The Wash Rag Issue 4.4 December 1996 THE DAM HAS BURST! MILITARY SEX SCANDALS Sad to say, the Army’s sex scandals seem to make Tailhook tame by comparison. During the months since the story first broke, there have been literally dozens of media features and updates. The sheer magnitude of the sexual harassment almost defies comprehension. The Army seems to have its heart in the right place, and is vigorously prosecuting those in a position of authority who have violated the trust placed in them. A few who have been charged have been vindicated, but most have been convicted. In addition to prosecuting those in lower positions, it is also investigating how much senior officers knew about what was going on. Some of the aspects of this story which have been the most interesting to me have been the responses of conservative women. At the outset, some seemed to question whether this was really as bad as it seemed. Some of the other women at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the site where most of the sexual harassment took place, even questioned whether the women who had been sexually harassed hadn’t asked for it or tried to improve their own situations by offering sex in exchange for preferential treatment. How conservatively typical. One source stated that the original sexual harassment complaint was placed by Pvt. Jessica Blakely, who was under suicide watch after having been sexually harassed, who was ENCOURAGED BY HER FRIENDS to place a complaint against her harasser. If her friends hadn’t stood by her, believed her, and encouraged her, then there would never have been any complaint against this ghastly, corrupt, degrading system. It is safe to assume that if she had not been ENCOURAGED BY HER FRIENDS, the system would have gone on functioning exactly as it has obviously done for years past. I shudder to think that even more young women, described in news releases as mostly poor, disadvantaged younger women, would have entered into the same system to be similarly taken advantage of. Her harasser, Staff Sergeant Delmar Simpson, threatened to kill her if she talked and told another recruit that he could knock her teeth out if he wanted to. Pvt. Blakely said that ten drill sergeants had hit on her. The harassment ranged from suggestive language to touching to, as we said, a threat of death. One report on the situation at Aberdeen referred to the drill instructors as a “rape ring.” The Army, in an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem, has set up an 800 number for women to call about incidents of sexual harassment. One source stated that 2,000 calls have been received on the number, another states 4,000. In an attempt to curb the aberrant behavior, the Army has instituted a buddy system, where no female student is allowed to go anyplace alone, but must have a buddy with her at all times. Congress woman from Maryland, Connie Morella, was shocked by the affair. But she says that the climate now encourages women to come forward, thanks to the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings. Also, the To The Contrary program on which she appeared discussed how there are now more women in positions of power, and that many women do get training in sexual harassment, which was thought would improve the way the system works. The possible punishment for those convicted of sexual harassment ranges from a Dishonorable Discharge to life in prison for those convicted of rape. Having attended military schools myself, I especially identified with the report which remarked that the drill sergeant has absolute power over his charges, and that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. My good fortune was that the worst harassment I experienced in Electronics school was a little Mexican who kept hanging “kick me’’ signs on the back of my dungarees with alligator clips. Another report commented that the Army should have had more vigilance in the kinds of men that they put in positions of power over female students. WHERE IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT GOING? I have been continuously impressed that sexual harassment has a subtle side that is being ignored by virtually everyone. Because it is difficult to pinpoint, it is also difficult to discuss. But I will try “one more time.” Some men, unlike the Army drill sergeants (who seem like Neanderthals to me) do not make such obvious approaches, as they fear that what happened in Tailgate and Aberdeengate will happen: women will talk and will organize. So their approach is to give women the opportunity to offer them sex and if they do not, they will eliminate them one way or another. One way is to trump up false charges of incompetence, troublesome behavior, eliminate their job or lay them off, black list them with other employers, vandalize their work so others see them as incompetent, and similar actions which often have devastating effects on women’s careers and lives. But the more criminal and harmful tactics which very few women seem able to comprehend are literally atomic, biological and chemical warfare against women. In short, they use terrorist methods to rid their organization of the woman who is not sexually complying with their wishes. I just recently had sinus surgery for the removal of polyps which was necessitated because I worked for an employer that was consistently, over a three year period, exposing me to chlorine gas. The cost of the surgery had to be borne entirely by myself, and approximates three times what it cost my daughter and I to go to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and tour the Beijing area. The good news is the surgery seems to have been successful and by decimating my savings or selling land I’ll be able to pay for it. I shudder to think of the women who don’t have the money as none of the doctors I saw locally seemed to think the operation was necessary or would be helpful, and I had to go to the Mayo Clinic to get it done — a very pricey institution, where they told me that I had desperately needed the surgery. And in extreme cases like mine, the sexual harassers are not beneath doing all of the above. Any woman opposed to abortion should work for the two jerks I worked for — they would surely find ways to abort any fetus that potentially might be given to such heinous acts. Garbage in, garbage out, you know. I can’t say how any woman can successfully deal with this as it seems sometimes insurmountable. But I can say what I wish I had done. First, I wish I had documented my illness better by running to the doctor every time I had an attack. I did not. I am admittedly stubbornly independent and have the idea I can handle anything (much like many women in spousal abuse situations, much to my chagrin) and just struggled to stay on my feet. I wish I had been whimpy and whiny and gone sniveling to a therapist when I knew they were putting something into the water fountain when they left the office that made me sick. If a person has no insurance, there are usually community health centers that give care free or at reduced rates. I wish I had kept a detailed diary of their actions and the date every time I saw the one jerk rinse his finger off in that fountain when he left, and also my attacks afterwards. I wish I had quit and filed for unemployment when I had documented the relationship between work and the illness. I should have resigned and filed for occupational rehabilitation due to health risks on the job with OSHA. When I found out I could get unemployment if my job made me sick, I refused to go back to work although they offered me the job back, and I got it. But although I had told the doctor I went to that was the case, he never advised me to quit my job. Finally, I wish that at the beginning, I had kept changing doctors until I found one competent enough and ethical enough to give me support, as the one I did go to was completely useless. When I told him that my problem was caused by sensitivity to chemicals, he just said that they didn’t treat those, and that should have been my wake-up call to look for another doctor. Doctors may also be sexual harassers or sympathetic with them, and I feel that if this one did not know what was going on from my descriptions of my illness, he was too incompetent to hang out his shingle. I suspect he knew exactly what was going on and was just sitting back taking the insurance company’s money and writing a prescription every few months — a cushy way to survive, a guaranteed income until I finally developed cancer or liver failure and he passed me up the chain to a higher level of treatment. I suppose he might have tried to keep me well enough to keep coming to him, but he had no interest whatsoever in healing me. There was during the past few years a Doctor Michael Swango who practiced here in Sioux Falls and before that in Illinois and Ohio, and afterwards in New York, who was apparently poisoning patients and co-workers. Just why he was doing this was never addressed other than it was suspected that he was trying to find out how the poisons effected people, and how much it would take to kill them or make them sick. My own personal opinion is that he acted as a consultant to individuals who were trying to get rid of someone in their way — a spouse, an elderly parent, or a female employee who wouldn’t provide sex in exchange for a less than adequate pay check. To me this type of harassment is nothing short of attempted murder and belongs not in civil court but in criminal court. Both of the men I worked for belong in jail. They are criminals and deserve to be treated like criminals. But I was the only one punished — by eight years of deteriorating health and incredible medical bills. It hurts to know that they have gotten off Scott free — one with a comfortable pension, and with no community ostracization. That isn’t right. THE CITADEL NOT INTENDED TO PROTECT US I read in my dictionary that a citadel is “a fortress for commanding or defending a city” or “any strongly fortified place, a fortress.” Well, I’ll buy that last definition when used to describe the military school recently in the news. The only reason for spraying two women with a flammable liquid and setting their clothes on fire would be to get rid of them, which would certainly have defended a fortress of male superiority. According to reports, two cadets have been suspended, the Company Commander and the Executive Officer of the company to which the women where assigned. While they have not been implicated in the incident, it happened under their command. The two women have stopped living in the dormitory and are now attending classes in civilian clothes rather than uniforms, which is routine for cadets not living in the dormitories. Another woman who is attending the Citadel is considering dropping out of the program. It is thought that the incident is related to hazing, which is fairly common in institutions like this. Drill sergeants routinely bully difficult recruits in order to get them to break. But hazing which involves life-threatening actions is incomprehensible. There is simply no excuse for it other than to get rid of the women. The occurrence of this in such a high-profile situation is actually a benefit to many women who face similar actions in locker rooms, lunch rooms, supply rooms and bosses offices. That men do such things when they want to get rid of women is known to many of us, but to those doubting Thomases who have been keening that ‘’things like that just don’t happen,” they have been robbed of their ignorance and their noses rubbed in the shit of male politics at last. One can only hope that the severity of this incident has managed to penetrate theirsolid rock brains. EVERYONE GETS INTO THE ACT POTPOURRI: IN THE MEDIA Ellen Goodman, always an insightful voice, notes that the problems that the military has been having with sexual harassment are probably a reflection of the problems in civilian life, but that military women cannot quit their jobs as civilian women can, and that makes the problem more critical. An appendant to the Army’s problems and the Citadel’s problems, is a suit filed in Fort Bliss, Texas where 40 civilian women have come forward to make sexual harassment complaints against the Army. After they filed complaints, they began to experience retaliation. They got poorer jobs, bad working conditions and even job loss. Edwin Dorn, Under Secretary of Defence, says that the Army is dedicated to eliminating sexual harassment. Army Secretary Togo West is investigating whether upper level officers knew of the harassment. One Company Commander was known to be having sex with recruits. But the report indicates that a recent survey showed that 52% of the women in the military have experienced sexual harassment. If Ellen Goodman is correct, then the same is true in the civilian population. Another report on sexual harassment in the military in the last decade stated that three out of four women reported some form of sexual harassment, and that the Army and Marine Corps were the worst, the Navy being ranked the best. Retired General Wilma Vaught says it isn’t as safe for a harasser as it used to be. Wanda’s Watch, on organization which is scrutinizing sexual harassment in the military says the Army’s sex scandals make Tailhook look trivial. The Army was thought to be ahead of the Navy in this area. A NOW Vice President, Rosemary Dempsey, joined a protest in Tokyo against Mitsubishi’s ignoring sexual harassment at the Normal, Illinois plant. Recent court action has not allowed the proceedings to be kept secret, which is quite a triumph for those filing complaints. The company hoped to keep documents secret, which would have protected them from public scrutiny. To The Contrary discussed the Catalyst Survey of female executives which says that there are not enough talented women who have managed businesses, and that they usually go into Public Relations or Human Resources, from which it is hard to rise to upper management. I think that is hog wash (no pun intended, though it does sound appropriate in this context). Women are put into these areas because they have been deemed to be unsuitable for elevation to upper management, not the other way around. Women go where they can get jobs. And there are plenty of bright, well qualified women around. They are being bullied and manipulated to keep the big bucks and the power for male managers, who ore often poorly qualified and ineffective. A publication on sexual harassment in the schools, published by the Teachers College Press, will come out in February of 1997. The title is Confronting Sexual Harassment What Can Schools and Colleges Can Do. It was written by Judith Berman Brandenburg, Professor of Psychology and Education at the Columbia University. For more information write to the Marketing Department at Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027. At last, NOW has dropped its absurd call for an Equal Rights Amendment, and has instead included a resolution to monitor sexual harassment policies and Title IX compliance in its 1996 Conference Resolutions. Way to go, NOW! WHEN IS TOO YOUNG? THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED KISS A case which both amused and angered many was the six year old boy, Jonathan Privette, who was charged with sexual harassment when he kissed a classmate. Such celebrities as Gordon Elliot, Jackie Mason and Dana King felt that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion when Eve Bruno sued the school district because she said the girl was harassed. Well, maybe suspension was a little bit much, as the little guy missed an ice cream party. The little girl apparently wasn’t much incensed, even though indications are that she didn’t want to be kissed. That perhaps is the key issue. Do you let a school boy kiss a little girl if she doesn’t want to be kissed, especially in the classroom? I don’t think that the issue should have been dropped at that. Certainly he should have gone to the principal’s office and had a discussion on whether it is right to touch a girl intimately without her permission. I think that at the very least, he should have been expected to tell the little girl that he was sorry and that he wouldn’t touch her again in an intimate way without her permission. I think that in this case, sexual harassment was nipped in the bud, and that some response was not just allowable, but necessary. If nothing was done, his behavior would escalate. Doing nothing would reinforce the impression that it is OK to touch girls in an intimate manner without their permission. Gordon Elliot feels that various groups that don’t like to be degraded are overdoing it, and that his free speech is being infringed upon. But Elliot, a good-looking white male from Australia, would probably not be degraded for any reason so it’s easy for him to say. Were he fat, middle aged, black, etc., he might feel differently. I was disgusted that Dana King agreed with him. Maybe she has never been called a Nigger, but I have lived in a culture where the word was an issue, and she ought to be ashamed to show so little appreciation for what others of her race have suffered, not to mention the suffering experienced by women who are sexually harassed. To The Contrary discussed the Catalyst survey which surveyed women executives. The survey says that male executives feel that there are not enough qualified female exec A BIG STEP IN CONGRESS! The 104th congress signed into law as a part of the Defence Authorization Bill a provision which makes it a federal offence to stalk a woman across state lines. Because women often move to another place to avoid a harasser, this gives them a weapon that they haven’t had before and hopefully will save lives. I can’t forget that Gwendi Nordseth went to Arizona and was killed there. Nobody even investigated because local police had no proof of her stories of sexual harassment and stalking. Hopefully now women will be able to get support from the FBI or Federal Marshalls. In the past, when a new jurisdiction was involved, the documentation of the stalking and harassment had to begin from the bottom up. 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.