For those of us who were young adults in the 1980s, today's War on Women seems quaint. The Bill Cosby meme disaster is so last week, but I am struck by what the trolls are saying about what happened 30 years ago. I've heard, "Where's the police report?", "Where's the evidence of an HR investigation?", "Where's the proof?", "Where's the DA report?".
I had a front row seat in the working world of the 1980s. It's true you can't take these 6 or 7 anecdotes and say that's the way it was everywhere for everyone in the 1980s, but I think my experiences are fairly typical for the time. Here's (IMO) why there's no police, DA, or HR reports and not enough proof to satisfy all who ask.
UPDATE: This diary needs a trigger warning. If you are sensitive to sexual harassment and/or rape narratives, the stories I tell in this diary may be disturbing to you.
On The Job
Job 1
In 1980 I was working as a commercial artist using old school techniques of paper, rapidographs, markers and exacto knives. My type setting computer had "floppy disks" that weighed 5 pounds for each font. My first job was in a community newspaper where the (married) press room supervisor routinely came into the artists' studio and groped every women he could find including me. He would chase us, capture us and abuse us. It was blatant, humiliating and incredibly aggravating. I complained, but it was clear the press room guy was more important to the operation. So, I looked for another job. That was typical of how sexual harassment was handled in 1980. Except this story has a bit of karma to it.
One day I was stripping color the old way and didn't know he was behind me ready to pounce. I was leaning over the light table deciding where to make my next cut with my exacto blade straight up in my hand resting on the table near my hip. He leaned over to give me a "hug" and ripped open his arm. He cut an artery. There was blood everywhere. Being a good girl scout, I stopped the bleeding and called out for someone to call for an ambulance. He was surprisingly accepting of what had happened and didn't curse me out. He left for the hospital. My shift was over. I went home and stepped up my job hunt. I gave notice a couple weeks later and they told me I didn't need to serve a two week notice. My new employer was happy to take me early. I never looked back.
Job 2
My new job was with a discount retailer's advertising department and I worked my way from artist to production manager. The dark room still used old school developing. It was a great job until they fired the Department manager and replaced him with an ex-marine colonel to be the operations manager and an incredibly wonderful creative manager. The colonel would harass several young woman in the department, including me every day in a round robin-like manner. The creative manager would create reasons for us to do our work in his office but neither he nor management stopped the colonel. I was in an abusive marriage at the time and once my abusive husband figured out what was going on.....well, I found another job.
3 Jobs Later
Some years later, I had a divorce, my degree and was no longer being stalked by my ex. I was working for the largest bank in Florida handling credit card and check services for retailers. I was newly single and lived alone. My unit had about 14 employees and we'd meet for drinks after work now and then. I was liberal even then. One of the men couldn't stand my independence, politics and my unwillingness to date him. He would ambush me every chance he got. He thought it was his civic duty to turn me into a proper Republican. My complaints to my supervisor and HR were met with blaming me. Somehow I encouraged his boorish behavior. You guessed it, I found another job.
My experience wasn't unusual
Every time sexual harassment on the job came up at a social function among women I'd hear a story as bad or worse than mine. Women got harassed for wearing too much clothing, too little clothing. We were too approachable or too stand offish. We drank too much, or too little. We were pushy or too agreeable. And, if we weren't on the pole of one standard or another, we were too meh; we didn't stand for anything. We were discounted and diminished, laughed at and laughed with; what we weren't is taken seriously because we all were going to become Moms one day anyway. (It's not much different today in some ways.) There was no sense in complaining, we moved onto new jobs because management didn't care. The more superficial I was, the further I advanced.
In 1991 Anita Hill came forward about Clarence Thomas' behavior and we know how that history played out. There was no reason to complain about sexual harassment, can you imagine what happened to women who were raped?
Date Rape
The 1980s was a great time to live in Miami. The night scene was great. The Agora Ballroom drew name bands. Pot was everywhere. Women didn't fear leaving their drinks unattended. People went out and had a great time. That worked most of the time. What was not well understood was the idea of date rape or acquaintance rape. If you were consensually alone with a man, then what happened was on you.
Friend 1
A friend of mine was date raped. She was understandably upset. She was hiding bruises on her wrists and arms by wearing long sleeves in 90 degree heat. She didn't need to feel ashamed. She was in supportive company, but I understand why she didn't want anyone to know about the bruises. She had known this man for months, she took it slow until she trusted him. They went out. They had a great time. He didn't accept her no to sex when she kissed him good night. Weeks later she reported the incident. The police officer who took her report told her she was wasting his time, she waited too long to report it, she had let him into her house; what did she expect?
Friend 2
Another time I went to a different friend's house for a Saturday brunch. She apologized for not having called me to cancel. I immediately knew something was wrong. She had a first date the previous evening and I was supposed to get the dish on it that morning. She let me in. At first she wouldn't talk about her date and we made small talk. Then she broke down and the story came out. It was clear she had a great time up until he didn't want to leave without having sex the night before. It wasn't physically violent, but it was a relentless physical coercion. He may have thought he was seductive. She thought differently. She was a afraid of him. Afraid to stop him. She didn't participate, which ticked him off. He insulted her, called her a bum fuck, lifeless fuck and he left clueless of what he had done. She wouldn't report the rape, "It was my fault!", she said, "I went out with him. I kissed him! What did I expect?"
It would have been bad enough had her story ended there, but it didn't. Although she didn't work with him, she had met him though work; so she saw him frequently at work. He was angry and trash talked her among the men. It was intolerable. She found a new job.
Friend 3
My sister had a party at her home one weekend. I went over the next day to help clean up. My sister had her arm around her roommate who was sobbing. The had never gone to sleep. The roommate had become drunk the night before and my sister had put her to bed before returning to the party. One of the men at the party went into her room and had raped her. She came to, during the episode and freaked out, shrieking for the guy to get off of her and get out. Many of the party guests had left already. The few remaining heard the ruckus and didn't stick around. The neighbor down the street was a police officer. He came, said "What did you expect? You had a party, got drunk and fell asleep. You were unprotected and how was the guy to know you didn't want to have sex?" In the 1980s the inability to say "no" was interpreted as "yes". The roommate moved out of town a few months later.
People want to know why Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis, Tamara Green and Andrea Constand didn't have police reports to back up their stories. It was the 1980s. Wrong as it was, reporting a date/acquaintance sex crime to the police was a waste of time if all went well. Most women looked at reporting date rape as a request for slut shaming and a complete critical assessment of our life choices (emphasis on critical). Many women thought they were better off on their own. What we didn't know then is that men who rape women they know count on the silence of their victims. It lets them rape again.
Kidnapping and Rape
I had a back row seat to what happened to a woman who is close to me. She was kidnapped off the street. I was living in Florida at the time and heard about it through phone calls and holiday visits with the her over the course of a few years. We still see each other several times per year. Her awful experience started with being kidnapped off the streets of Akron in broad daylight. She was drugged, held for hours and forced to do multiple sex acts with, for and on two men. They dumped her on the street partially clothed on a January night in downtown Akron when they were done with her. She doesn't talk about this experience often, but when she does she always says "At least I was alive".
The police first on the scene didn't comprehend what had happened. she was incoherent due to the drugs. They started the procedure to arrest her for indecent exposure and soliciting. She doesn't remember much of this part of what happened to her other than when she was finally warm and in the police station, someone realized she had been raped and ordered the officers to take her to the hospital.
This is one of the "lucky" parts of this rape story. She was examined and evidence was collected before she could shower it away in an attempt to deny what had happened to her. This was in the early 1980s when not all hospital personnel were trained in how to collect rape kits. "Rape kits" were only a few years old and not all hospitals used them. Her luck ran out as the doctor who collected the forensic evidence of the rape was unsympathetic, gruff and dished out copious amounts of slut shaming. He wasn't gentle during the exam. He assumed she was addicted to drugs and demanded to know what she was on despite there being no physical evidence of addiction. The male police officers were present throughout the exam (for chain of evidence reasons I suppose). The nurses did what they could. They somehow got her parents phone number out of her, but she hadn't lived at home for years. They didn't come to the hospital. They wanted nothing to do with rape. That didn't happen in their family. Years later she would say the hospital visit was in some ways as traumatizing as what the two men had done to her.
The police interview was brutal. "What were you doing walking during the daylight hours on a cold January day?" "Getting milk?" "Why?" "Your son?" "Who was watching your son?" The woman had recognized her assailants. She saw them often where she shopped. She knew where to find them, but she didn't know their names. "Why did you get into the car?" She didn't get into the car, they shoved her into the back seat and forced her to stay. "You let them do it." You wanted it." "You went along with it." This went on for hours. "The sex didn't work out and now you call rape." They verbally abused her over and over until the detectives were satisfied she was raped. Officers went where she said they would find the men. They were there, evidence that she was in their car was collected. There was evidence of both the woman and her attackers collected from where they took her. The men were arrested.
As awful as the detectives were, the DA was worse; but at least he tried to prepare her for the defense attorney. This happened in the early 1980s. Before Ohio's rape shield laws were in effect and quite frankly, Ohio's rape shield law is inadequate. They met and the DA drilled her on how she'd be questioned both by him and the defense attorney. Occasionally she would call me in tears after one of these appointments.
In the months leading up to the trial the woman had to move out of her neighborhood as the rapists' friends threatened her. The police and DA did nothing saying there was nothing that could be done to protect her. She was having mental problems and again, the DA was no help. At one point she wanted to drop the case, but the DA threatened her with prosecution of some charge I never understood, so the case proceeded.
Scared, hurting and with too little support from friends and family (I was dealing with some major shit of my own at the time and wasn't much help either), she reached out to the local affiliation to Focus on the Family in Akron. They totally blew it. Their "therapists" blamed her for the rape. Offered to help her pray for forgiveness for what had happened to her and were all around incredibly sanctimonious and unhelpful. I would say this organization did more to set her back from recovery than anyone else.
It was nearly a year before they went to trial. Again, her case was "lucky". They went to trial.
Nothing could prepare her for the defense attorney. Her child born out of wedlock was admissible. Every man she ever had dated, let alone had sex with was admissible. The first officers on the scene's initial response to arrest her for prostitution was admissible. The drug tests from her rape examination were admissible and twisted. Her entire life was admissible. Her parents blamed her for being raped. Her father forbade her mother from being in the court room during the trial. Despite all that went against her, there were some lucky breaks in that there were some corroborating witnesses to her being forced into the car and there was some implication that she wasn't the first woman they had kidnapped for rape.
She was "lucky". The men were convicted and sentenced to 4 years in jail for kidnapping reduced to the second degree because she was released "unharmed" and multiple counts of sexual battery and rape. The judge excused the light sentence because he was unconvinced she hadn't brought this experience upon herself. What did she expect she was walking down the street in broad daylight!
The two men served 18 months of their 4 year sentence and were released. They found her. Called her and told her they were coming to find her to "finish" the job. The police were no help. They told her they could do nothing until the men attacked her. The DA was promoted and didn't take her calls. She packed up everything and moved out of state.
She very rarely talks about this episode in her life, but when she does, she often wonders if it would have been better if the police, DA and the court system had never got wind of her rape.
This rape case had a better outcome than most for the rape victim. She was "lucky". Her rapists were found, arrested, convicted and served some punishment for their sex crimes. Her rapists weren't well connected to the community. They weren't famous or wealthy. They had the advantage of no rape shield laws during their trial. This isn't typical of what happens in a rape case. This case represents what happens in only 3% of rape cases.
Back to Bill Cosby
In light of what I know about how sex crimes were handled in the 1980s and the technology available in the early to mid 80s; it makes total sense to me that there's no police reports, no email, no record of investigation into the alleged sexual misdeeds of Bill Cosby. Rape and sexual assault are still highly under reported crimes. No one wants to have that much scrutiny into their intimate lives.
The multiple accounts from different women from 1969 to 2004 in different cities with remarkably similar accounts regarding Bill Cosby is troubling. These women have no remedy for pursuing criminal justice nor financial compensation as the statutes of limitations for these incidents expired long ago. All they get out of this is what? exactly? Derision? People trolling them calling them liars, opportunists and worse. If these women simply needed to talk about their experiences, they could do that with friends and family or a therapist. They could blog about it anonymously. No, this is about telling other women, beware. 30 years is long enough to keep silent through intimidation. These women are warning others (a bit late, IMO) what can happen when left alone with Bill Cosby.
A jurisprudence purist might find this to be reprehensible. Maybe it is maybe it isn't. If the allegations are true, Bill Cosby is a monster. If the allegations are all false..... I'm not sure what to think. I's not likely to have 16 women report the same experience in so many venues across so many years. What is reprehensible, however, is that police discourage rape reporting and prosecutors won't bring sex crime charges unless they can prove the case beyond all doubt (which is beyond the legal standard). These women are done with the slut shaming. they've moved onto pervert shaming. In practicality what's Cosby going to do? Sue for defamation? slander? Libel? No, Mr. Cosby wants to un-ring the bell and have the 24/7 news cycle move away from him and for the rest of us to, once again, forget his past.
Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 6:24 AM PT: Good Morning. Thank you for the Rec List.
I started out writing a totally different diary about Bill Cosby and realized that too few had any point of reference for the working environment then. Thank you for reading and thank you for sharing your experiences, too. It gives needed perspective to those who didn't live it.
Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 12:07 PM PT: Netflix decided to postpone Bill Cosby's comedy special yesterday and today about an hour ago NBC announced Cosby's new show is no longer in development. No other details are known. No statements concerning an investigation. Nothing other than the show is no longer in development.
