The Wash Rag Issue 4.3 September 1996 THE KATHY LEE GIFFORD SAGA WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, DISCREDIT! Kathy Lee Gifford‘s problems with sweat-shop subcontractors brought back a lot of memories. How many times I have thought that something was all right to do because all of the men I worked with were doing it, only to be treated like a criminal when I did it. This also brought back a recollection about writing an article for an earlier issue of The Wash Rag about the “Lead Buffalo Syndrome.” I was not surprised to find that apparently was one of the missing issues. My claim in the earlier article was that those who oppose women’s equality use the same method the buffalo hunters in the old West used. They would watch a herd of buffalo until they identified the lead cow. She was the one the rest of the herd followed. When they identified her, they shot her, then the rest of the herd, being without their leader, milled around and the hunters could pick the rest of the herd off at their leisure. Kathy Lee Gifford, for one reason or another, was identified by those opposing women’s equality, as a “Lead Cow,” so they began to look for some reason — any reason — to get rid of her. Though the use of foreign sweat shops to produce low-cost clothing for U.S. markets has been common knowledge in the garment industries for decades — I personally heard about it when I worked for Levi Strauss during the ‘70’s (they scrupulously manufacture their 501 jeans in the U.S., part of the mystique in world-wide sales, but as for the other clothing lines like Boyswear, Levi’s for Gals and Menswear, I don’t believe that was true at that time) and out of desperation, they decided to attack her by making public the fact that some of her garments were manufactured in sweat shops, even though they knew she was not aware of that. I wrote Kathy and told her that she obviously did not start the sweat shops, they were used by many garment manufacturers, and the only reason she had been targeted was because she was becoming a role model for girls. I am very happy that she has landed on her feet by calling attention to the problem and working to better working conditions and pay for women and children in third world countries. If not for her, the conditions would never have come to light. One can only hope that she or someone else will be able to identify the real culprit in this matter — the high birth rates in these countries and the inaccessibility as well as the cultural bias against contraception and abortion. They make cheap labor available to . . . guess who? The industrial giants of this country who tend to be Republican and, if you assess the Republican platform adopted in San Diego, also oppose legalized abortion. Then it all fits together only too well: Manufacturers need cheap labor, therefore, they oppose birth control and legalized abortion. What they wish for this country is what they have in Mexico and Southeast Asia. If we give it to them, then we deserve it. CAN WE IGNORE IT? We have received a number of follow-up publications from the 1995 NGO Forum in Huairou, China. I have searched in them in vain for any discussion of sexual harassment. There isn’t a single mention of it in either U.S. Government publications or U.N. publications. It seems that sexual harassment is a can of worms nobody wants to open. A Defense Department survey showed that 50% of their female employees experienced sexual harassment during the past year, down from 60% last year. The PBS commentator remarked that she felt this was a reflection of the rest of the United States. One can only guess that it is much worse in many other countries. Why, if this is such a prevalent problem, was it not addressed by either the U.S. or U.N. publications? My own impression is that it is even more politically suicidal than the abortion issue. The very prevalence of it makes it even harder for politicians to condemn. If their male constituents do it, if their contributors do it, if their colleagues do it, and perhaps they themselves have done it and even possibly have been accused of it, how can they take a stand against it? I feel that sexual harassment, like abortion, is a key issue in equality for women, and one that men are less likely to support. When a man gets a woman pregnant, he may or may not want her to get pregnant, but there is no such ambivalence regarding sexual harassment. When men sexually harass us, they are enjoying themselves and trivializing us. If we as women tolerate it, then we place our children and grandchildren into the position of having to deal with it. Indeed, by leaving this issue out of all of the post-NGO publications, it appears to me that the U.S. Government and the U.N. are encouraging us to work on spouse abuse, work on child prostitution, work on rape, but WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T WORK ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT! That seems to me more than a little bit like aiming us to work on children’s issues and, believe it or not, to spend twenty or thirty YEARS working to get an amendment to the Constitution that we’ve had for 128 years. Come on, let’s not let them get away with that again. They are so obvious, and the women that they have found to comply with their needs are so thick-headed, some of us have got to think for those women who can’t think for themselves about why such an important issue has been so glossed over and swept under the rug. Maybe some are keeping quiet because they need their jobs, or to keep from having a fight at home, or some similar mitigating circumstance, but if everyone is willing to sacrifice reality for a bit of comfort, we deserve to be manipulated in this way. RED HERRING AND THE ERA:WHY IT HAPPENED THIS IS HOW IT WORKS In researching my back issues for materials to support my article in issue 4.2 about the existence of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution (the 14th which freed the slaves was drafted using the word “person”) I also could not find the issue containing the warning that those opposed to women having equality were constantly dragging red herrings across the path to equality in order to keep the most capable women from using their talents and energies to that end. This useless quest to get something we already have and have had for 128 years is a classic example. I think that to some extent the continuous efforts by women on children’s issues is a more benign example. Not that I oppose children’s welfare being addressed. I just think that those whose primary interest is children’s issues should have a separate organization and not sap all of the vitality and energy from organizations which claim to have women’s equality as their primary goal. Don’t work for children’s welfare and then go around and call yourself a feminist. Don’t claim to have spent hundreds of hours working as a feminist. Be an advocate for children and be proud of it. But don’t pretend you are the next Susan B. Anthony. I have seen newsletters from organizations where almost the only things being addressed were children’s issues. My own theory is that if women have control and resources, their children will be well cared for. So the efforts towards children’s issues are really wasted efforts. They are addressing the results, not the cause. Harassment itself is another example, sexual or otherwise. When you are the victim of harassment as I have been for many years, you recognize how much time and energy is devoted to protecting your property, your privacy, your financial and legal documents and your health. All of that time is really wasted time, and those perpetrating harassment know that. They intend to wear the subject of the harassment down until they either give in or give up. That is just as calculated as was the use of terror by Adolf Hitler to control the masses. In truth, harassment is terrorism, plain and simple, and those who perpetrate it are terrorists. Our real problem is to make the legal system see harassers as criminals instead of just naughty boys. When the justice system begins to respond appropriately to harassment with criminal charges instead of civil charges, the problem will move towards solution. But as it is now, unless the victim is injured or killed the perpetrator is seen as just being over-zealous or out of control, but only rarely as a criminal, and sometimes they get off Scott free. A woman who is fondled, raped, verbally insulted, fired from a job, who has property stolen and pets killed or mutilated, whose family members are threatened and embarrassed, is the victim of a crime, not inconvenienced by a naughty immature boy. While we try to keep our eyes on the goal of equal treatment if not for ourselves then at least for our children and grandchildren, sloshing through a mire of inconveniences and frustrations intentionally manufactured to slow us down, it is well to recognize that if we were not being effective, we would not be targeted, and that at any time we have the option to accept the establishment’s criteria and join the church choir or whatever idiot occupation they have in mind for us, whether it be working to get an ERA passed in two-thirds of the states or working on children’s issues instead of sexual harassment, in which case we, too, can avoid being hounded every footstep we take . If anyone has the stomach for that, then I wish them good luck, because knowing how the system works, that would be intellectual suicide for me. ERA POTPOURRI: IN THE MEDIA I was really encouraged to see that the July/August issue of the local Alcester/Hudson School District newsletter includes a form to file a grievance as well as their policy statement on sexual harassment. In the July/August 1996 issue of MS Magazine, Andrea Bernstein explores the pressures put on those who file sexual harassment claims. Some felt that the treatment that they received at the hands of the court and the attorneys of the plaintiff was worse than the harassment itself. My own experiences with the legal system leave me unimpressed. I think that the current system with the EEOC in charge of “investigating’’ sexual harassment claims is designed to so exhaust and frustrate those making claims that they will give up and drop their charges. And don’t forget, a former director was himself charged with sexual harassment by several women, so what kind of a system would he design? I believe that in order to address sexual harassment with the end in mind of eliminating it, that the charges should be investigated by the criminal justice system, because the acts of rape, molestation, theft, verbal abuse and perhaps even murder are criminal acts. I recommend Ellen Goodman’s column on page 7A of the August 26, 1996 Argus Leader. She gives out awards to all the individuals and/or organizations that she feels set women’s progress back. It is very funny and very true. One can hardly believe some of the actions and quotes she has apparently been ferreting out. A Dyersburg, Tennessee judge, David Leneer, was accused of sexual harassment by former female employees. Some of the things he has been accused of include pinning a woman to a chair, assaulting her, grabbing her breasts and buttocks, fondling her in open court (Patty Wallace,) taking out his penis when discussing a divorce case. When Vivian Forsyth came to apply for a job, he threatened to take away the child he had awarded her in an action, he forced her mouth open and had oral sex with her. He was convicted in December of 1992, and went to jail for 25 years, but he claims all charges are lies and is now free on appeal. Montel Williams has been accused of harassment by current and former employees. The manager of the rock band, R.E.M., Jefferson Holt, has stepped down because of allegations of harassment by a female employee. This was surprising because R.E.M. is considered to be a politically correct organization. Female record company executives applauded the band’s handling of this matter. Some women feel that there are still problems in the industry, particularly in the areas of talent agencies and the concert business. APOLOGIES WHY WE ARE LATE It seems like there hasn’t been a lot in the media about sexual harassment recently. I’ve had to give up my subscription to the Argus Leader because for one thing, my mail box has been knocked down so many times that I finally just had my mail forwarded to my post office box (trying to eliminate ways for those who harass to waste my time!}. For another, I’ve had a lot of allergic problems with newspapers that are sent by mail, and since I don’t have those problems with papers that I buy at the grocery store or drug store, I just pick one up whenever I am in town. Please don’t ask me to explain this. But worse than that, my sinusitis has escalated in recent months, and just the process of getting medical advice has taken quite a lot of time. Add to that the monumental task of reconstituting a lawn where Rural Water and a contractor apparently left no stone unturned in destroying what was there before, and there goes a whole summer. Hopefullly, as some of my projects get completed, I will have more time to get this out in a professional manner. Please be patient, my slow progress indicates more than the normal number of distractions, not lack of interest! ANOTHER TRY AT EDITING A MANUAL A couple of years ago, I invited women who had found some method of dealing with harassment, any kind of harassment, to write their experience down and submit it. The response was so poor, that I abandoned the idea for the time being. Several months ago, I did another mailing, this time to an old list that I had forgotten about. Because it was so old, I spent quite a while making changes to the list after the mailing, as many of the publications had gone out of business or changed addresses. But I did get some encouraging responses. So I am giving some suggestions of some of the problems that I’d like to hear about ways of handling — or if you have something I missed, I’d be glad to hear of anything you regarded as harassment which you were able to handle: Job related sexual comments Employer implying that unless you have sex with him, you will lose your job or will not get promotions, raises Vandalization of Property Threatening or harming pets, family, friends Health and medical consequences Emotional and mental health considerations Theft or alteration of financial and legal records and lack of security for them Sleep deprivation Using other people to manipulate you Bugs and telephone taps Interfering with your mail and package deliveries Finding how they are getting access to your home, garage, yard even though security seems adequate and not breached Getting food, water, and air that are not being intentionally polluted to harm you I will give you an example. When I found that my allergies were always acting up at work, I got a fan and put it on my desk that kept a steady stream of air circulating around the office. Then if someone put anything around my desk thinking that I would be the only person to be exposed to it, they were surprised to find that they had to breathe whatever it was as well as everyone else in the office. It was quite a shock for them. Naturally, they fired me, but that was inevitable in any case, and I had the supreme joy of giving them a good kick in the balls first for once in my life, and from then on, any other woman having the same problem might try the same thing. CLEANING OUT YOUR PORES WILL IT IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH? A couple of years ago, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman had a character who had asthma, and one of the ways that Michaela treated it was to have mustard plasters applied. I was having a lot of trouble with asthma at the time, so I tried mustard plasters a number of times. They did in fact lesson the problems, but were a very expensive way to treat them. Later on, I noticed something called a “mustard soak” in a catalog. But it was too expensive, so I just went in and got the ground mustard out of the kitchen and put a couple of tablespoons in the water before I took a bath. At first, although it did improve my asthma for a period after I did this, I didn’t notice much else. Later on, I found that my pores were releasing quite large amounts of some substance even while I was still in the water and for several days afterwards. I found this to be surprising, and thought that maybe because I had been exposed to toxic substances, my skin had stopped eliminating poisons it normally got rid of, so I got into the practice of a ground mustard soak every week, and found that if I bought the whole seed and ground it myself, it seemed to work better. I went for medical treatment a month or so ago, and in the past two years, I found that I had lost 20 pounds, without even being on a diet. The WASH RAG is published by Women Against Sexual Harassment, P. O. Box 164, Canton, South Dakota 57013-0164. ISSN 1068-2449. Subscription price is $10.00 a year. Copyright 1996 Tesseract Publications.