Like a lot of Americans -- women and men -- I woke up yesterday morning surprised and disillusioned by the news of the dismissal of all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn for sexual assault against a hotel maid last May.
Before I could even absorb the story, the screaming had already begun, as each side in this awful affair blasted the other with anger and recrimination.
But all I could think of was that picture I saw in the paper last spring of that proud army of hotel maids in their grey uniforms -- their fists in the air and fire in their eyes -- gathered outside the courthouse where Strauss-Kahn was being arraigned, to at last make their voices heard.
I hope these women know that, although this case has been dismissed, their outrage, their sense of justice, and their long repressed fury has not been dismissed. Not by a long shot. And not by a lot of us. The siren these women sounded cannot be silenced. And that fire in their souls cannot be extinguished -- but it can be stoked by their new awareness that they, indeed, can and will be heard.
Let every hotel guest who thinks about dropping his pants along with his decency know that these women are no longer going to cower in fear for their jobs. Those days are over. In this new day, this ever growing army of women will be sharing notes and collecting evidence so that we may witness a critical mass of reported offenses. There is no turning back now -- back to a time when their dignity was held as valuable as the trash they carried out of those shameful rooms.
The bravery of these women represents the end of silence, not just for hotel workers, but for all working women -- from boardrooms to showrooms to storerooms
Yes, the news this week was discouraging. But the real case is far from closed.
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Women are given advice about protecting themselves in such situations. They are told, Dont resist. And they are told, Fight for your life. Sometimes women are killed for fighting for their life, or for screaming for help. There is no one way these situations work themselves through in real life. Sometimes women lose their jobs when they complain and ask for help. So sometimes women just give in.
Being the one in the right is no guarantee that justice will be done. It's more about power, and politics, and who looks worth taking the side of, to bystanders and authorities doing the judging. Claiming emotional trauma only works if the ones in authority are on your side. If they're not, they can choose to use that against you, rather than work towards a fair solution.
Emotional trauma isn't a female coping mechanism. That idea sets feminism, and women's place in the world, back 200 years.
There's no suggestion that the maids will be less likely to be believed in future. The circumstances under which she couldn't keep her story straight had to do with seeking asylum, I do believe. Maybe she did exaggerate, but that doesn't mean she lied about this current accusation.
What is harmful is the message sent to rapists, that accusations made by women are hard to prove and depend a great deal on the legitimacy of the woman herself. Thus, if one must rape, choose someone vulnerable, with no power.
Read this one by Hugo Schwyzer: 'Overselling agency: a reply to Barry Dank on teacher-student sex' - http://hugoschwyzer.net/2010/09/30/overselling-agency-a-reply-to-barry-dank-on-teacher-student-sex/ . Rather than see sexual relationships in terms of 'consent' one can examine them according to 'power imbalance'.
How this relates to the Strauss-Kahn incident is interesting, as she, a maid, seemed to have a great deal of power at first. Most women don't even get as far as getting a lawyer or making an official complaint. However, that was overturned. What exactly happened we don't know for sure. But if anything did, how likely is it that it could be viewed as by mutual consent, of equals?
http://www.worldcrunch.com/making-war-not-love-french-view-sex-america-abu-ghraib-dsk/3642
"The complainanÂt [N. Diallo] volunteereÂd that she had previously been gang raped by soldiers who had invaded her home in Guinea ... She offered precise and powerful details about the number and nature of her attackers and the presence of her 2-year-old daughter at the assault scene, who, she said, was pulled from her arms and thrown to the ground.... She identified certain visible scars on her person, which she claimed were sustained during the attack... The complainanÂt recounted the rape with great emotion and convictionÂ: she cried, spoke hesitatingÂly, and appeared understandÂably distraughtÂ, and ... even laid her head face down on her arms on a table in front of her... [Later] the complainanÂt admitted to prosecutorÂs that she had entirely fabricated this attack. When asked to explain why, she initially stated that she had lied ... because she had included it in her applicatioÂn for asylum, and she was afraid to vary from her applicatioÂn statement; she also stated that ... she was not under oath. When confronted with the fact that her written asylum applicatioÂn statement made no mention of the gang rape, she stated that she had fabricated the gang rape ... in collaboratÂion with an unnamed male with whom she consulted as she was preparing to seek asylum"
Then why participate in the same?
But I do agree that this case may help women to fight off harassment in the work place.
Just as Clarence Thomas hearings have helped women in the corporate and educational world.
But no, I don't see how this case would help woman fight sh at work. There has been no resolution here. Did the Anita Hill case help women at all? I don't think so. What it did do was lead men to find more subtle ways of harassing women, or of approaching them to look for favourable responses. If they didn't respond the way he had hoped, he could simply move on to the next.
But then the rest of your post proves exactly the opposite that the case helped to reduce job harassment and create a more tolerance work environment.
Or would it remind you cases in the past, where black men were prosecuted and put in prison for rape based on no evidence at all but the word of the white "victim"?
Restaurants have the highest operating costs and the lowest profit margins (not including wine and liquor) Why do you think 3/4 of them go under in the 1st 6 months? That $30 cut of steak isn't $30 of profit. It goes to pay the vendor (contrary to popular belief, restaurants pay MORE for food because they get first dibs and better quality), the rent, the chef, the manager, the server, the bartender, the hostess, the food prepper, the dishwasher, the hydro, the electricity, food loss, etc. All said and done, restaurants are lucky to see even $5 of that $30. Out of that $5, you then expect them to pay servers $25/hr? (average wage in tips) Or do you expect servers to wait on you hand and foot while you scream at them, for min. wage?