I found it to be very good. It made the point clearly that people change.
I would be curious to know the full name of the author of this piece.....
"Posted by: kath | June 02, 2006 at 05:39 PM "
"Here is from something I wrote in March about the 1979 article.
"In 1973, six years before Webb's "Women Can't Fight" article, the USMC NCO leadership school admitted women for the first time. This place was in the middle of the woods at the Basic School in Quantico. The verbal harassment and ass-grabbing was off the scale, not only on the part of our peers but also by one of the instructors who was a married gunnery sergeant. The women had to march platoons around with borrowed swords strapped on in an ad-hoc fashion. They dragged on the ground or the belt slipped around and the sword would bang back and forth between our legs on our ankle bones and hurt like hell. This affected our grade no matter what we did. And it was demeaning.
"The motto of Women Marines was "Free a Man to Fight" and only some of the guys in our platoon had been in Viet Nam. When we played war games, we women were the "gooks." We didn't get guns for this. We huddled in the weeds for hours in the cold, waiting to be "attacked." And we were. Especially at night, the tracers were scary as shit. And if we didn't "die" we were knocked to the ground and sat upon.
"Just a few months later, when we women were back on the job - clerking, serving coffee or working in the laundry - a woman's body was found out in the woods. She was from DC, and had six bullets in her head and the murder - and rape - was never solved as far as I know - just part of the context. And back in the barracks the stray wierdo would crawl through a window from time to time. The Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King tennis match up was a focal point of what was called the "Battle of the Sexes."
"I'm not in touch with those women these days. But at the time we knew deep down inside that we were swept up in something bigger than ourselves. And we had to show that we were up for the job. That we were tough enough. I think the best moment was when we went to the firing range. After all ridicule and pretend running for cover, a few of us nailed it. And they shut the fuck up. For at least 10 seconds. And that's how much 10 seconds of peace costs sometimes goddammit. There were about 60 people in the group and maybe 10 of them were women. I graduated 2nd and guess what - another woman graduated first. First. In. The. Class.
"So, that is just a little pre-1979. Where was your head in 1979?
"As for Webb, I have given what I can to his campaign, and I am only interested in where his head is at now, not some 27 years ago. People and societies do learn and do grow. And someone who has undergone growth can indeed be differentiated from a poll parrot. The sexism of those days was extreme. And whatever bizarre backlash experiences so many of us went through, there was a women's movement. It was a year and two years AFTER 1979 that people marched by the 10's of thousands in support of the equal rights amendment. I was very proud to be one of them. And it was that overt sexual harassment that motivated me the most.
"The amendment failed, Phyllis Schafley was out there, but still there was progress. I am sick of seeing it dribble down the drain. It's going to take tough leadership to get us back on track - NOT variations on a theme. Leadership that is about responsibility - not privilege. James Webb has some of that. And I hope that many others do as well, because we desperately need it."
And women were not even allowed to run in the Olympics marathon back then. There was a big debate about that, too.
Also, I have read that Webb did not choose the title for that article, the editors did and he wasn't happy about that.
Another point - the grabass stuff was on the part of the troops and some enlisted senior NCO's. The officers were always professional and supportive of our roles, every single one of them. One or two of the old timers were somewhat paternalistic, e.g., saying "young lady" etc.
But to compare, I have a friend who was working in a carpet store around that time, and she has a hilarious story about running around tables and carpets to escape her lecherous boss. Yes, it's funny now, but it wasn't then. She was a single mom at the time, and there was next to no recourse for her.
I don't think I emphasized the larger context enough. The move 9-5 came out later, in 1980, and as ridiculous as it may seem now, it really did reflect the experiences of many women in those days.
Thanks for wrting it.
One of the enduring accomplishments of the women's movement is that once women began to speak to each other and share experiences, we discovered that what was happening to us was not an isolated incident. It was not just happening to each of us alone because we were aberrations. And it was not our fault.
Harrassment on the job was actually more common than we each thought. And eventually we were able to go to court, go to Congress, and go to the public to create an environment where it was no longer considered funny or acceptable to harrass women.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It was precisely that sort of sharing that helped change public opinion about women in the workforce.
And counter to public perception, the military has been a leader in equal rights for women and minorities and their advancement in leadership roles, far more so than corporate America has been on average.
And just to let you know, I read your stuff regularly; it always gives me something to think about.
Problem is, as someone commented, the Primary voter does not have this kind of insight, or hasn't stopped to think about it and come to much the same conclusions you do.
This is the biggest problem with Primary Elections in Virginia; Cumberland County had a 5.5% turnout rate for the 2004 Presidential Primary, with the overall average sucking just as bad. We, as Democrats and Progressives, must get more people to the polls. I am not convinced the current system works, either because it is broken, or because of a fatigue factor in the populace. Robo-calls are out there in big numbers. Supporters rightfully and enthusiastically call voters on the phone. People I talk to at the polls on election day and other days tell me that they are really sick of the phone calls, and wish that if there was a way, to coordinate the system to include the entire ticket. At the same time asking down-ticket candidates to cooperate in not making calls individually.
Most mailers have the half life of that handful of crap advertising with a card; it gets trashed immediately. They are often times annoying, even from 'your' candidate.
Is this a great argument for public financing of campaigns or what?
So Kathy, again, great post. Sometimes we lose sight of the overall problem and concentrate on many important issues that desperately need our attention. The way in which Democrats communicate with the voters is sadly and badly in need of a big adjustment.
Sorry to ponificate all over your diary, I got started, and just couldn't stop. Cheers to you.
Or letters from supporters within the neighborhood.
I get the mailers from Miller, but have somehow managed to avoid the calls. I was getting invitation to every single fundraising event until I sent a note back to Don Beyer that they were wasting their money because I was backing Webb. But the heaven't purged their mail list, even if perhaps they have purged their phone lists?
Do you think Harris Miller's hybrid campaign car compensates for all of this excess paper? Let's estimate. Suppose he is getting 55 mpg now and would get 35 otherwise. So that's a savings of 20 mpg. Last I read was that he's driven 21,000 miles. So that's a savings of 218 gallons of gas. Do you think that compensates for any of the mailing environmentally? I don't know.
When we consider the relative costs of mailers, we need to remember that there are materials that go into those. Paper, ink, postage. Paper is a big environmental problem, not as big as others, but when I see a clear cut piece of land in my neighborhood, and the wood is headed for the pulp mill, it reminds me that we don't have an infinite supply of trees to make paper from. This may seem like a trivial point to some, but if we are to stay true to our values as stewards of the environment, we must consider the cost to it. Does Harris's car make it any better? A trivial amount, it seems to me. It is a cost and gasoline savings, but the time will come when it either gets too expensive to drive, or there will be another way to make that face-to-face connection.
Miller has saved roughly $650, but more than that, he has saved several tons of pollutants from entering the atmosphere, much as Al Weed's Biodiesel car does.
I am not sure we are to a point yet that we can replace the face time with mailers, or vice-versa. One thing is certain however; the economy and value of face time can not be underestimated. Also, the content of such face time and/or mailers needs to get a lot better. That's not to say that there hasn't been a lot of progress made, just that we need to keep working hard on it to change the political discourse in this country. Never let up, there is always room for improvement.