Where, many ask, are the feminists on the Monica Lewinsky controversy? A recent protest by a Fairfax County, Va., chapter of the National Organization for Women indicates they’re all over the place.
Leaders of the 80-member Dulles-area chapter in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., voted unanimously last week to call for the resignation of NOW’s entire national leadership for its “hypocrisy” in failing to speak out on President Clinton’s alleged sexual misconduct. “They have to go,” says Marie-Jose Ragab, who served as director of NOW’s international program for five years under NOW President Patricia Ireland and former NOW President Molly Yard. Ragab also has been president of the Dulles-area chapter for the past 10 years.
“Patricia was the best boss I ever had,” Ragab told me by telephone. “She was very supportive. This protest is not directed against her personally, but against the silence of the entire leadership.”
The protest in this case is not simply for the alleged failure of NOW leaders to speak out, Ragab says, but rather for their speaking out in a way that misses the point.
The trigger came on Feb. 1 when Ireland, appearing on ABC’s “This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts,” made a distinction between the Lewinsky case and those of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former Sen. Bob Packwood, both of whom were accused of sexual harassment. If the allegations against Clinton are true, Ireland said, “it appears to be a pattern of consensual sex” and “that is a distinction that I think people opposed to women’s rights are trying to hide.”
It was also a distinction that outraged Ragab and other members of her chapter. Why, she asks, was NOW speaking out in a way that departed from past policy by glibly taking the side of the defendant in an ongoing sexual harassment suit?
The Lewinsky matter, you will recall, came to light during the evidence-gathering process of Paula Jones’ harassment case against Clinton. Given the little we know about Lewinsky’s special relationship with the president, Ragab argues, you could conclude reasonably that Lewinsky received special attention and favorable treatment of a sort that probably violates the standards of NOW’s “Women-friendly Workplace” campaign.
Unlike others in her class of 250 White House interns, Lewinsky received a salary. After she was transferred to a Pentagon job, she still was granted access to the White House 37 times and received special help from Clinton’s special friend, Vernon Jordan, a well-connected Washington lawyer, in securing a private-sector job.
That’s the sort of pattern that (under standards the Supreme Court has upheld), “can create a hostile working environment for (other) women who want to succeed on the basis of their skills and competence,” Ragab says. By comparison, Anita Hill only accused Clarence Thomas of trashy talk.
Is NOW, then, being hypocritical in declining to speak out as forcefully as it did in attacking Thomas? Probably no more hypocritical than the right-wingers who became avid supporters of Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit when they saw an opportunity to embarrass Clinton. One can hardly blame NOW for being slow to attack a friend, especially when his principal accusers are linked so closely to NOW’s traditional enemies.
Nevertheless, the Virginia episode indicates NOW’s chickens may be coming home to bite them after years of pushing successfully for increasingly broad definitions of “harassment” and “hostile work environments.”
More Top Picks Cots Campings
No one would deny that overt, repeated and threatening behavior is harassment. But that simple definition has been broadened in recent years, as illustrated by the standards to which Justice Thomas was held.
The problem with ever-broader definitions of “harassment” and “hostile” is that they fail to take into account the many complicated ways relations develop and occur across gender lines in the workplace. One person’s harassment is another person’s harmless flirtation.
“Can a woman have too many rights?,” Ragab asked me rhetorically. Then she answered herself, “No.”
I wish I could be as certain as she is. In a truly just system, everyone’s rights are delicately balanced so everyone treats others as they would be treated.
Neither Clinton nor Thomas is above the law, but they’re not below the law, either. Neither deserves to have his rights trampled in order to help preserve someone else’s rights.
NOW has good reason to be annoyed that right-wingers are trying to string up President Clinton, a man who championed its cause. But NOW helped provide the rope.