What Sexual Discrimination Will Drive One Grandmother to Do

As the assistant to a couple of feminist writers, I often get the heartbreaking and challenging duty of responding to calls for help from women in all sorts of emotional, physical, psychological, and financial need. This is how I came into correspondence with the amazing Debra Hartley, who opened her note by saying, “I am writing to you out of desperation and with hope.”

Today Debra’s mother (a mother of 6, grandmother of 15, and great-grandmother of 3) will climb on top of their roof and will not come down until they raise the $15,550 needed to continue her court battle against sexual discrimination she faced as a female police officer in a Pennsylvania department. An account has been set up for donations at Citizens Savings bank, in Mount Pocono, PA, in care of,Justice for 31, (Debra’s badge number).

Debra’s story, as she told it to me, began after barely escaping an abusive husband with her four small children in tow. While in hiding with her children, Debra’s husband violated a restraining order and brutally assaulted her. The judge set him free saying that husbands would do no such things. Debra became a police officer after witnessing this grave injustice in her own life that put her and her children’s safety in serious jeopardy.

She earned her degree while working to support four children and was eventually hired to a Pennsylvania Police Department as the number one candidate in 1998. She was the second female officer ever hired to the squad, one year after the first had been hired. She won numerous awards and earned the trust and respect from her community.

With one small exception, of course: her male officer colleagues. Debra writes,

More and more I became aware of the differential treatment between myself and the male officers. For instance, the scheduling, I would have to use a personal days if I wanted a Saturday or Sunday off but my male coworkers were consistently scheduled off on the weekends. My shifts were chaotic and grossly inconsistent. Even though I was assigned to first shift, days, I would be scheduled to work every shift, and that could change daily. The male officer were assigned to specific shifts also but they were actually scheduled to work their shifts, including the less seniority officers. I did not consider complaining because I did not want to be recognized as a complainer, so I sucked it up.

At the same time I was also dealing with three of my fellow officers, that did not like working with a woman, they began to make working very difficult for me and even dangerous. They would make bogus complaints about my work performance and often accused me of the very wrongdoings they were guilty of themselves. Finally after I was initially threatened with suspension following yet another of their unfounded complaints, I knew I had to make a complaint myself.

But it was not until after I filed my third, formal complaint of sexual harassment, to the chief, that he responded. He sent me a memo advising me that if I wanted to discuss my “issues” with him I should see him to set a date for a meeting. At the onset of that meeting he informed me that he heard that my reports were not completed fast enough and that I was disrespectful to my supervisors. Then he informed me that he was not going to conduct an investigation regarding my harassment complaints, because “we have a he-said, she-said situation” and told me that my allegations were “ridiculous“. He never gave the opportunity to speak or discuss my concerns at any time in that meeting.

At this point, Debra decides to turn to a collective bargaining unit. What she discovers is that there are no policies in her department created to address sexual harassment. Since the collective bargaining unit will only advocate on behalf of complaints against written policies, she was unable to get any assistance.

Debra filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the EEOC and had to resign from her job in July of 2003. In the fall of 2007, she went before a jury of 3 women and 5 men in a Federal Sexual Harrassment and Discrimination Lawsuit and lost because, in Debra’s words, “He was just a new chief at the time that I was hired [and] he did not know how to handle situations involving women officers.” They ruled in the police department’s favor even though it was shown during 6 days of testimony that the chief lied on the witness stand.

Now Debra is filing for an appeal and needs to raise the thousands that it will cost to continue her fight.  It costs $9000 alone to get the transcript from the last case needed for an appeal.  Debra’s mother will be on their roof until they are able to raise the money because, “court cost should not be an obstacle for any woman who has been trying to protect her rights!” Debra is also planning on setting up an online auction for her fund, so stay tuned.

What I can’t understand is how this happened within the last decade. Weren’t Cagney and Lacey dealing with this back in ‘82??

I

Spring!

One paper down, one to go… And while I’ve been stuck inside, just look at what’s been happening a few blocks away!

It’s Gay Time!

Judith Halberstam has some of the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. Don’t you think??

Working on a paper about queer time I, of course, discovered this interview. I say “of course” because, of course, it doesn’t help me write my paper at all, but it is, of course, at least, entertaining.

(And yes, there are theories for my lateness, for my paced resistances to futurity, for my lack of reproductive motivations.  In that issue of GLQ that I link up there, Elizabeth Freeman basically describes every social interaction I have when I go home and realize that all my cousins and classmates seem to be living in parallel universes.  “[W]hen we are away from our cultural context, we often experience our social failures as a sign that we are immature or prematurely aged, that we are too late to the party or, worse, too early.”  And isn’t it so true that some of us feel confusingly too old and simultaneously judged for seeming immature or irresponsible. Clearly an issue of a queer temporal legibility, or, as S calls it, “Gay Time.” )

For the Love of Fun…

Nothing like revisiting the old blog when one has papers to write…

I just love Alison Bechdel. Fun Home is highly recommended. And so is this, for your viewing pleasure:

Found on the B48

Hear that, ladies? We’re going in the wrong direction. Smoking, drinking, more lesbianism than ever, cursing, gosh, working outside the home!! Back up! Allll the way back to the 1800’s where we live exclusively for the benefit of men.  We have just gotten TOO “worldly.”  Afterall, we were created for men.

Can you believe this trash is being circulated in Brooklyn churches?

Also!

Congrats to Jessica from Feministing on her first book, Full Frontal Feminism.

For a peek, check out Jessica’s article at The Guardian that describes why she wrote the book and what her agenda is all about.

I truly do believe that feminism is necessary for women to live happy, fulfilled lives - especially given the society we live in, which constantly and consistently tells women that we’re just not good enough.

I couldn’t agree more!

Semi-new Blog

I discovered a fab new blog from the Center for Genetics and Society, my favorite non-profit that handed me tons of resources when I was writing my thesis on stem cell research and reproductive justice. I love this organization because they show up at conferences about reproduction politics, they take on criminal justice issues (in light of our country’s eugenic past), and they do a huge part of crucial popular education on genetic and technological issues.

And now I lurrvv their blog, Biopoliticaltimes cause I just learned, for example, that the Innocence Project reached their 200th exoneration, a New York couple is suing a fertility clinic because their child came out too dark, and that Indiana, the first government in the world to endorse eugenic sterilization, has recently (rightly) apologized.

Spitzer Introduces Repro Health and Privacy Protection Act!

Not only was New York one of the first states to legalize abortion, Spitzer just announced his introduction of the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act.

Here’s what I’ve heard:

In brief, the bill will address the three main problems with New York’s current abortion law:

o The bill would take the abortion legislation out of New York’s criminal statutes and put it in the Public Health Law, where other health-related regulations reside.

o The bill would include a health exception for post-viability abortions where continuing a pregnancy would present a risk to a woman’s health. Currently, New York law only contains an exception when a woman’s life is at risk.

o The bill would allow for any competent and trained health provider to provide abortion care within his or her scope of practice. This would codify and permit advanced practice clinicians, such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives, to provide early abortion care. Currently, New York law only permits “duly licensed physicians” to provide abortion services.

I Don’t Buy It: Happy Earth Day.

I’ll admit it. I still haven’t seen an Inconvenient Truth. And I probably never will. The only reason, really, is that Al Gore gets on my nerves. Who knew in Y2K that cardboard stiff Al Gore would set off the biggest trend of 2007: GREEN?

I have an unnatural love for composting, I’m spending a month on an organic farm this summer, and I’ve seriously considered and attempted “freeganism.” At age ten, environmentalism was my first political cause. I really cared about the shrinking rainforests and urged my mom not to use aeresol hairspray (it was the eighties..).

But because of today’s Sunday Styles section of the New York Times I can’t go any longer without blowing a whistle on this green craze. There is now such a thing as “eco-socialites.” They are society women like Renée Rockefeller, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès, Melania Trump and Jessica Seinfeld who are holding tupperware party-like green gatherings to discuss which environmentally friendly products they (ahem.. their maids) should be using.

“We all want to make our homes the safest place in the world for our families,” she said to a roomful of women with cascading hair and bouclé jackets. “We get global warming, but we don’t think about what we are exposing ourselves to in our homes. We can all watch ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ But what can we actually do to make a difference on Earth Day besides buying a Prius?”

The answer, according to Ms. Barnett, is a line of natural health-care and housecleaning products made by Shaklee, a 47-year-old company based in San Francisco whose cleansers were beloved in the 1970s by the first Earth Day generation, the folks who installed composting toilets.

Eco-socialites? Is this the answer? Even Vanity Fair has a Green Issue. And the New York Times Magazine thinks that for the United States to resume our “natural stature” as the biggest baddest most imperialist nation, we need to be green. “What does America need to regain its global stature? Environmental leadership.” I’m sorry, no. This cannot be the answer.

I believe in peace. And I believe in sustainability. This is different than consumerism and it is different than a capitalist marketplace of geo-politics, where our political participation is limited to what we buy.

I believe in eating local and eating what is in season. I believe in driving less and insisting our governments provide practical public transportation, not in buying a Prius. I think it’s fucking cool that Whole Foods has an annual budget of $10 million for low-interest loans that go to local farms. I re-use plastic yogurt containers.

Ok, ok, I’m not perfect, not even close. My Earth Day resolution is to eat less packaged out the wazoo take-out. And I could seriously do better with the recycling. The point is, there are things we can do, ways we all know we can act, that don’t cost anything.

There’s a nauseating endlessness to these alternate routes of behavior. It’s almost impossible to not buy things because of the way our economy and labor is structured (consider that my Granny’s parents, who were farmers, never did taxes because they didn’t have any income. Meaning they almost never bought anything.). But I think the best way to be green is not to choose pricier or “better” things to buy, but rather to consume/buy as little as possible.

This would equal less trash, less waste, and less energy use in transport. This would equal less pollution, less exploited (female/people of color) labor to meet production needs, and less need for patriarchal militaries to defend our tastes (”dependence” - isn’t that such a passive way of putting it?) for excessive energy use. This would mean having a healthy planet for women and families.

Thus, environmentalism is absolutely a feminist issue. Check out, for example, the Committee for Women, Population, and the Environment, who argue that environmental justice should integrate reproductive and immigrant rights.

And Happy Earth Day! From the bottom of my ten year old heart, when Earth Day was one of the most exciting days of the year.

Abortion Ban Roundup

The rally in New York yesterday had a good turnout. Here’s what I”ve been reading on the recent SCOTUS decision:

Background from the Center for Reproductive Rights

Statements from all major 2008 presidential candidates. (Interesting that John Edwards is the most direct)

Bean delivers smart and clear analysis, as per usual.

So does Scott Lemiux.

And Ann thanks Justice Ginsburg for her dissent, as do I.