On March 26, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was sent to prison to serve a six-year sentence for raping a Miss Black America contestant. Before the verdict, the odds in Las Vegas (where you could place a bet on the trial) were running 5-to-1 in Tyson's favor.
After the judge's decision, people lined up to call Tyson the victim--of either a racist judicial system or a sporting establishment that encouraged his aggressive violence in the ring and looked the other way when it spilled over into streets, parking lots, and hotel rooms. His buddy Donald Trump suggested that if Tyson would just donate some of his millions to a rape crisis center all would be well.
But this time the perpetrator didn't get away with it. Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old college student, went up against Tyson's notoriety, wealth, and handlers--and won. This, despite the predictable efforts of the defense to blame her for her own suffering; despite Tyson's claim in his pleading before his sentencing that he was innocent because "there were no black eyes, no broken ribs." For rape survivors everywhere, Washington's courage brought new hope that justice is sometimes done.
The Tyson trial was only the most recent in a series of controversial skirmishes in the battle of the genders in late 1991 and early 1992. The one that first riveted the nation's attention, of course, was last October's confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. Although Anita Hill's charges against Thomas of sexual harassment were not enough to derail the Supreme Court nominee's confirmation, they served to bring the nation to a heightened sensitivity about the issue. According to The Washington Post, formal complaints of sexual harassment against corporate employers jumped substantially in the three months following the hearings, as did requests for sensitivity training and orders for a guidebook on combating sexual harassment in the workplace.
In December the nation was privy to live TV coverage of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial--and his acquittal. March brought Sen. Brock Adams' withdrawal of his re-election bid under the cloud of charges by eight women of sexual misconduct. Judith Lonnquist, a Washington state civil rights attorney and member of Adams' aborted re-election campaign, spoke of the widespread abuse of women by powerful men. "This issue is similar to incest, wife beating, and rape," said Lonnquist. "Everybody knows it exists, but society as a whole didn't talk about it until brave people stood up and talked about it. Anita Hill takes a lot of credit for that." Indeed, the nation is talking about it--and a whole range of issues that directly affect women.
IN THE REALMS of politics, education, health, and culture, women faced a formidable mix of good news and bad in the past few months. In Chicago, Carol Moseley Braun--who was disturbed by Sen. Alan J. Dixon's vote to confirm Clarence Thomas and ran on a strong women's-rights platform--defeated Dixon in the Illinois Democratic primary, an initial step toward becoming the first black woman in the U.S. Senate. But just two months before, a report by the American Association of University Women concluded that girls are still widely discriminated against in America's classrooms.
On the legislative front, a bill is pending in the Senate that would allow victims of sexual assault to sue the producers, distributors, and sellers of pornography if the victims can prove that the material was a "substantial cause" of their assault. Also, in light of a rise in reports of "stalking" of women by men--often ending in kidnapping and/or murder of the targets--a few states are beginning to consider legislation that would make stalking a crime.
The movie that swept the Academy Awards--The Silence of the Lambs--highlighted a serial killer who flayed his women victims. Other recent box-office hits include Cape Fear, about the stalking and assault of a teenager, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, the story of a psycho-nanny who brings horror into a family's home.
Some critics have seen these films as part of a decade-long backlash against feminism, a topic that merited the cover story of Time magazine's March 9 edition. Susan Faludi's Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women recently hit the best-seller list (along with Gloria Steinem's Revolution From Within) and ignited a firestorm. Faludi contends that a concerted effort has been under way to blame feminism for "every woe besetting women." The questions raised about Hillary Clinton's law career--and the flap about her unfortunate "tea and cookies" comment on her husband's campaign trail--show how close to the surface these issues still are.
Today 69 percent of women ages 18 to 64 are in the work force, compared to 33 percent in 1950. Such a societal change is bound to cause upheaval. The feminist backlash would have us believe that the answer is for these women to go back home.
But the only way ahead is forward. It is shocking that in a time when women's issues are making the news, barely a word has been said among the presidential candidates about public policy on child care and family leave, about unequal educational opportunities and the fact that women still make on the average only 71 cents for every dollar a man makes. A position on abortion does not a women's platform make.
In the past few months the door has been opened for the nation to look at itself once more in light of gender issues. Real progress has been made; even the existence of a backlash confirms that fact. But we must keep pushing that door open--until the nation can look at itself and see a society in which women are equal and safe.
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