The Backlash! - November 1997

Headline News

Two brands of justice?

The Seattle Times, November 2 1997, - Many Britons were shocked when an American jury found Louise Woodward guilty of murder. The Mirror said: "At worst - at the very worst - she is an inexperienced nanny guilty of negligence. But she is no murderess."

Manslaughter, then? Well, now we all know what that means. Kill a male, and if you're female, get off with time served. On ABC's coverage of the sentencing today, November 10, 1997, with Peter Jennings, one commentator called the very light sentence "one in a million."

According to the Telegraph, one might think the parents were actually to blame for Matthew Eappen's death, because they employed a "young girl" who, apparently because of her tender years, is obviously not competent to care for a child.

Nineteen years old is old enough to be a mother but not a nanny? Don't tell that to the leaders of feminist organizations. Speaking of which, where were they? They're always out front demanding execution when a man says something raunchy to a woman; what about when a woman, oh, excuse me, "young girl," kills a baby boy?

Two brands of justice - again

Seattle Times, November 15 1997, - Mary Kay LeTourneau, the school teacher convicted of statutory rape, was given a suspended 7 1/2-year prison sentence, an additional 80 days in jail, and a treatment program for sex offenders.

Personally, I am not offended by this. What does offend me is the continuing double standard - harsh treatment for men, reasonable treatment for women.

What I want to be when I grow up?

Working Woman Magazine, September 1997, - According to WW, most of the 10 most important women in tech name Carol Bartz, CEO and Chair of Autodesk, as a role model.

Career Highlights: Bartz doubled Autodesk's revenues by ditching smaller, unprofitable divisions and leveraging the company's main product, AutoCAD. Now she runs the fifth-largest software company in the world.

What they don't mention is that she also lies to her employees, withholds significant facts from Autodesk stockholders, and puts her own welfare ahead of the company. How would I know? First hand experience: I temp'ed at Autdesk Retail Products (ARP), one of the "smaller, unprofitable divisions" from late 1992 through early 1994.

Once upon a time, ARP was Generic Software, a very profitable company best known for GenCAD, a program similar to AutoCad but designed to run on low end PCs. Autodesk bought out Generic, changed the name to Autodesk Retail Products, added GenCAD and Generic's other products to their line up, and used ARP's more efficient manufacturing plant to ship many of their products.

Shortly after I began working at ARP, Bartz announced their intention to consolidate the company into one or two locations, and assembled a team to compile all relevant facts and figures to determine the most profitable course of action.

The team included Nora, the Controller at ARP, and after several weeks she enthusiastically told us the analysis favored closing all Autodesk's other operations, including the plant in Petaluma and corporate HQ in Salsulito, and moving everything to Seattle because ARP was the most efficient and profitable division in the entire company.

Shortly before the Annual Report came out, Bartz came to ARP to speak to us about the ongoing analysis and what they planned. My manager asked if they had made any determination, yet. Bartz said no.

Then the Annual Report came out. In a note dated prior to her visit to ARP, Bartz said they had already chosen which plants to close. Shortly thereafter, Bartz announced she was going to close down everything at ARP but tech support and a small sales office.

In response, Nora went onto the company bulletin board, posted the financial analysis, which clearly demonstrated ARP was the most profitable part of the company, pointed out that after writing the note for the Annual Report saying she had already chosen which plants to close Bartz had told us they had not decided, yet, and asked on what basis ARP had been selected for closure.

For Nora, this was not some ego-drive act of defiance. She had (or, if she's still alive, has) leukemia and a small daughter to worry about. The cost of frequent blood transfusions is high, and without a job or health insurance to cover it, she would be in a world of hurt.

Bartz gave Nora less than a week to get her affairs in order, and issued a statement to the company that the decision had been made on the basis of sound business reasons. Rumor had it one of the reasons was her contract stipulated her office would remain near her home.

When I look for role models, Nora is near the top of my list. As for Bartz, if most of the women in high tech choose her as a role model, then that would explain much.

Women I've known

The Mining Company, October 1997 - According to Mining Company contributor Lynn Johnson, some of the warning signs a man is or might be abusive include:

...was the man abused as a child?
...was the man's mother abused by his father?
...does he lose his temper frequently and more easily than seems necessary?
...has he displayed violence against others?
...does he deal with his anger in violent ways?
...does he play with guns and use them to protect himself against others?
...does he drink alcohol excessively?
...does he display an unusual amount of jealousy:
- when you are not with him?
- toward significant others in your life?
...does he expect you to spend all your free time with him, or keep him informed of your whereabouts? Does he act unusually possessive of you and your time?
...does he become enraged when you don't listen to his advice?
...does he appear to have a dual personality?
...is there a sense of overkill in his cruelty or his kindness?
...is he a traditionalist, believing in male supremacy, and the stereotyped male role in the family?
...do you get a sense of fear when he becomes angry with you?
...does not making him angry become an important part of your behavior?

Sounds like a lot of women I've known. Clingy, controlling, complaining.

Intact families not the answer to poverty?

Detroit News, October 26, 1997 - In the October 12th issue of the Detroit News, Ronald Brownstein wrote that the battle to eliminate poverty must focus on fatherless families. Catherine Siegwart disagrees.

She became a single mother after leaving an abusive man, and while working toward a college degree, she chooses to remain a single mother. Good for her. The question of who is paying for her education aside, there's no use getting married just for the sake of having a spouse, working or otherwise.

She does, however, just miss the mark:

The reason there are so many more single families in poverty than married families has more to do with child support and a woman's self respect than having a man in the household. Absent fathers are not paying the support mothers need to cover bills and rise above poverty.

Self respect is key. What kind of women marry abusive men? Certainly not women with a lot of self respect.

Women who have self respect, respect men who treat them with respect and won't settle for less. As more women stop settling for less, more families will remain intact and fewer women will need welfare.

Fractional racism?

MSNBC - The Million Woman March featured, among other things, a banner with the old sixties slogan, "Black is Beautiful." Indeed, it is. However, one has to wonder why the banner showed a drawing of Africa in the background. Are these people Africans? Or, like the European invaders of the 15th and 16th Centuries, are they intent on imposing the rule of the land of their ancestors on Americans?

American Indians already know what that's like. Indeed, in Indian country, there is a term sometimes used to describe African-Americans: black-whites.

What will happen to all the special interest groups when, after several generations of inter breeding, virtually everyone is melado? Fractional-blacks vs. fractional-whites?

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