MANifesto: An electronic newsletter of news and opinion on gender issues. January, 1996. INDEX: I. The Veggie-Penis Lawsuit II. Jesus Christ: Potential Rapist III. Chief Wins Harassment Suit IV. Sexual Harassment at the Corp. for Public Broadcasting V. Feminist Pay Grab Defeated VI. Northern Exposure Actor Charged VII. Male and Presumed Guilty ======= I. THE VEGGIE-PENIS LAWSUIT Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.men Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 13:32:25 A woman is suing a nursing home in Peterborough, New Hampshire over a prank on the day before April Fool's Day. Irene Palmer's co-workers at Pheasant Wood Nursing Home got a police officer to pretend to arrest her. She was handcuffed and taken outside, then was told it was a joke. She wants money. She says the nursing home should pay her $1.8 million. Apparently she thinks she could put $1.8 million dollars to better use than a nursing home. She also filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming sexual harassment because someone at the nursing home put up a photograph showing Palmer holding a vegetable that resembles a penis. In her lawsuit, Palmer say the incidents caused her to lose sleep and gain weight and made her nervous and depressed and unable to concentrate. If conditions are too rough for this woman in a nursing home, perhaps she should switch careers -- to the military, for example. Feminists keep telling us that this is the gender that can stand up to the horrors of combat. =============== II. JESUS CHRIST: POTENTIAL RAPIST In a thread called "Feminist Logic," I posted the following, sure that most people would understand the absurdity: > >: All men are potential rapists >: Jesus Christ was a man >: Therefore, Jesus Christ was a potential rapist. > But In article <[email protected]> Hanah Chapman, [email protected] (Hanah Chapman), wrote: > >Yep. If Jesus Christ had a penis, he was capable of rape. > (Feminists used to be upset if anyone suggested that their abilities and flaws were predetermined by their bodies. But now being male automatically makes you capable of rape.) > ===================================== III. CHIEF WINS HARASSMENT SUIT Newsgroups: soc.men Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 11:49:46 San Francisco's police chief has won a federal sexual harassment case in which the charges had an awful lot of political overtones. Joanne Welsh accused Police Chief Anthony Ribera of kissing her, making suggestive remarks, and giving her unwanted earrings. Here's the latest advance in feminism: getting compensation for receiving unwanted earrings. But what this woman *really* wanted was nearly two million bucks. However there was something fishy about her story from the start. Welsh has a boyfriend who had been the city Supervisor. Chief Ribera and the boyfriend had a big blowup in the office one day. The very next day, Welsh is filing her charges. She said the timing was coincidence. Right. But there were other suspicious factors as well. Chief Ribera was an ally of Mayor Frank Jordan. But Jordan lost his bid for re-election, and then opponents went after his ally, Ribera. Yes, it smells of politics. But remember, feminists tell us that women never lie about these things. After she lost, Welsh said "I think that women can pretty much emphasize with me on how difficult it is to prove to someone what happens behind closed doors.'" Yes, it is pretty difficult to prove what happens behind closed doors. But that goes both ways. It's difficult to prove your innocent if there is absolutely no evidence to refute except her word. I can certainly empathize with a man who is hauled into court and has to pay expensive legal fees to fight an unsupported and unprovable accusation about "what happens behind closed doors." The question is: when you have one person's word against another's and the charges cannot be proven or verified, why do we still haul men into court and make them go through this expensive ordeal? Just because a woman says so? ================================ IV. SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT THE CORP. FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING. A member of the board for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is being accused of harassing an employee of the corporation. (This is really a scandal because CPB distributes federal money for the ultra-politically correct National Public Radio and PBS. So here is a member of the ultra-PC group accused of sexual harassment.) Among the charges: that the board member sent the employee a red nightshirt that said "I Only Sleep With the Best!" and checked into the employee's marital status and made repeated unwelcome advances during a party, repeatedly made unwelcome invitations to dinner or drinks, and later kissed the employee on the mouth. When these advances were rebuffed, the board member retaliated by trying to get the employee fired. Shades of Bob Packwood! In fact, you might remember that during the Packwood hearings, women's advocates took out big ads asking, "If your boss stuck his tongue in your mouth, would he still have a job?" But this CPB board member still has her job. Her name is Martha Buchanan. The man she is accused of harassing is Fred DeMarco. DeMarco said he found the woman "physically repulsive" as she tried to force her attention on him. When he turned her down, he found out that she was denigrating his work and telling other people that he should be fired. Nonetheless, DeMarco is taking it "like a man." He isn't filing a lawsuit, even though lawyers for the CPB say he has one heck of a case. No victimhood jackpot and lucrative book tour for this man. No cover of Time and People. He just wanted to be able to do his job. The Washington Post reports on the case in its December 12th edition. The Post observes: "This is a story about a Washington in which fear of being sued can turn a bureaucracy inside out. It is about a world in which decisions are driven by fear of public exposure, embarrassment, political repercussions." It's nice of the Post to finally realize that sexual harassment charges involve an awful lot of politics. It just took a case in which a woman is accused for the Post to make that connection. As for the National Public Radio, this whole episode is rather ironic, because NPR broke the Anita Hill story. Now the organization that holds the purse strings for NPR has on its board a female harasser who got off scot free. You have to wonder how it will affect NPR's "crusading" coverage. Of course, NPR was never all that hot for digging into how issues like this affect men in the first place. Now they might be even less inclined to do so. ===================== V. FEMINIST PAY GRAB DEFEATED It is heartening to see that a judge recently overturned a pay-grab scheme by women who work in school cafeterias in the Everett, Mass., school district. Fifty-five women filed suit claiming that they deserved to be paid as much as the male custodians who work for the schools. They said it was discrimination that they weren't paid as much. Now if those women had applied for jobs as custodians and been turned down, I'd say they have a good case. But they didn't. They wanted to continue working in the cafeteria while getting paid as much as the men who are custodians. They claimed it was a case of "equal pay for equal work." But they weren't willing to do equal work for equal pay. The school district argued that the work was not equal. Their lawyer said, "Serving pizza -- is that comparable substantially to pushing a broom? I would argue, no, they don't bear any resemblance." I think he has a darn good point. Maybe the cafeteria workers have to clean dirty dishes, but the custodians have to clean dirty toilets and urinals. And maybe the cafeteria workers have to clean up spilled spaghetti now and then, but the custodians have to clean up vomit, etc., now and then. In fact, if there is an especially nasty mess in the kitchen, I bet those women call the custodians to clean it up. These women just wanted to stay in a less disgusting job while getting the same pay. If the work is just the same and they want the extra pay, why don't they apply for custodial work? The sad part is that these women actually got a lower court to award them a million dollars. But that pay-grab was overturned this week on appeal. That's a victory for common sense. =============================== VI. NORTHERN EXPOSURE ACTOR CHARGED Actor Robert Nicholson, who plays the cook Sonny on "Northern Exposure," was just charged with misdemeanor assault on a woman. Does he deserve it? Here's the deal. Police said they got conflicting accounts from Nicholson and the woman. She claimed that he hit her after she ridiculed him and called him names. He says she threw a drink on him and then came at him and broke his glasses and he shoved her away and she hit her nose. So whose at fault? It's impossible to say. There are no other witnesses besides the two involved. But police charged him. She has not been charged. In fact, police aren't even releasing her name. So he gets charged and has his name printed, while she is not charged, and her identity is "protected." For some reason, they call this the "justice" system. ============================ MALE AND PRESUMED GUILTY Here are three sad and disturbing cases in which being male equals being guilty. First, there's the case of Cmdr. Robert Stumpf, a Navy "top gun" fighter pilot, whose career is being ruined by the type of tactics familiar to those who study McCarthyism. Cmdr. Stumpf was at the infamous "Tailhook" convention in 1991. In the wake of all the political pressure that followed, Stumpf and 132 other men were put on a secret list documenting rumors or unproven accusations of misconduct at Tailhook. The accusations against Stumpf boil down to his presence in a room where a stripper performed. He was cleared of all other charges. But his promotion has been derailed and his career ruined simply because his name was on that list. The reason: The Senate Armed Services Committee requires that the Navy flag the dossiers of all of those 133 men who were accused by unseen accusers. This special flagging is known as "Tailhook certification." It applies even to the men, like Stumpf, who were cleared of any wrongdoing. But when they come up for promotion, the Senate committee notes that they have "Tailhook certification" and automatically rejects their promotion. This is what happened to Stumpf. The Senate had actually approved his promotion, butt then the committee belatedly realized it had overlooked his Tailhook certification. It then applied pressure on the Navy Secretary and got Stumpf's promotion withdrawn. Students of McCarthyism will recognize the secret blacklists, the tactic of guilt by association, and the reliance on unfounded accusations. There are a couple of ironies about this case. First, feminists insist that all men benefit because "men hold most of the power." Well, here's the predominantly male Senate caving in to political pressure and selling out an innocent man. According to the Washington Post, (Jan. 7) Stumpf was a former leader of the Blue Angels flying team and was in training to command the eight squadrons of planes on the USS Enterprise bound for duty in Bosnia. Instead, the Post says he is now doing "make work" at the Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach. Stumpf's case is an ironic contrast to that of Kara Hultgreen, who became a fighter pilot amid a lot of political pressure to put women in military planes. Hultgreen crashed and died while attempting to land on an aircraft carrier. The brass tried to blame mechanical problems, but confidential reports leaked to the Internet and the news media showed that the cause was pilot error. So the political pressures that put her in the cockpit are also keeping a qualified male out. === Case two of "Male and Presumed Guilty" involves computer consultant Louis Chatroop of Des Plaines, Illinois. Chatroop dated a woman for a few months and loaned her $3,800. When they broke up, he asked for repayment on the loan. When she refused, he filed a lawsuit. Next thing he knows, the woman has accused him of stalking. And because of the new anti-stalking law, he was thrown into prison and held without bail. This was done based solely on the woman's accusation -- and even though she has changed and embellished her story several times. Chatroop has no criminal record. His ex-wife and another girlfriend have told authorities that he is not violent or obsessive, and that other girlfriend testified to his whereabouts during the time of the supposed stalking. Doesn't matter. There is not one bit of evidence to support the accuser's claim, and several inconsistencies in her accusation, but Chatroop is held without bond. Chatroop is self-employed, and being incarcerated has ruined his business. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn notes (Oct. 5, 1995): "Chatroop ... said he has no clients left and almost no money. To try to avoid bankruptcy as his lawyers prepare for a still unscheduled trial, he has drained his retirement funds and stopped paying child support for his three sons." The concept of "women and children first" has carried over into our justice system. The lives of men are now expendable for the sake of protecting women -- even if there might not be any danger to protect them from. We can't risk any harm befalling a woman, and so we must toss out 800 years of common law and the presumption of innocent when a man is accused. ========================== And here's a horror story from the front lines of the War on Rape, as detailed on the front page of the Dec. 20 Washington Post. Christopher Prince is in a Virginia prison. The police say he is innocent. The prosecutor wants him freed. The two girls who accused him now say he is innocent. But Prince, 19, can't get out of prison. It started Feb. 9, 1994, when a 13-year-old girl and her 12-year old friend claimed that two men had broken into the older girl's home and demanded to have sex with them. They claimed that they somehow escaped untouched and notified neighbors. They picked Prince out of a police lineup. With no physical evidence, it was a case of their word against his. But Prince, who has an IQ of 75, was told by his lawyer to plead guilty to avoid a harsher sentence if convicted. He did and was sentenced to 12 years, with six suspended, and has been in prison for 15 months. But his family hired a private detective to check the girl's stories. The stories changed and then unraveled. Both girls now have sign affidavits admitting that they lied. Polygraph tests indicate that this time they a re telling the truth. Even the mother of the younger girl says of their story, "It never felt right to me, but no one seemed interested in what I thought." A judge recently reviewed the case and said Prince should be freed, but he didn't have the authority to do it. Prince's best hope is for early release is to get the governor to grant clemency, which he has requested. (Editor's note: After the Washington Post ran a front-page article on Prince, the governor of Virginia signed the papers and freed the innocent man. Prince got home in time for Christmas.) ============================= MANifesto is a monthly newsletter containing news and opinion for people interested in gender equality and gender stereotypes. If you would like to have MANifesto e-mailed to you, send the message "subscribe MANifesto" to [email protected] =============================