dober 16,1991
Opinion
^Wednesday, October 16, 1991
The Battalion
Page 9
;en Sept. 27
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EDITORIfiL
Editorials expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of
Regents.
Cadet should take legal action
It is time women take legal action in cases of sexual and physical harass-
Iment.
If women do not press charges, how will anyone learn that such violent
and abusive behavior is inappropriate and inexcusable? If charges are not
filed, no real punishment can be handed down; the message that violent
’behavior is acceptable is reinforced.
On Monday the female Corps of Cadets member who alleged she was
assaultedon Sept. 17 by members of the Parsons 7 Mounted Cavalry report
ed she was attacked again by two men. The victim of this alleged attack,
however, reportedly refused to cooperate with the University Police De
partment to substantiate her charges.
Certainly there are many more questions than answers at this stage. Be-
|cause this cadet reportedly refused to take the steps necessary to prove her
allegations, students are beginning to discredit the cadet's reports because
no action is being taken.
Unfortunately, the present state of affairs parallels the Anita Hill-
| Clarence Thomas controversy. Because Hill did not press charges years ago,
the public and Congress seemed less likely to believe her story when the al
legations resurfaced recently.
It is obvious that if this female cadet's accusations are true, all internal
steps taken by Texas A&M and the Corps to protect individuals' rights
have failed.
The Faculty Senate on Monday renewed their call for a review of the
Corps.
These administrative actions, however, will have little impact on the
problem of harassment and discrimination at A&M. What will hit home is
legal action.
We can honestly sympathize with the fear, intimidation, distrust and
horror this woman is feeling. But we feel angered that no one truly seems
to be able to do anything about such abhorrent acts. That power belongs to
I I the victim.
The Battalion Editorial Board
Dangers of everyday
eal life frights vs.
alloween horrors
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I t's almost Halloween again.
To celebrate this spooky day,
.we wjll all weapeostu'mes and
masks, carry daggerseand glowing
pumpkins, disguise ourselves as
someone else, scare and fool friends
and strangers and become
w itches and cast spells.
I But since we have inte-
grated pretence and disguis-
|es into our everyday life,
since we live in society bur-
■ened with violence and
fcme, since even our gov-
■rnment is trying to fool us,
ve have rendered Hal
loween obsolete. Our life is
fa • more spooky.
I Just pondering over last
■ear gives enough examples
of the "Halloweenness" of
lour life. The Persian Gulf
"\ ideo game" War is a
g|rominent memory. The
heavy censorship of the war
: coverage led millions into be
ing oblivious to the ordeals
and torment of Iraqis who will be suf-
Itring the consequences for years to
come.
I It is a common belief of Ameri
cans, reinforced and reiterated by
politicians and military men, that this
was a "clean, painless" war. How can
a war be clean when it contributed to
the death and suffering of hundreds
of thousands of people? How can a
war be painless when thousands of
Iraqi and Kurdish mothers had to
helplessly watch their children
IScream from the pain of malnutrition?
1 Should this part of the war not be
■mphasized so Americans are not led
to believe war is a video game with
no disastrous effects? Next to what's
[been going on in the gulf war, Hal-
Ipween is truly child's play.
I And if you want a lesson in how
to disguise yourself to fool everyone,
our own president is the ultimate ex
pert. In his address to the nation on
the first day of the gulf war, Bush told
the American people that violence
from a strong nation against a weak
neighbor is unacceptable and aggres
sion cannot be tolerated.
A few months afterward. Bush
was in Turkey, kissing his long time
I pal Turgut Ozal, praising Turkey for
‘ its support and declaring Turkey an
invaluable ally and friend — Turkey,
a country that after 17 years now oc-
gupies almost 40 percent of the island
of Cyprus. The same Turkey, which
for 17 years has stubbornly disobeyed
all UN resolutions concerning the
Cyprus issue, is an invaluable friend.
And, in this case, aggression can be
tolerated and supported.
If this is not Halloweenishly scary.
Christina
Maima rides
Maimaridcrs is a
graduate student
in business
administration.
a perfect disguise, then nothing is! ’
Who needs symbolic witches
when we have Leona Helmsley and
the different bitches of our daily soap
operas? Who needs little red devils,
when we have crack dealers, Norie
gas and CIA agents? Who
is scared by plastic daggers
and draculas when we have
real serial killers chopping
up and cooking their vic
tims? What fear do we have
of ghosts and goblins when
the phantom of economic re
cession looms over our
heads ominously?
The elusive ghost of re
covery, which usually re
sides deep in the complex
statistical formulas used to
generate the conflicting eco
nomic indicators, made sev
eral appearances in Bush's
dreams. The day following
such appearances, headlines
in newspapers announce the
exorcism of recession. The
stock market jumps up with excite
ment, only to dive again a few days
later after the publication of a new
bunch of economic indicators that
show the recession has risen from the
dead.
Who fears witches and warlocks
when our economy seems to be in a
trance? Who fears spells when our
homeless population, our unemploy
ment figures, our bad debts are grow
ing almost exponentially?
Perhaps the only special character
istic which distinguishes it as a differ
ent day, is the donning of masks and
costumes. But now that Gaultier and
Madonna prescribe so much of fash
ion, costume is the rule of the day,
and there is no need for occasion. As
for masks, cheap plastic surgery has
made them obsolete. Everybody has
them — males, females, politicians,
actors, business people, housewives ...
Halloween — the season to wear a
costume and pretend your someone
else. We should all do well this Hal
loween. We are trained to wear
masks and costumes that fit our role
and act out award-winning roles.
We are trained by the experts, by
our government, our politicians, our
CIA, our TV, our evangelists. We are,
in fact, so conditioned that few of us
feel confident to be ourselves. We live
Halloween our whole life, and all the
characteristics of Halloween are inte
gral components of our culture, our
society, our government practices.
So put on a new mask this Hal
loween. And if you want to do some
thing completely different, just be
yourself. Relax, no one will probably
recognize you.
Allegations not 'real' harassment
Hill's accusations could damage future cases made by women
T here was a lot of controversy surrounding the
Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation
hearings. The most recent of these was a sur
prise witness who appeared in the form of Anita Hill
two days before the end of the hearings. Hill claims the
associate justice sexually harassed her while she worked
under him.
This is not about the farce confirmation hear
ings have become. Neither is it about whether
Hill's claims actually happened or about the in
tegrity of Thomas. It is about sexual harassment
and the trivialization of a serious social problem.
A person from the Bryan Police Department
helped me with the Equal Employment Oppor
tunity Commission's definition of sexual harass
ment. The term was defined under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, Title ii.
Sexual harassment is basically defined as un
welcomed sexual advances, requests for sexual
favors and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual
nature when submission or refusal interferes
with work performance or creates an intimidat
ing, hostile, or offensive work environment.
As with all laws dealing with fairness, in
cluding anti-sexual harassment laws, the main
problem of enforcement is defining exactly what the
problem is. What is sexual harassment? Is telling a dirty
joke harassment? In my opinion no. Dirty jokes and
discussions about sex are not harassment. Thomas also
is accused of asking Anita Hill out on dates. If that is ha
rassment, I'm guilty hundreds of times over. Bosses
who are interested in their employees are not harassing
women unless the woman's performance on the job is
disturbed by them.
If discrimination can be ranked, sexual harassment is
one of the worst. But what happened to Hill, assuming
that it did happen, was not harassment. Sexual harass
ment includes the idea that a woman must do or submit
to actions usually uncalled for in an office before she can
be promoted. Not only that, but a woman who rejects
the advances will not get promoted and will probably
lose her job. None of these things ever happened to Ani
ta Hill.
She testifies that she said no to date proposals, but
she was never hindered in her job progress because of
that. The allegations she brought against Thomas are
too numerous to list here, but if your are interested, any
paper from the past week has them.
Anita Hill is making things very bad for women who
have actually been sexually harassed. The accusations
made by her seem arbitrary. It is her word against his.
This confirmation hearing was not a trial, but if it were,
each side would have to try to convince 12 peo
ple that their word is more correct than their op
ponent's. Men sitting on a jury in this case, or
those watching the hearings around the country,
will have the question pop into their minds:
"What if this happened to me?" Any woman
working for them or with them in the same of
fice might stand and accuse them of sexual ha
rassment.
I predict that compliments for how women
look will rapidly decline in the work place with
an atmosphere where everyone has to guard
what they say to avoid offending anyone. Some
woman might take such speech as harassment,
or it might become harassment in their memory.
That is bad news, and it is sad.
It's sad because a few bosses still do chase
their secretaries around their desks, and men
still do pinch working ladies' thighs. Bosses still
do expect that single women in the office would
love to go out with them, and bosses still do fire those
women who spurn their advances. Some men still do
make more comments about breast size than dress color,
and still phrase their compliments in a very sexual man
ner. This is what real sexual harassment is.
Juries and judges in America will become so disgust
ed with Hill and people with similar stories that women
with valid cases will find it hard to receive justice.
Women who cannot tune out locker-room talk or who
make innocuous comments out to be sexual advances
trivialize and cheapen real cases of sexual harassment.
Hill's allegations should never have been leaked to
the public — it smacks of partisan politics of the worst
kind. The publicity these weak harassment allegations
have received will lessen the chances that future real ha
rassment cases will be tried fairly and the perpetrators
punished.
To destroy the chances of thousands of women to re
ceive justice just to harm a the reputation of a nominee
to the Supreme Court is despicable.
Mail Call
Reckless driver
kills squirrel
❖ I just learned a lesson and not a
happy one.
As I was walking from the MSC to
my philosophy class in the Horticulture
Forestry Sciences Building (figure that
one out), a car passed by the section of
sidewalk on which I was walking. This
car was going very fast and almost hit
two girls walking behind me who had
decided to cross the street. Luckily for
them, they saw the car soon enough, but
a squirrel was not so lucky.
I am as guilty as anyone, and maybe
even more so, of flying through campus
when I have to drive through it. Not
anymore. The person driving the car
probably doesn't even know they hit the
squirrel or that the squirrel flopped
around on the ground for a full two min
utes dying. I didn't know what to do
since there was nothing around large
enough to put the squirrel down on. Af
ter it finally died, I walked over and
moved it out of the middle of the road
and covered with the debris on the side.
I guess what I'm trying to say is from
now on I'm going to be more careful of
how I drive on campus and everywhere
else. I wish I didn't have to get "slapped
in the face" like this to realize that we all
need to slow down.
C.J- Mclaughlin '94
Bad bull stinks
up campus
❖ Bad bull is stinking up this cam
pus. In fact it's sticking to my shoes
when I walk down the street.
When you chose to come to Ag-
gieland, you probably were impressed
with how friendly we were to each other
and to you. The spirit of Aggieland and
the unity we have as Aggies are by far
the best things about Texas A&M. They
are what Silver Taps and Aggie Muster
are all about, and they are the reason
Aggie boys rose to the top of the heap to
become the epitome of gentlemen.
Today there is much separation be
tween the Corps of Cadets and non-regs,
between Greeks and non-Greeks and be
tween two-percenters and everybody.
This separation permeates so much of
our lives from the classroom to Duncan
field. Separation was not a part of OT
Army, it should not be a part of the Ag
gieland we know either.
Remember where you are and who
you are the next time you see somebody
you don't know walking on campus,
when you meet an old Ag or a professor
and when you do things with your out
fit, your hall or our Greek organization.
Be the embodiment of the true Aggie
and treat your fellow Ags with the
pride, honor and respect that comes
with attending this University.
Jayson Aydelotte '94
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