Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney was sentenced to a reduction in rank and a reprimand for attempting to obstruct justice during a sexual misconduct trial. McKinney, who faced 18 charges of sexual misconduct and one charge of obstruction of justice, was acquitted of all sexual misconduct charges. Six women had testified against McKinney, claiming that he sexually harassed them.

McKinney will retire with an honorable discharge and has filed a $1.5 million libel suit against plaintiff Brenda L. Hoster. Retired Army Sergeant Major Hoster accused McKinney of grabbing her in a Honolulu hotel. McKinney was prohibited from suing any of the other women who testified against him due to a military rule that prohibits service members from suing subordinates or superiors.

Hoster told NBC, “I think this is a campaign of intimidation and I’m not intimidated by it.”

Feminist News Stories on Sexual Harassment, Assault and Discrimination in the Military

Virginia Military Institute freshman, including 23 women, graduated from their long role as rats yesterday as they climbed to the top of a 30-foot mud hill that had been sprayed by fire hoses. This year’s rat line was the first to include women.

Twenty-three women endured the school’s long-standing ritual of abuse, which includes push-ups, hazing, and forced workouts in the middle of the night. Cadet commandant Col. James Joyner said that the bar was not lowered for the women, who proved themselves equal to the school’s “unforgiving traditions.”

The Supreme Court ordered VMI to admit women last year after a six-year-long court battle. Thirty women entered in the fall and the school expects around 40 freshman women next year.

Although seven women dropped out, none complained of sexual harassment or unfair treatment. Co-president of the National Women’s Law Center Marcia Greenberger said that judgment of VMI’s assimilation of women would be premature since the school “hasn’t been very open in describing its practices.”

The Justice Department is investigating reports that United States “sex tour” businesses are sending people overseas to have sex with children in violation of a 1994 law. The legislation bans travel with the intent of having sex with minors with penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment.

Tour companies are offering tours of Southeast Asia and Latin America, where men are taken to red-light districts or brothels. Tour operators claim that clientele range from attorneys and school board members to clergy. Last year, New York-based women’s rights group Equality Now urged 2,500 of its affiliates to petition the government to stop sex tours and “expose this systematic exploitation of girls and women.”

Ken Franzblau of Equality Now said, “The women are basically a commodity … You don’t know how they wind up in these circumstances.” He also noted that many of the companies deny the threat of AIDs or STDs, “I was told that the number of AIDs cases in Thailand is intentionally overblown … by international health organizations to obtain increased funding.”

Carol Smolenski, an End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism, U.S.A., coordinator, interviewed some American tourists and was shocked. Smolenski said, “some of the men just believe that it’s sort of a different class of human beings.”

Women’s chances of being murdered by “intimates,” including current or former spouses or boyfriends, have risen since 1976, according to a Justice Department report, “Violence by Inmates.”

The report said, “Intimate violence predominantly affects women as victims …. Violence by an intimate accounts for about 21 percent of the violent crime experienced by women and about 2 percent of the violence experienced by males.”

Overall, reported murders by spouses or partners have decreased since 1976, from 2,957 to 1,842 in 1996. The number of male victims decreased by 62 percent while the number of female victims decreased by only 17 percent. Almost three-fourths of intimate murder victims in 1996 were women. Eighty-five percent of the victims of domestic violence in 1996 were women.

The report stated that 65 percent of the murders were committed using a firearm and that approximately 40 percent of those convicted for violence were on probation, under a restraining order, on parole, or other similar criminal justice status when the crime occurred.

Domestic Violence Information Center

Mary Shallenberger, principal consultant to California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, has been elected the next national chair of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Shallenberger will take over at PPFA’s full membership meeting in December. She will fulfill her chair duties on her own time and will not receive pay for the position.

Sen. Burton commented, “With the right to choose under constant attack from the far right, it’s great to see a Senate staffer in the front lines, fighting to protect women’s freedom.”

Shallenberger said, “Planned Parenthood has been at the forefront of protecting the rights of families and women for generations …. I am honored and excited to be chosen to continue the legacy.”

The Taliban militia group sent a letter to Sergio de Mello, the United Nation’s humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, stating that they would no longer allow foreign Muslim women in the country unless accompanied by a close male relative. If the new law is enforced, U.N. programs for women and girls could face enormous setbacks.

The United Nations had been increasing the number of Muslim women working in Afghanistan. U.N. officials had believed that the women would be more accepted by the Taliban.

Although Mello wrote his own letter protesting the decree, no response has been received.

Stop Gender Apartheid

Sgt. Maj. Gene C. McKinney, the Army’s former top enlisted man, was acquitted of 18 counts of sexual misconduct by a military jury. McKinney was convicted on one count of obstructing justice in lieu of a telephone conversation in which he told an accuser to testify that no wrong-doing had taken place.

The women who testified against McKinney were “shocked” at the verdict. Plaintiff’s attorney Susan Barnes said, “Women were put on trial here. Eventually women will be able to get justice in an Army court. But they didn’t get it in here.”

Some of the women who testified will be leaving their Army posts. Sentencing for the obstruction of justice charge will be issued today. McKinney faces up to 5 years in jail, loss of rank and benefits.

Sgt. Maj. McKinney may have been acquitted for sexual misconduct, but the case is forcing military personnel to rethink their own behavior, says Anne Coughlin, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School. Retired Army Col. Harry Summers commented, “This case is a warning to us that something’s wrong …. And I think it’s a warning to everybody in the military to mind their P’s and Q’s.”

Coughlin also stated that women, who make up about 14 percent of the military, may be discouraged from bringing forth sexual misconduct charges, after the McKinney trial in which the plaintiffs’ character was routinely brought into question.

The Army shut down its sexual harassment hotline last year. The hotline, which was created after scores of women reported incidents at the Aberdeen Proving Ground training center in Maryland, received more than 8,300 calls. The hotline was discontinued in an effort to encourage military personnel to “go through the normal chain of command to lodge complaints,” said Army officials.

A survey issued by USA Today found that women totaled only one-fourth of law clerks hired by the U.S. Supreme Court, around 5% of clerks were Asian, less than 2% were African-American, and even less were Hispanic.

Investigators found an ‘old-boys club’ system of hiring law clerks, including hiring only Harvard, Yale or other elite schools’ top graduates, taking references from previous law clerks and from specific appeals court judges. The Supreme Court is immune to its own laws which prohibit discriminatory hiring practices.

Critics of the system worry that the country is misrepresented and that a majority of white male law clerks could produce a prejudice in draft opinions and in deciding which cases are heard. “Clerks are (the justices’) emissaries to the world …. People of different backgrounds bring in some different thinking for the justices. If they are all white males, you just perpetuate the dominance of males in the legal profession,” said former law clerk Stetson University law professor Mark Brown.

Catawba College professor Martha Swann said, “A case that doesn’t look important to a white male clerk from the Northeast may be important to a woman from California …. If you have all white males from Harvard as clerks, they won’t intentionally be biased, but they will be.”

A jury of 13 United Methodist clerics found Rev. Jimmy Creech not guilty of violating church rules when he performed a marriage ceremony for two lesbian parishioners. Creech has been reinstated as minister of the First United Methodist Church in Omaha.

Although the Methodist church’s “Social Principles” includes a 1996 order that ministers should not conduct same-sex marriage, jurors found that the principles are merely guidelines, rather than rules.

“I don’t know the implications of their decision,” Creech said in his sermon on Sunday, “But I believe it’s the beginning of a reversal of growing hostility and exclusion of gay and lesbians in the United Methodist Church.”

Feminist News Stories on Same Sex Marriage

The Food and Drug Administration announced its approval of an ultrasound machine that tests for osteoporosis. Women can place their foot into the Hologic Inc.’s Sahara Bone Sonometer. The sonometer then measures the density of the heel by sending high-frequency sound waves through the bones, and comparing the speed of the sound waves through the heel.

The Sahara costs $30,000 and patients will pay around $40 for a test. Currently, physicians must use large x-ray machines that cost $70,000-$150,000 to test for osteoporosis. Women generally pay $127 for an x-ray test. Around 10 million Americans, most of whom are women, suffer from Osteoporosis, a degenerative bone disease.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said, “Early diagnosis and treatment will improve the quality of life for millions of Americans who are at risk of fractures related to this condition.”

Actress Delta Burke will be in D.C.’s Dupont Circle Crown Books on Wednesday to sign her new book, Delta Style: Eve Wasn’t a Size Six and Neither Am I. Burke is also launching a line of clothing for women sizes 14 to 26.

The average woman in the United States is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 144 pounds; around 50 percent wear a size 14 and larger.

A survey released by the VanAmburg Group, Inc. concluded that the majority of hungry people in the United States are white, female, very old or very young and working. Director of Tufts University Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy J. Larry Brown said, “The data run counter to almost every stereotype we have of those who need assistance …. It’s mainly families that are playing by the rules — working or trying to work.”

The study was commissioned by Second Harvest food banks, whose workers provided food to 21 million people in 1997. Researchers performed one-on-one surveys of approximately 28,000 recipients of food bank provisions and received 11,000 mail surveys from charities.

Researchers found that two-thirds of those in need of assistance were women, 54 percent were senior citizens or children and almost half were white. Thirty-six had a high school diploma or GED, and 39 percent of the families had at least one adult with a job.

Chairman of the House nutrition subcommittee Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) is pushing to increase federal funding for donations to food banks. Rep. Tony Hall (D-OH), who performed his own survey of food banks with the same results, is urging Congress to increase the minimum wage.

The Kenya chapter of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Kenya) found that women suffer the most during ethnic conflicts. A fact-finding mission revealed that women living in and around areas of repeated civil conflicts experience increased violence, poverty and health and hygiene problems.

FIDA-Kenya member Njoki Ndung’u reported, “There are many internally displaced people in Kenya today and it is unfortunate that the most affected are women …. We have even encountered cases of rape but the women are too poor to litigate.”

Interviewers talked to widows who are losing property because they have no way to prove that it belongs to them. FIDA also reported on 150 women and 400 children that are camped at a Catholic church in Lamurdiac. The women are being forced to protect the camp themselves, and are living on one meal a day.

Ndung’u added, “Special needs of women concerning personal hygiene and their health and dignity are undermined in such situations.”

FIDA-Kenya is urging the Kenya government to set up a relief fund for victims of the violence that would enable the women to gain access to their land and rebuild their homes.

A jury of United Methodist Church ministers will rule on charges that the Rev. Jimmy Creech disobeyed United Methodist Church rules when he performed a unity ceremony for two of his female parishioners. Rev. Loren Ekdahl said that the ceremony was an “unauthorized ritual conducted as if it were an official rite of the church.”

Creech responded, “These two women are members of [my church] and I was responding to them as a pastor, to give them pastoral care … [the ceremony was] a celebration of two people’s commitment of love and fidelity to one another.”

The trial marks the first time the Methodist Church has pressed charges against a minister for performing a same-sex marriage. If found guilty, Creech could lose all his ministerial credentials. Rev. Creech has vowed to perform similar ceremonies if reinstated.

Feminist News Stories on Same-Sex Marriage

British prisons will release up to 150 sex offenders, including rapists and pedophiles, without supervision in the next two years. The release comes as a result of a loophole created by the British Criminal Justice Act of 1991, which requires people convicted of sex crimes after 1992 to be supervised after their release.

Sex offenders convicted before 1992 will not be added to a national British sex offenders register. The register is similar to the U.S. state-level registers created under Megan’s Law, which requires public notification when a convicted sex offender is living in their area.

Residents of Sydney, Australia attended the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this week. This year marked the festival’s 20th anniversary. Sydney lawyer and journalist David Marr said, “behind the frivolity of the parade, the message is that there is unfinished business. In its outrageous, flamboyant way Mardi Gras is a reminder that the campaign for fairness and good sense goes on.”

Local politicians support the festivities, acknowledging the “pink dollar” that adds around $20 million to Sydney’s economy, and praised the parade for its reflection of “tolerance and diversity.”

The annual event began in 1978, when homosexuality was illegal and those convicted faced up to 14 years in prison. Sydney gay men held a street demonstration and coming-out party, protesting the law. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Australia in 1984.

In a White House ceremony marking International Women’s Day First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the Taliban militia group for its violations of women’s human rights in Afghanistan. She said, “We must give voice to women in Afghanistan, where women are brutalized and silenced by the Taliban — where girls are barred from school, where thousands of women cannot go to work, leave home alone or get the health care they need. And were those who don’t follow every rule of attire or conduct are punished with beatings, whippings, even death.”

President Clinton commented, “You know, we always say that human rights must be a central pillar of America’s foreign policy, but that is meaningless if those rights are not fully enjoyed by half the people on the planet.” The United States government is withholding official recognition of the Taliban.

Clinton announced that the United States will provide $10 million towards alliances with governments and non-governmental organizations to help end violence against women. He said, “All too often, we know violence limits the choices open to women and young girls, damaging their health, disrupting their lives, obstructing their full participation in society.”

Clinton also announced that he was sending a letter to the Senate leaders asking them to ratify the women human rights treaty, CEDAW, that would ban all forms of discrimination against women.

Mrs. Clinton also commented on the one million women who are trafficked into the United States from Russia and elsewhere. “Those women and girls are desperate for economic opportunity …. They think they’re applying for jobs as babysitters, waitresses, and sales clerks. Many think they are following their dreams and instead, they find themselves in a nightmare, sold as part of an international trade in human beings and forced into modern-day slavery.”

President Clinton vowed to “step up our public education campaigns abroad in an attempt to stop trafficking at its source,” and announced that he had asked Attorney General Reno to investigate the efficiency of laws related towards violence against women in the United States.

Also in attendance were U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and U.N. Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette.

Remarks made by President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton marking International Women’s Day

Western companies are making millions in a booming mail-order bride and “romance tour” industry that not only degrades women but also exposes many to domestic abuse. Mail- order bride companies feature women from Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America in catalogues and on Web sites. Many of the women are portrayed as “traditional, family-oriented” and “untainted by Western feminism,” said a recent Washington Post article.

Men pay up to $5,000 for “romance tours” through Russia that include socials, where women typically outnumber the men 5 to 1.

Men who have found a bride through the services can petition the INS for a visa that allows the fiancee to stay in the United States for 90 days. If the couple is not married at the end of the 90 days, the woman must return home. Although the U.S. Congress passed a 1996 bill that requires the agencies to inform the women about marriage fraud, legal residency and domestic violence or face a $20,000 fine, many of the women find themselves with an abusive partner.

Gillian Caldwell, co-director of Global Survival Network, studied trafficking of Russian women to the United States. Caldwell said, “These women are invisible unless some lunatic walks into a courthouse and shoots his mail-order wife.” In 1995, a man shot and murdered his wife, whom he met through a mail-order agency, in a Seattle courtroom.

The INS passed a rule in 1996 that allows women to file for residency on their own if they find themselves in an abusive relationship. However, foreign language barriers and ignorance of U.S. law deters many women from filing.

Leslye Orloff, program development director at Ayuda, a nonprofit legal service for immigrants, said that refugee advocacy groups want to require Americans to provide information on criminal records or any protective orders that may have been issued against them before seeking a mail-order bride.

Domestic Violence Information Center

Five of the six female mechanics working for the Washington, D.C. Metro are applying for six manager’s positions in the male-dominated rail maintenance division. Metro is trying to increase the number of women in higher-up positions.

Currently there are 1,446 women out of 8,173 employees. The mechanics’ supervisor, Lemuel Proctor, says he would like to see the women in his division so that they could make conditions better for all women Metro workers.

Sandra Barton, a 37-year-old mechanic, said, “I’d see my sisters coming home from their secretarial jobs, looking very nice but complaining about their jobs and their pay.” The top-ranked mechanics make $45,000 a year in base pay with chances for additional money in overtime and shift-work.

Mechanic Sherri Sims commented on the problems that persist as one of a few female workers. “Sexual harassment used to happen all the time. It was ongoing …. And it still exists, but I know how to deal with it. I let them know if it’s too blatant. I have to say, ïThis is not acceptable.’ Also in the past, I had to suffer retribution when I complained. Now I don’t. They know it’s against the rules.”

Several of the women mechanics received training from Wider Opportunities for Women, an organization which help women obtain non-traditional jobs.

Mechanic Sarah Reynolds leads a group of non-traditional women workers in a group called Women’s Work Inc. The women speak at high schools and community groups. “I tell them there are advantages, like the money. It’s much better than traditional jobs. And some mechanical work, you can do at home. But the most important this, is doing something you really want,” said Reynolds.

The American Association of University Women issued a report stating that girls-only math and science math classes did not improve test scores, but did improve girls’ confidence levels and attitudes towards science and math. Executive director of the AAUW Janice Weinman said, “We went in with an open mind, and what the research shows is that boys and girls both thrive when the elements of good education are there, elements like smaller classes, focused academic curriculum and gender-fair instruction.”

Teachers in California who took part in the same-sex class experiment said that the all-girl classes let the girls learn without “fear or ridicule.”

Critics of the study worry that without improved test scores, the all-girl classes will close. “Clearly this is an attempt to stop the public school single-sex experimentation … And I think those experiments are a good thing,” said New York University research professor Diane Ravitch.

An earlier study released by the AAUW found that girls routinely fall behind in math and science skills and that female students often face discrimination by male students, teachers and in textbooks.