 
(cont. on page 2, column 2)
ply room from time to time, and I heard some strange sounds emanating from there when they were in it, I can't really say I paid that much attention to them.  They were both over eighteen, after all, though I felt it was a pretty tacky place for a tryst.
After I had worked there for nearly two months (after two months the job became permanent), I was sitting at the back of the work area late one evening doing some clerical work when the supervisor came in and started talking to me.  At first I stopped working and answered his questions.  I suddenly realized that he was standing very close to me, and the way the room was arranged, everyone working had their backs to us.
The reason that his closeness was so obvious was because his penis was extremely large and he was rubbing it against my lower arm and elbow, which were resting on the table.
With a great deal of effort I went back to my clerical work and with extraordinary concentration continued the conversation until he finally gave up and left.
Two days later he called me in and fired me because I wasn't "fast enough".  When I went back to job service, I told them I thought that the only person who would have been "fast enough" was an individual whose house of prostitution had recently been closed down in Deadwood.
I know that the third woman who worked with us, who was almost due to qualify for benefits, was the sole wage earner for herself, a small child and a handicapped husband.  I shudder to think what she may have had to do to qualify for that.
A 20/20 program last August featured a female doctor who had started a project to try to give female prostitutes in New York City health care.  One of the prostitutes remarked that the Johns wanted the prostitutes to be desperate so they would do whatever the men wanted for money.  She said that when she (a drug addict) was desperate for a hit, the Johns would wave money in front of her and demand some disgusting sex act before they would give it to her.
This is the way the mature harassers operate.  No witnesses.  No filthy language to quote.  My (her) word against his.  It's a sort of clandestine, KGB kind of approach which is the coming thing in sexual harassment.

ULTIMATE HARASSMENT

Gloria Burtzlaf, the Whitewood woman who killed her husband after years of abuse, is serving a twenty year sentence at the Springfield correctional facility. 
The South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault has been waging a petition drive to have her released from prison.  Unfortunately, it is nearly too late to take part in it, as the deadline for signing a petition is November 15.  Contact Carol Maicki in Black Hawk at 787-4169 if you are interested and there is still time to take part.
There is still time to write to the governor and/or the parole board asking that she be allowed to spend Christmas with her family.  Addresses are:  
Governor Walter D. Miller
Capitol Building, 500 E. Capitol
Pierre, SD 57501

Board of Pardons and Parole
Box 5911
Sioux Falls, SD 57117-5911

I was able to get signatures to fill out one petition form and sent it in.  I was surprised that it was rather difficult to get women to sign the petition.  I suppose that many women just don't want to get involved in anything controversial.  Some may feel that taking someone's life is inexcusable, no matter what the circumstances are.  Some may not want to be associated with anything feminist, and may fear reprisals if it is found out that they have participated in anything associated with the women's movement.  It would be poetic justice if each and every one of them were to suffer Gloria Burtzlaf's fate. 

WAITRESSES EXPECTED TO PROVIDE SEX 
KEEPING THEIR JOBS

Sally Jessee Raphael on July 13, 1993 featured the stories of waitresses who had worked for Hooters and Champs, including one who had worked for Champs in Sioux Falls, and who had filed sexual harassment suits against them.  One waitress was fired for warning another waitress about the boss's sexual advances.  She got seven other waitresses to testify with her in a class action suit, and the boss got five years and has to get counseling.  
Another waitress went into management of restaurants.  A supervisor at Mariott propositioned her.  She complained and was demoted and fired.
Lori Peterson, an attorney who represented some of these women, says that employers are pimps when they expect women to provide sex to keep their jobs.  She says such behavior is rampant in the restaurant industry.  
48 Hours on June 23, 1993 presented a program titled "Indecent Proposals" largely about some actresses who had been led into compromising situations by a talent agent, Wallace Kaye.  They had all gone to him for help in getting jobs, and he had suggested that they show their talent in acting by "coming on" to him.  Then he would sexually attack them, and in some cases, prevented them from leaving when they wanted to.  He was found guilty of nine of eleven counts of sexual battery and false imprisonment.
Amazingly, his wife was at that time standing by him, saying that he had to be able to determine whether the actresses he represented could project sexuality.  I suppose that she loves him, much as a wife of a polygamist loves her husband.  It is a kind of insanity.        (Cont. on page 2, column 3)
Another woman featured on this program was Cheryl Preston who won a $1.2 million award against the city of Detroit police department for sexual harassment.  She lost her career, which she regrets. 
The police chief of Newport Beach, California was also forced out of office for  not stopping the sexual harassment of women working for the police department. He was also named in one rape complaint. 
After being relieved of his duties, he was quoted as saying, ". . . it's very upsetting.  I don't sleep well at night . . . My blood pressure is high.  I'm under constant stress from this . . . I keep thinking maybe I'll wake up tomorrow, and this has just been a nightmare, and things are going to be normal for me again."
Now at least he knows how the women he harassed and knew were being harassed felt.   

UPDATE FROM CLARK

Theresa Hauk, a Clark resident who has tried to sue a Clark food processor, has lost her battle, and recently expressed  agree- ment with an opinion which I had earlier expressed to her, that the whole process was designed to wear down anyone wishing to make a complaint with an avalanch of forms, months of waiting between filing and hearing the results, frustrating delays in hearings, and the refusal of authorities to allow proven facts in the complaints.  Her complaint was finally ended because the time limit on the whole process had just plain run out.  She was not allowed to appeal above the State Supreme Court.
She also was angry to find out that a lawyer who had represented her was married to a lawyer who represents employers in similar complaints, a fact which she had no way of knowing, and which her lawyer never told her.  She feels that she could not expect to have a woman married to a lawyer who represents employers fairly represent her.  I agree.

The WASH RAG is published by Women Against Sexual Harassment, RR #1 Box 27, Fairview, South Dakota.  ISSN 1068-2449.  Subscription price is $10.00 a year.  Copyright 1993 Tesseract Publications.

U. S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS
LEGISLATIVE
HANDBOOK

The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights has published a publication titled Employment Discrimination and Women in South Dakota:  A Legislative Handbook.  A copy can be obtained from them at the Rocky Mountain Regional Office, 1700 Broadway Suite 710, Denver, CO 80290.  
The publication was compiled by the South Dakota Advisory Committee.  Although it is dated August, 1993, it does not contain any information about the new law which the media reported having gone into effect in July of 1993.  It does give the other various laws, executive orders, and acts that are in effect in South Dakota.
The publication answers a lot of questions about how different terms are defined, it is annotated, and it has the addresses of many state and federal agencies that a woman with a complaint might need.  
I was interested in the question, "What if there are not any eyewitnesses to the alleged sexual harassment?"  The response given is:  "Sexual conduct often occurs in private, without any eyewitnesses.  In these instances, the credibility of the parties may determine whether a complaint is valid or not.  Supportive evidence, such as prior conduct and comments of others persons, may be significant."
I don't think it takes a clairvoyant to surmise whether a male manager or his secretary has more credibility.
Ellen Goodman in a column last March quoted Dorothy Thomas, the head of women's rights for Human Rights Watch:  "Violence against women has been misconceived as a private thing, an incidental thing and a cultural thing.  Any thing but a human rights thing."
My own observation is that sexual harassment will get harder and harder to prove, as the extensive publicity given to those women who have successfully sued their harassers provides a text book for would-be harassers as to how to avoid getting caught. 

ANOTHER LOOK
TAILHOOK

Reviewing the various stories that continue to unfold concerning the outrageous treatment of women at the 1992 Tailhook convention, I have gotten the uncomfortable feeling that the only reason some Admirals were relieved of command and reassigned was because they failed to cover up the whole affair adequately.  
It is indeed fortunate that I have never claimed that I took a career very seriously when I was in the military.  After all, I was nineteen years old, and here I was going to school with thousands of good-looking young men, many of whom were pretty nice and I had a lot of good times with them.  I begin to acknowledge that the only reason I was not sexually harassed was because I simply was never any threat to any of them.  
In any case, the recent news has been that women in the military face more sexual harassment than women in any other line of work, and that not a single Naval officer who took part in Tailhook got anything more than a slap on the wrist.  
The Clinton administration and the Congress, if they want to impress on women that they take this issue seriously, should review this whole matter and see to it that the complaints of military and civilian women who made complaints are taken seriously and the punishment of their harassers is commensurate to their crimes.
The evidence against Bob Packwood, Oregon Senator accused of 24 cases of sexual harassment, continues to be investigated by the Senate.  Something about this whole affair is very disturbing to me, and I have looked in vain for some mention of it in any media presentations, but have not found a trace of it.
We have been treated to many stories about the methods that the right has used to harass, terrorize, and otherwise get rid of anyone who they perceive to be a threat in their battle against legal abortions.  I have an uncomfortable feeling that half of the members of the Congress are just as guilty of infractions against women as Packwood.  I fear that there has been an all-out effort on the part of foes of legalized abortion to get rid of Packwood because of his opposition.
I don't in any way condone Packwood's behavior, and am disgusted that he first of all behaved in that way, and second that he tried to cover it up.  But I fear that other members of Congress will recognize it for what it is, and subsequently will be afraid to support legalized abortion for fear that their own behavior in this area will be found out and used to destroy them.
Pro-Choice advocates would do well to consider this and make sure other members of Congress are held to the same standard as Packwood is being held.

WHERE DOES IT LEAD?
ONE CONSEQUENCE OF GIVING IN

I don't pretend to know all of the answers, and sometimes I have to admit to myself that I only know a few of them, but over the years I have had the unhappy experience of watching a number of women as they made the move to use the male system of sex for favors to get ahead, or have had to work for women who had made the decision earlier.  
These women apparently give up any semblance of womanhood, and literally become madams, exploiting other women with the skill and maliciousness of the most experienced male harasser.  And why not?  They probably have experienced every trick that men use to force women to submit.
I have wondered why they are so aggressive at persecuting other women.  Is it because they feel that if they had to give in, so should every other woman?  Do they want all the women who work with or for them to "give at the office" like they do so as to reduce the pressure on them?  Are they jealous of women who have found ways to avoid becoming as depraved as they are?
In any case, as long as men can dig women like them out of the trash, women who wish to get ahead using their job skills, education and talent don't have a chance, at least with those employers who are basically pimps.


SUPREME COURT


The Supreme Court is this session expected to review a decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals which makes it necessary for a woman to demonstrate that the harassment she experienced caused her severe psychological injury.
This is so typical.  First of all, if you want to pursue a claim against an employer for sexual harassment, you must do so within six months.  Then they say that you must be able to prove that it caused you severe psychological injury.  
What woman who has experienced sexual harassment knows how it will effect her within six months after the actual harassment occurred?  It takes years for you to realize how it changed your life, made it hard for you to have an outgoing relationship with future employers and co-workers, made you angry with other men in your circle of acquaintances, and made relationships with men no longer trusting and affectionate.  
If you file the suit in time to meet the statute of limitations, you do so with limited knowledge of the effects the experience will have on you, and if you wait until you know that, you will not be permitted to file.

JOIN WOMEN AGAINST SEXUAL HARASSMENT
TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Check the item you think is the most important for WASH to address.
o  Open a state-wide toll-free help-line for victims of sexual harassment.
o  Start a support group for victims of sexual harassment.
o  Educate women and girls of their rights should they become victims.
o  Increase the statute of limitations on sexual harassment to seven years.
o  Other_______________________________________________________________________
o  Check here if you wish to volunteer to help.
Send with your subscription check for $10.00 to:
Women Against Sexual Harassment, RR #1 Box 27, Fairview, SD 57027-9719.
Name:__________________________________________________
Address:_______________________________________________
Telephone number:____________________________________