What I wish I could say…

“Do I have a blinking neon light on my forehead that says ‘I want you!’”?

Did I give you some kind of subconcious inclination to approach me, ask for my number, look me up and down, call me baby or touch me?

No.

So lets learn something today… If a girl doesn’t talk to you first then she is probably not that interested!

And don’t go walking all up in her personal space showing her some kind of foreign mating ritual call, all goggly-eyed and perverted because buddy she isn’t buying it!

And it isn’t attractive.

So why don’t you go mind your own business.

Because, if you continue to wonder around this world treating women like your next big conquest …

Then, I hope live long enough to experience what you are doing to me, a life full of never honestly trusting anyone, no self-worth, not believing in myself, losing who I am, fear, withdrawl, loneliness, embarrassment, and shame.

Why don’t you be a MAN and treat women like human beings and maybe one day you just might find one that you actually give a d@*m about not to cheat on, hit, belittle, or degrade; and guess what she just might love you for the creep you are!

Its really all up to you, so seriously, go find some manners.

Pretty Persuasion particularly takes on the false allegations issue, focusing it around sexual harassment and racial discrimination. Constant references to David Mamet’s Oleanna are made throughout. The script mimics his dialogue and even the way he structures his story-telling. (Oleanna was a Mamet play and later movie about sexual harassment in higher education and suggests strongly that the allegations of the complainant are false.)

Neither of these dismiss the problem of abuse and discrimination. They simply say that false allegations are one of the few ways dis-empowered people have to fight back against a system that holds them down because of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. In the Mamet play, the university professor (the accused) is the epitome of the white-male-asshole, dominating, controlling, viewing education as “hazing” which he admits he enjoys. Mamet uses the phrase “White Man’s Burden.” to illustrate how the professor views his role as a teacher and elite male in society. The female student who later accuses him can barely get a word in edgewise when she goes to him for help. In Pretty Persuasion the male teachers in the movie take none of their female or foreign students seriously, viewing them as objects to abuse and lech over. In this movie, set in a private high school, an English teacher’s “White Mans Burden” is teaching a new Muslim student to speak proper English, a task he lets her know he finds disgusting but necessary. Here, the students fight back by bringing a blatantly false sexual harassment claim against the English teacher, though he is guilty of all the discriminatory and lecherous attitudes they accuse him of.

I’ve written a little about harassment complaints as a power play in my article on false allegations. I can say that without a doubt this really happens. I know because I hear from these people here at SHS. They want to publish their stories or they join the support group, and there is either nothing remotely sexually harassing about their cases, or, if there is, it is so mild that most people wouldn’t even notice it.

Most of the articles I’ve written here were inspired by recent emails or email trends which touch on patterns I’ve seen in my years working with SHS. This one is no different. A man submitted a story for publication last week that was clearly describing a power-play. He fought back against a bully boss by bringing a sexual harassment complaint against him when the latter made a sexual comment that wasn’t even referring to anything sexual.

Here is a quote from the story that pretty much gives the gist of the situation (Normally I only paraphrase from stories I DON’T publish, but I think in this case, we need his words exactly.):

I recently had a Floor Manager write on my Log Sheet “Take your nose out the customers ass”. Then about 3 seconds later, this manager turned back around & verbally stated…”yeah, just take the customers cock out your mouth”.

Now, I’im a guy, I should be able to take statements like that & just walk away right? No, not at all, I’ve been so uncomfortable with this guy around me at work, that its made it very difficult to perform up to the standards that are required of me. He walks around like a pompous arrogant prick all the time.

So, he went to HR and filed a complaint which was pending when he submitted this. Oh, and the bully boss told him he was fired after complaint was filed. (Human Resources later told him he was not fired.)

Okay, this fits the definition of sexual harassment, but only superficially. It fits if you don’t know what sexual harassment really is.

Now, the terms-of-offense are clearly substitute terms for “sucking-up,” “ass kissing,” “brown nosing,” and “wipe your nose” (referring to brown-nosing). We hear these terms all the time, even on TV. Still, I have never heard anyone refer to them as sexual harassment when they are being used. And if you DO think about them as sexual, they are hardly less offensive than the boss’s terms.

Telling someone they are sucking-up is hardly sexual harassment, even if it’s done in a crude, bullying, and unprofessional way. Telling someone they are brown-nosing is hardly sexual harassment, even if the reference is superficially crude.

The giveaway here that this is a power play is the phrase “pompous arrogant prick” used to describe the boss. If the boss was a balanced, fair, solid communicator, I doubt the employee would have been offended by what was said. He would probably have taken it as a joke. But this supervisor is clearly a bully and most employees have little ammunition to fight back against bully bosses. A discrimination complaint was the only weapon available.

This employee’s story is just one example, but know of many others. I can’t share most because of confidentiality (I can only repeat stories submitted for publication). But I think the classic case of the woman who simply can’t set boundaries is another one. This description below is a fiction, but the dynamic is not, I can assure you:

A guy asks a woman out and she is too dis-empowered to set boundaries, or too socialized to be “the nice girl,” which is a HUGE problem for women and rooted in oppression of women. So, she won’t give him an answer. She won’t tell him “No” because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings or make him angry (’cause these aren’t nice). At the same time, she continues to be friendly with him, too be nice. So he keeps asking or flirting, maybe emailing her or calling her, complicated by the fact he may need to call and email her for professional reasons. She starts to get angry, maybe even frightened. It builds and builds. Now she starts to tell herself he is harassing her. Finally, instead of just saying “No,” she deals with it by filing a sexual harassment complaint or a police report, convinced she is making a stand. I have heard of men getting suspended or even fired over this kind of thing. Or, if the employer ignores her compliant, she may file a lawsuit convincing herself she is “doing this for all women.”

As illustrated in the Mamet play and Pretty Persuasion, the stand the victims take is based on projection of the real problem onto something else. The accuser may actually be exploited, abused, and/or discriminated against, and maybe even by the people they accuse. But in the end, the “victim” takes their stand upon a false premise or something that never happened. I think this is the primary root of the problem with most false allegations of sexual harassment–oppressed and exploited people fighting back with the only ammunition they can find.

In all the stories of false accusations I have heard myself, I have no doubt that these people making them have been abused or oppressed throughout their lives, and possibly by those they have accused. But I think the psychological damage from this has made it difficult for them to process and understand conflict. They have difficulty getting a clear perspective, many to the degree that they often see abuse, oppression, and discrimination everywhere they look, in every mistake someone makes with them, in every perceived slight. The oppression they have experienced makes it difficult, if not impossible, for them to communicate about conflict or set boundaries in a constructive way. Because of this, they “stand up” in a way that makes them no better than their oppressors.

It’s the classic cycle of abuse really, when the victim turns around and becomes the abuser. In Pretty Persuasion, the writers draw the analogy of the false allegation, discrimination lawsuit as being like a mass shooting (the “he went postal” kind.)

I am all for people standing up for themselves and for their rights, but it needs to be done in the right way, confronting the problem honestly, confronting the REAL problem. And solutions need to be constructive and not based on revenge. Standing up and speaking up only works if the goal is truly to make things better, not just for the complainant but for everyone in the community where the abuse or discrimination is taking place.

BTW, if you have not seen either Oleanna or Pretty Persuasion, you might want to see them together. Go with Mamet first, since the latter is constantly spoofing his style.

Wishing on stars hasn’t gotten me that far
It’s like drowning in a bottomless pit of tar.
Anticipating the gurgle, no substance to hold on to.
I just want to live life but fighting only makes me sink further.

I am tired of being fake & no I didn’t ask to play.
God, I feel like blowing my head off today!
It’s a competition of who knows who?
Fuck everyone, fuck today, & fuck you.

I Fell Asleep

I fell asleep on that day,
When the intrusion was made.
I didn’t stick up for myself.
When He wanted to play.

The secret stayed hidden.
Tucked away with my soul.
Until it suffocated me..
So, I went and I told.

I lost what I had found,
Trying to defend my youth.
Closed doors all around,
Searching for the truth.

Growing older is hard.
I never thought it would be.
Trying to please everyone…
Everyone but me.

Learning from the past…
It seems impossible to do.
Dreaming you had it all figured out…
What’s wrong with you?

You’ve lost who you are?
You haven’t authenticated yourself?
Your niche in this world.
Your place among the wealth.

Searching for success,
I’ve lost my pride?
Looking for answers
I swear I am blind.

Night and Day it drains me,
I lay and I think.
Who am I?
What am I?
What path should I take?

Anticipating the worst,
In everything I do.
Planning for tomorrow…
When it isn’t promised to you.
Reacting to predictions,
That may or may not come true…

Wake up!
This story isn’t ending,
It’s to be continued…

During my junior year in high school I had learned through reading an article published in Cosmopolitan, that I had been experiencing sexual harassment for the previous couple of years. It wasn’t until recently, at the age of 33, that I learn the deep impact this harassment had on my life.

I had been at work discussing with my co-workers my latest online dating fiasco when I was asked, “Why do you believe it is okay for men to treat you so disrespectfully?” I fumbled around for an answer, but to no prevail was I able to conjure up one. I flat out did not understand why a beautiful, talented, woman with a high sense of self worth and so much to offer would accept being treated the way I had allowed men to treat me. I let this question drift around in the recesses of my mind, and finally, last week the answer came to me: My parents taught me it was okay to be treated that way.

Now, I am not placing blame on my parents, this is just how the answer came to me. As a child when I would tell my parents how a boy threw paper at me, pulled my hair or chased me on they play ground, they would tell me, “that’s what boys do when they like you.” As I grew, the seemingly innocent taunts of my male classmates started to escalate in to name calling, such as slut, tramp, ho, etcetera. Again, I would complain to my parents about being called “bad names,” and again they would say, “that’s what boys do when they like you.” Well the name-calling turned in untrue rumors of what I had done with such and such boy, which increased the promiscuous name-calling. Then the name calling turned into unwanted sexual gestures and grouping. I would be walking down the isles of the bus and boys would grab my behind and slide a finger or two further between my legs or fondle my breasts. They would even pull me down to sit on their laps and pretend they were having intercourse with me from behind. All the time, I told myself, “This is what boys do when they like you.”

Flash-forward to the woman I am today, and you will see a woman who has had one long-term relationship with an emotionally abusive man that last just over a year. All the other men in my life have pretty much been “friends with benefits.” I am unable to partake in healthy romantic relationships. With a determination to have a healthy romantic relationship, I have ventured into online dating this past year. Boy has it been a challenge, fore I have all sorts of off the wall uncharacteristic behaviors emerge. Until recently, I thought there was just something defective about me.

Now, as I have drawn the correlation between the sexual harassment I dealt with as a teenager and my sabotaging behaviors today, I am being flooded with negative emotions and voices from within telling me to “suck it up,” “it’s all in your head,” and “it’s not as bad as you want to make it out to be.” I am desperate to have a voice of reason help me sort out the chaos going on with my emotions and thinking.

Here is the story:

Cara, Arizona

One day in 5th grade there was a new student who immediately he took interest in me. He always flirted with one of my classmates and I. One day after lunch he spanked me.

I tried to ignore him although it did not work. It continued for the rest of the year, but not that serious.

On day in the 6th grade, a friend of mine and I were walking when he came up to me suddenly and grabbed my breast. Then he quickly ran away screaming, “I’m finally a man!”

The next day, he told his friends about it, and they didn’t believe him. So, he did it again!

Then everyone knew about it, and I was automatically branded the “school whore.”

It was so bad, I had to transfer to the only other school. No one knew about the things that happened to me, and I wasn’t popular like at my old school. But at this new place, at least I was free from sexual harassment.

This scenario is a good example of how the seeds of the abuse of women are sown early and are socially enforced.

This kid has been taught that molesting girls makes him a man. But of course, it is not enough that he groped her. He had to be sure all the guys KNEW that he groped her.

What is worse, she gets branded for it, and is run out of her own school. Where were the teachers here??!!

I think this is one of the most disturbing stories I’ve heard here, not because it’s the worst abuse I’ve heard of, but because of the mentality it illustrates.

We have a long long way to go yet before we can really call ourselves “civilized.”

As this is the inaugural post of the new blog, (grin), it seemed most fitting to open things up with some comments about North Country, since many people are still somewhat abuzz about this since it opened last fall. I first saw the film during its opening weekend, but couldn’t really cough up anything particularly insightful about it at the time because the entire film left me so, well choked up. But it’s been close to a year now, and since the DVD release, and several more viewings, the story is a lot less triggering, even if it is still so very close to home.

I first heard about the movie when someone from the Warner Brothers publicity department contacted me about using the SHS site to help promote the movie. Many promises of items, posters, and free passes were dangled as incentives—“how about if we hold a poster drawing for all the SHS members!!!–none of which were ever delivered, but this was never a motivation for writing an article about the case, anyway. I’d heard about Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. from a National Public Radio spot they did on the book which the movie is “inspired” by, “Class Action: The Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law.” The book, which was a real page-turner, along with a number of articles and interviews provided much good information for the article, and I’ll always be grateful for being given the incentive to learn about these remarkable women who sacrificed so much to make things better for other workers.

This is probably my only qualm with the film. As bad as things were depicted in the movie, the reality was much, much worse, and went on for a lot longer. It doesn’t really show the severity of the harassment, or how long the women endured it.  (And they leave out completely that Lois was stalked by one of her supervisors.) Nor does it show the true extent of the brutal treatment of the plaintiffs that went on in the courtrooms. From the time of her initial complaints filed with the Minnesota Human Rights Department, to the final decision by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, 14 years had passed. Plus, the Hollywoody-happy-ending is a very misleading as the lives of the women involved was irreparably changed for the worse, even though they won the case. Several of them, Lois Jenson included, were so damaged by post-traumatic stress disorder that they never worked again. The settlement was very modest. No one got “rich,” and strained relationships were not rosy, as the last scenes in the movie try to imply. (Although, Lois Jenson was signed to the “speakers circuit” this past year, so hopefully things are looking up for her.)

Ok, so much for my rant on filmmakers’ needs to sift the truth so that it fits into a 100-minute time frame, with an uplifting boost at the end.

That is was the first class action sexual harassment case is landmark because this had never been done before. There have been a number of cases since. In 1998, Mitsubishi’s agreement to pay $34 million is the biggest sexual-harassment settlement ever obtained by the U.S. government. Other cases have also followed J v. E: Long Prairie Meat-Packing (1st male-on-male class action) Astra USA, First Asset Management, General Motors, etc.

However, Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. was also important in several other ways (which the movie’s sifting did not allow to be highlighted.) One of which involves the “discovery process” in litigation. This process is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit during which each party can request documents and other evidence from other parties, or produce evidence by using a subpoena or through other discovery devices, such as requests for production and depositions During Jenson v. Eveleth, the plaintiffs suffered grueling depositions that “explored” their personal and sexual lives in such a way that one woman compared to a “rape. This was a common practice in sexual harassment cases, and still is to a certain degree—hence the popularity of the “nuts and sluts” approach by defendant’s lawyers. But the 8th Circuit Court’s decision strongly criticized the tactics of Eveleth’s lawyers, and this criticism has set a precedent that limits such tactics in subsequent suits. Still, this does not always affect the behavior of those who want to discredit a victim—companies or individuals may try to gain as much negative information about a complainant that they can as part of retaliation or backlash, despite what the law says. (If they can’t find it, they may try to manufacture it.) But thankfully, there are now some constraints within the court system.

Another important precedent was the court’s acknowledging that the treatment of sexual harassment plaintiffs during the litigation process can, in of itself, cause psychological damage and that this should be factored into damages awards if they win a suit.

I really don’t know how many times I’ve seen North Country now, or the documentary in the “Special Features” section of the DVD. (Check this out to hear about the other women who were right alongside Jenson throughout.) It’s not an “artistic” work, full of layers to explore and uncover. It’s just a straightforward story, so multiple views reveal no new surprises. But it’s so much like my own sexual harassment experience that it’s become an exercise in strength just to get to the end. Frankly, since that first viewing the movie theatre, I don’t think I’ve been able to sit through the film in its entirety, not once. I seem to only be able to stop and start the DVD, watching in bits and pieces over a day or two. And I always skip over the rape scene. I’m not sure what getting through the whole thing in one sitting again will prove to me, but it will prove something. (One woman posted in the “Open Discussion” at SHSF that she would not have been able to get through the book if she didn’t already know the women won the case.)

In the meantime, when I start up the DVD again, I’m always working towards one point in the film. It’s the final courtroom scene when that pale, frightened girl becomes the first to join the case and to help make it a class action. There is something about the actor’s expression of disbelief as she stands up that really resonates for me. Even before she stands up, she so obviously cannot believe she is about to do it. I think that this tiny bit of film is hugely symbolic of why the women in the true-life story were so amazing. The actor’s expression in that scene may be the only hint in the film as to the enormity of the sacrifice the women made to see that things were better for the rest of us. They were not special women, they were very ordinary, and they felt scared and alone. But they took on this huge task anyway, not out of revenge or the desire for profit, but because it was the right thing to do.

May we all find the courage to “stand up” for others as these women did, at least to some degree. What a world this would be we could.

If anyone has an Mp3 of the title song, I’d sure appreciate a copy. (grin)

To read more stories of sexual harassment => CLICK HERE