Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!aero!walt.cc.utexas.edu
From: jacie2@walt.cc.utexas.edu (J. Michele Freemon)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Naval Academy Harrassment
Message-ID: <32685@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jun 90 23:56:04 GMT
References: <1990Jun27.180813.27470@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: walt.cc.utexas.edu!jacie2@cs.utexas.edu (J. Michele Freemon)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin
Lines: 36
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R



William December Starr writes:

>    ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The head of the U.S. Naval Academy, Rear Adm.
>Virgil L. Hill Jr., wants new female students to know the institution
>will not tolerate incidents like the recent handcuffing of a woman to
>a urinal.
>
>    In a letter to incoming women midshipmen, Hill said he wanted "to
>extend his personal commitment to the protection of their civil rights
>here," Lt. Cmdr. Mark Van Dyke, academy spokesman, said late last
>week.
>
>    The letters, dated June 1, were mailed to the women [who] will
>begin their military careers at the academy on July 3.  [...]
>Male candidates for the Class of 1994 were not sent letters, Van
>Dyke said.  


	In my opinion, if Rear Adm. Hill truly wanted to convey the
	message he claims to want to convey (namely, that the behavior 
	is intolerable), the best way would have been to send a 
	similiar letter to the male incoming cadets as well.

	Giving this information to only the women implies, subtly,
	that only the women need to have this information.  Yet, it
	was the male students that handcuffed Midshipman Dreyer to
	the urinal in the first place.

	The incoming male cadets, not having been told that this 
	bahavior is intolerable, might be left with the impression
	that it is not intolerable at all. 

         J. Michele Freemon         *      "My employer's opinions?
      jacie2@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu     *        ...C'mon this is _Texas_!"
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