~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE W.A.S.H. RAG published by Women Against Sexual Harassment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Available on-line ASAP at http://www.washrag.org/ or http://96.163.126.130 along with earlier issues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P. O. Box 164 Canton, SD 57013 Phone: (605) 987-5070 Fax: (605) 987-5070 -- call ahead, this is a one-liner All e-mail addresses in the W.A.S.H. Rag are "bleep" protected so those contributing will not be harassed with spam. Please replace the "(bleep)" with "@" (without the quote marks). Email: janetleih(bleep)washrag.org ISSN: 1068-2449 Free Newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WomenAgainstSexualHarassmentNational Want a print copy of the current W.A.S.H. Rag? Go to http://www.washrag.org/WASH/page27.html and follow the instructions. Hint: to find a specific item, if you are using Microsoft Notepad to view this, highlight and copy the title and then paste it in edit/find. Use View/word wrap to shorten line length ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Issue 15, Number 3 September, 2007 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Behind closed doors of a small New Jersey “professional” office Sexual Harassment at a Construction Company New Jersey Sexual Harassment Case Sexual Harassment News in the Media Defeating the Spammers Spoofing, An E-mail Nightmare ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Behind closed doors of a small New Jersey “professional” office ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ His behavior was shocking to all of us from the first encounter. He showed up on his interview with my female boss, Anne A., with a box of Godiva chocolate. And he was hired as a V.P. of Operations. Well, I guess it helps to put oil on a squeaking wheel. This position made him my immediate supervisor. I was employed as a senior accountant. I would prepare financial statements for small business investment companies and he would review them. In January of 2006 he came to my desk talking about some issues. After he launched a tirade of words, I tried to explain something to him, saying: “Please, Peter. May I say something?” His response was: “Yes you may, just because you are a woman.” I didn’t have time to react to this sexist remark when he suddenly threw another one. He jumped away from me, protecting his private parts with his hands and said: ”I have to protect myself, you Russians kick straight in the balls.” Probably I should have kicked him. But, I e-mailed one of the partners, David G., and I called him and I spent hours on a phone talking to him-—expecting help. I didn’t get any help. When I mentioned to Anne A. that Peter calls me the “girl who works for him,” she told me that I’m oversensitive. When I complained that he gets too close to me and that he uses any occasion to touch me, she was annoyed. When he patted my shoulder with his palm in front of her and I called for her attention, she just said to me: “So what if he is touching you, I’m touching you too,” and she patted my shoulder the same way he did. So from that point it was clear to me that there will be no help, not from Anne A., or from David G. or Allen G – The Partners. I decided to fight the harasser on my own – in a peaceful way. When he walks in the office, I would avoid him touching or bumping into me by keeping a very large distance between us. When he gave me a sleazy complement about my look or my clothes, I would just ignore it. When on many occasions he told me that he LOVES me, I decided to act: I took him to a business lunch and explained to him, to the V.P. of Operations, that his behavior is unprofessional, unacceptable, and unwelcome! The most difficult part was to keep the conversation on a decent professional level. When I would say, ”Please, Peter, don’t touch me, don’t bump into me, and do not invade my space. I don’t need to see your face half an inch from mine.” I actually wanted to scream: ”Please keep your ugly, saliva dripping face and your dirty fingers away from me. Leave me alone.” When I would say: “Peter, please don’t tell me your sexual stories about your daughter fucking her boyfriend on your new mattress,” I meant “What a kind of father are you? What is deeply wrong with you?” When I asked him: “Peter, please no more “L-word,” I don’t like it and I don’t want to hear it anymore,” well it was only one thought on my mind: “It is insulting to hear it from YOU.” How stupid and naďve I was. Of course it didn’t work! He had support from all The Partners. Anne A. was calling me oversensitive. She would tell me “toughen up, you are Russian.” The prevalent ignorance of her statement was insulting. David G. couldn’t help me either since he set up an example for Peter himself. Is it funny or it is very sad, to hear from your own boss that short men have big dicks? Or if he wouldn’t be a short, he would be a President of U.S. A man who is fairly educated, handled positions in Government office has said that? And for Allen G. – I’m not sure if he really tried to help me, or tried to smooth it out. But this is the separate story. In February 2007, Peter walked toward me, unzipped his pants saying that he wanted to show me something. I was totally cornered; there was no way to escape. And he was getting closer and closer with unzipped pants, with his hands inside his pants, with these words from his salivating mouth: “I have lucky here.” Actually “Lucky” was a jeans brand, printed inside his fly and he wanted to show me. He didn’t stop after all my protest and screams: “I don’t want to see your Lucky.” He was stopped by another employee. After this incident I was haunted by him on an everyday basis. I don’t know how I worked all those months, how I prepared all those financial statements, communicated to clients, and how I kept my sanity. He then became very cautious by watching his surroundings, and he would do it when nobody was around. He would brush over me and would bring me printouts from the printer to get very close to me. He got aggressive, slammed his door in my face, yelled at me and slammed file cabinet drawers in front of me. I guess in despair to get my attention, in any way, he walked very close to me and farted directly in my face. I eventually filed a police report. I’m asking myself, why I had stayed there for 2 and half years. There are hundreds of other jobs. Why did I tolerate sexual harassment from Peter S. for a year and a half? Why I didn’t fight all of them legally? Well, I guess I was under Anne A.’s spell. Her words: “toughen up, don’t be so sensitive, Peter is nice, you are the trouble maker.” I remember her scolding me, making me out as the guilty one. I had a lot of respect for Anne A. for being a woman and a “successful” small business owner. By insisting that Peter’s behavior is completely normal and that I was the one who needed an adjustment. She made me believe that even if I don’t like his behavior, I should tolerate it. But the truth abut Anne is very simple – it is easier to replace an accountant or an administrative assistant than Peter S. according to her own words. Or it is not that simple. Maybe she got caught between a stone and hard place. I could take legal action against her company, but maybe Peter could reveal dirty company secrets-—like over-billing clients or dumping sensitive client information such as tax returns and subscription agreements in the local dumpster. Well the story has a happy ending. I have gotten help calling a sexual harassment hot line. After a few months of therapy with professional social workers and psychologists, I regained my self-esteem, self-worth and my strong spirit. I’m happy now working with professional people in a respectful company. Natalia S. semoyn11(bleep)yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sexual Harassment at a Construction Company ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As it stands for me now...I have a law firm that filed with the EEOC. Who seems to be taking their time. It has been 10 months since a complaint was filed. The law firm is FINALLY preparing papers to file with the courts depending on the EEOC's decision. I can't believe it takes this long. I can't believe my lawyers are just getting around to preparing papers! The communication with them is poor. Almost to the point of being fired. What happened to be brought to this point? Well I worked for a Construction company. A very big one. Well my supervisor at first did not like me and treated me as if we were in boot camp. Finding fault in everything I did and getting on my case about everything and belittling me in front of others. He had basically asked another female employee to fire me. Well she found nothing wrong in my work and did not do so. HE made my life a nightmare. Materials came up missing and of course it was my fault for miscounting "3" times. Then came the day HE tried to hit me with a pickup truck. There were 4 witnesses and they asked what I did wrong for him to do that. One of them said he told HIM to stop. Of course I went to the highest office and HR about this incident. Nothing was done but HE did get a talking to and then I was told if I have a problem with HIM from now on to go directly to HIM! "He" himself told me this. Well then it turned from getting yelled at everyday and trying to explain missing materials to "come and spend the weekend with me" asked by HIM. He went as far as to ask an emplyeee (same woman as HE asked to fire me) to ask me if I would go to the movies with him. Of course the answer was "NO" as it was to the invitations to his apartment. HE even bought me 4 sets of seasonal pajamas to wear while I was with HIM. This set off the everyday advances. Inappropriate touching me, comments and conversation. I tried to stay away from him and avoid him as much as possible. He then turned back to harassing me again with my work and trying to get others to fire me. HE went as far as to hire someone to fire me. HE also stopped me from advancing in my work and getting a raise and promotion. I went to many others about what was going on as well as Human Resources many times. The man in HR wanted me to jump out of a birthday cake on his birthday so I can understand why he was of little help. When HR finally submitted a complaint to corporate my supervisor was transferred to another state but kept his job. I was under the impression he was fired Well I was then given another office and a new supervisor but, in the office next to mine was another man that became a problem. This man actually came up behind me and kissed me. When I told him to not do that any more he became a nightmare to work beside, constantly interfering in my work. He was a complete nuisance. He hung out with the cleaning lady a lot. On October 12th this lady grabbed a door and jerked it while I had a hold of it and pulled on my arm. I went to my supervisor about this and he said "that must have hurt" and then shut his door. So Friday the 13th was my last day. I asked for a layoff and I got one from my supervisor but HR fought it. I finally got an unemployment check 4 months later. Both my supervisor and HR didn't know what I looked like from the neck up. This job was a nightmare for 10 months that I was employed there. My arm is still not healed and has cost me another job, my home and my car. It has basically ruined my life. There are many things that happened to me daily at this job. Supervisor #1 was the worst. It shouldn't have gone on so long and it most certainly shouldn't have been ignored. There were 2 other women that suffered because of this man's harassment. One quit after a month and the other quit after 2 months. HE hit one on the butt and the other was verbally harassed. It was appalling. Others in the "higher up" office positions just watched this go on. This was stuff one would watch in a TV movie. I can't believe it actually happened. They tried to fire me. I was laid off after an injury. I haven't worked there since October 13th last year. I have lawyers about this. It was the worst experience of my life. I loved my job but sometimes a sacrifice has to be made to keep my sanity as well as my life. Brenda Roberts cherri1260(bleep)yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New Jersey Sexual Harassment Case ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From Waltor Willis: The state of New Jersey has filed a sexual harassment complaint against a Camden coffee shop, called the City Coffee Shop, operated by Ronald Ford Jr. It was located across the street from the Camden City Hall. Clippings sent to me, from the Philadelphia Daily News, said that “a hostile work environment prevailed at City Coffee, with Ford allegedly engaging in a ‘pattern of practice of subjecting female employees to lewd comments, unwanted touching and repeated requests for sexual favors.’” One woman accompanied Ford to his office allegedly to discuss her being promoted to assistant manager, where he is said to have made “unwanted physical overatures” toward her, then fired her when she reported the alleged harassment to other employees, then to the Camden police. The article also says that other female employees had quit in order to avoid being harassed. The article goes on to explain that the suit, filed by the state Division of Civil Rights, normally only handles complaints that involve public accommodation like movie theaters that are not handicapped accessible, but that this case was so egregious that it needed to be handled in civil court. If found guilty, Ford will be forced to change his policies and pay legal fees and pay punitive damages. Another clipping from Waltor Willis is about a grant awarded by the state of New Jersey to help four area organizations that help female victims of violence. Receiving the grants were the New Jersey Association of Corrections, Camden Women’s Center, the Center for Family Services and the Camden Center for Law and Social Justice, all in Camden County, and the Catholic Charities Providence House in Burlington County. The amount of the grants in the Camden area were $45,000. Statewide, nearly a million dollars were contributed to similar organizations. There are several interesting things about these clippings, not the least of which is that the initial complaint was with Camden police. But the State of New Jersey assuming the responsibility for punishing behavior of this kind is extremely encouraging. The generous funding of institutions helping women in abusive situations is also very encouraging. Thanks to Waltor Willis for these clippings. If you have any sexual harassment news in your area, send clippings to W.A.S.H. Rag Editor Janet Leih at P. O. Box 164, Canton, SD 57013. Send e-mail items to washragezine(bleep)yahoo.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sexual Harassment News in the Media ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On July 9, KMEG in Sioux City carried a story on its evening news about a doctor, Dwight Frederick King, who was employed at the Yankton Human Services Center, being accused of inappropriate physical contact with mental patients. On September 3, Dateline NBC had a wonderful program hosted by “Wild Bill” Stanton about how to protect yourself from various kinds of criminals. This included home invaders and pick-pockets, but one of his guests was a woman who had been a victim of date rape after having drunk a drink she thinks was tainted with the date rape drug, Ruhipnol. She says there are strips you can carry in your purse that you can dip into your drink, and if the date rape drug has been added to your drink, they will change color. I called the local drug store and they are apparently not available in Sioux Falls at this time. If you know anything about this, let us know at washragezine(bleep)yahoo.com. On September 7, NOW on PBS had a program on sexual assault in the military. This was a comprehensive program and had contributions from women working to help victims at the VA. She is sure that there will be a “surge” of victims after women return from the combat zone. One point that was made is that sexual harassment in the military is more egregious than in the civilian population because the victim cannot leave. The VA has found that sexual harassment leads to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, I believe it can lead to that in the civilian population as well. September 9, KSFY in Sioux Falls carried a story about Bradley Oakley, former teacher and coach in Gayville-Volin schools. He was on trial for sexually assault of a female student who says she was assaulted at an athletic event. Both KTPH and KMEG in Sioux City carried stories about a sexual harassment case at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City on September 17. Four nurses had complained of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment. Their head nurse, a male, had exposed himself repeatedly and also committing such lewd acts as were inappropriate to mention on TV. When they complained, nothing was done about the problem and they were eventually fired in retaliation. The nurse complaints were filed against is no longer employed at Mercy Medical Center. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Defeating the Spammers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Looking for something on a search engine several weeks ago, I noticed a listing for the W.A.S.H. Rag on http://www.wifp.org/DWM/periodicals.html. When I went there, I found that they had the most amazing worldwide listing of women's periodicals I had ever encountered, including a listing for the W.A.S.H. Rag. It never ceases to amaze me what women can do to help other women when they take some little corner of the woman's world and concentrate on it, and this is a shining example. But it took me a few days of working with this listing to realize the really clever way they had found to protect their listees from being spammed. I kept seeing [no.spam*] in what appeared to be e-mail addresses. Then I noticed the disclaimer at the front of the list: “Email address alteration necessary: To avoid spam ‘harvesters‘ of email, we have substituted @ with [no.spam*] -- therefore, when using these email addresses you must replace [no.spam*] with @. We are sorry for this inconvenience but we want to spare these women the spam they are likely to receive as a result of publishing their email address on the internet. Our print edition has the unaltered email addresses.” What they had done, is to replace all the @ with something the spammers would not be able to recognize. Since much if not most spam comes from harvesting e-mail addresses from web sites, they would be saving their listees from at least some of the spam being promulgated. I have anti-spammed washrag.org, but I used a different replacement than wifp did. I would suggest that anyone considering doing this on their web site select their own delimiters ("[ ]" at wifp.org) and a different keyword (no-spam* at wifp.org) to be replaced. We did, by doing that, the spammers will have to change their search argument for every website they search. You know, like having different passwords. I suppose that eventually, the spammers will figure out a way around this as well, but at least this makes it harder for them. I have made making changes like this easier for myself by having my contacts in a separate directory and linking to it from wherever the person is in the site. Thanks to Women for Freedom of the Press for both the listing and the anti-spam suggestion. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Spoofing, An E-mail Nightmare ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have finally found out why I seem to lose contact with people who e-mail me. The new e-mail I got when I changed web site hosts the last time has the option to create a blacklist. I have utilized this, and was surprised that fairly often, e-mail addresses of people I knew, like my daughter or organizations that i have contact with, ended up on the list although I was very careful not to put them on the blacklist. Then I noticed that my OWN e-mail address, as well as other names@my-domain.com were on the black list. Then, I noticed some of them on the delete list I get after I have added an e-mail to the blacklist. Going back to the e-mail itself, it then had a different FROM: entry, it had "TO: myemailaddress". I did not recognize any of the names on the e-mails I selected to go on the blacklist. Recently I got a bounce for an e-mail I never sent out. I was puzzling over that, when I noticed the entry I mentioned above with the same subject entry. Apparently, the mailer of that e-mail had sent the same e-mail to me and to someone whose mailbox was full, so the bounced e-mail returned to me instead of to him. To my amazement, the e-mail address of the actual sender was included. To read the two e-mail that opened my eyes to what spoofers were doing to WASH, go to http://www.washrag.org/WASH/spoofede-mail.txt and http://www.washrag.org/WASH/spoofeddeliverynotice.txt. You can see that if you or practically anyone got this e-mail about a porn site, they would put it on their black list or mark it as spam, as I was doing. That means, MY E-MAIL ADDRESS WAS ACTUALLY GOING ON THEIR BLACK LIST OR BEING MARKED AS SPAM. The mystery has been solved, I'm not sure what I can do about it, as I am sure this has been going on for years, I've been getting strange bounces for e-mails I had not sent, but it really didn't dawn on me why or what the ramifications were. I did forward both to spam@uce.gov that is interested in getting spam forwarded to them, and also placed a complaint with the FBI at http://www.IC3.gov, but I am not sure that either will do any good. I suggest that you do the same with any bounced e-mail that you know you did not send out, as it indicates that someone is spoofing your e-mail address, and they may be doing the same for you (making sure the recipient is putting you on their blacklist). It seems that my e-mail addresses have all been made useless. If you have a black list, you might check to see if janetleih(bleep)washrag.org, washragezine(bleep)yahoo.com, information(bleep)tesseractpublications.com, or tesseractsd(bleep)lycos.com show up on it. If so, try to delete them off and add them to your white list. Adding e-mail addresses to your address book is said to guarantee delivery, I don't know how accurate that information is. I hope you will join me in launching an attack on them by reporting suspicious e-mail, especially bounced e-mails to people you never heard of, to spam@uce.gov and the FBI at http://www.ic3.gov. I have also started using auto-responders for both washrag.org and tesseractpublications.com. This will return e-mail to every spammer and will also send me a delivery notice if they are using my e-mail addresses for spoofing. I am hoping to hear from other victims so I can send them information about how to file complaints. To read more about this, go to http://www.haltabuse.org/help/header.shtml Janet Leih ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join WASH, send $20.00 Elisa Pedroza, Treasurer of Women Against Sexual Harassment, 8048 Meraz Ave., El Paso, TX 79907 for US, $40.00 US for outside the US. Donations in any amount are accepted at the same address. Would you like to serve on the WASH board of directors? If so, contact WASH President Janet Leih at janetleih(bleep)washrag.org. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WE’RE ON THE WEB http://www.washrag.org/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This on-line version of THE WASHRAG is being sent to you free. A print version can be obtained by subscribing. In the US, send $20.00 to Women Against Sexual Harassment Treasurer Elisa M. Pedroza,8048 Meraz Ave., El Paso, TX 79907. Outside the US, send $40.00 to join. For a sample issue, send a #10 sized SASE. E-mail comments can be sent to janetleih(bleep)washrag.org. To sign up for a free e-mail subscription to the W.A.S.H. Rag join the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WomenAgainstSexualHarassmentNational There is an option to join the group without receiving the newsletter and just logging in to read it whenever you want. If you do not wish to receive further copies of this newsletter, unsubscribe going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WomenAgainstSexualHarassmentNational and removing your name from the list ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ copyright 2007 Tesseract Publications, P. O. Box 164 Canton, SD 57013-0164 (605) 987-5070. ISSN: 1068-2449