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84 CHA P TER t hr ee Sexual Harassment and Stalking His speech was smoother than butter, yet war was in his heart. —Ps. 55:21 Dr. Maureen Longworth tells the story of the first time, as a new medical resident, she had to give a complete physical to a male patient. When she began examining his genitals , he said, “Shouldn’t I be doing that to you?” In medical school, male colleagues would make lewd comments in her presence about female cadavers and also suggested that they practice their GYN techniques on her. She would find used condoms and bloody rubber gloves tucked into her personal belongings. She was disgusted and embarrassed, but when she finally told one of her professors, he told her to be a sport and just put up with it as “hazing.” Nothing was done to stop the men’s behavior.1 In an apartment complex in Fairfield, California, thirteen women and their twentyfive children brought a lawsuit in federal district court under Title VIII, the Fair Housing Act, against their landlord, James Skinner.2 He would use his master key to enter their apartments while they were sleeping or showering. He grabbed their breasts or genitals in public. Economic abuse was tied to sexual harassment. When women were unable to pay rent, he asked them to make up the payment by posing in lingerie. He went through their mail and withheld welfare checks and threatened to report them for fraud if they received small monetary gifts from family. He also threatened children with eviction and showed them his gun collection. When one of the women changed her locks, he demanded the new key, and local police told her that legally she had to comply or face eviction. Later, he entered her apartment while she slept. She awoke to find him leaning over her in his undershorts with his pants around his knees. She screamed and pushed him out. He threatened, “I’ll get you for this.” She was evicted a month later. The case eventually settled for an aggregate (including damages, court costs, and attorney fees) of over $1.5 million—at that time, the largest sum ever awarded in the history of the U.S. Fair Housing Act. During the course of their case, Skinner was incarcerated for raping two women at the same apartment complex. With a grant from their attorneys, Leslie Levy and Amy Oppenheimer, the women founded a nonprofit group called WRATH (Women Refusing to Accept Tenant Harassment) to advocate for women who find themselves victims in sexual harassment in housing.3 Katy Lyle was an honor student at a high school in Duluth, Minnesota.4 She learned through the grapevine that the walls of the boys’ bathroom were covered with sexually explicit comments about her, as vulgar as “Katy Lyle fucks dogs,” and “Katy Lyle is a dick-sucking, brother-fucking whore.” As time went on, there was a “Katy stall,” which Sexual Harassment and Stalking 85 included her phone number. Boys approached her in the halls, saying, “Do me,” and her family received numerous obscene phone calls. Katy and her parents complained sixteen times to the principal, but no action was taken for eighteen months. Her brother finally tried to sandpaper the writing off the bathroom walls, while the school officials took an attitude of “Boys will be boys.” Katy finally filed a charge of sexual harassment with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, claiming that the school’s lack of response created a hostile educational environment, and received a $15,000 settlement for mental anguish and suffering. However, the retaliation went on throughout high school, even following her to college. In November, 1991, “Katy Lyle is a slut” was written in a bathroom stall at the University of Minnesota in Duluth where she was a student. She knew someone who was angry about the cash settlement in high school had written it. After her brother talked to him, threatening new graffiti appeared: “It’s not over yet.”5 Margaret6 was pressured by her boss, the head of a large and prestigious advertising agency in New York City, to go out on dates. He talked about the “incredible tension” of working side by side with her while desiring her so much. He finally persuaded her to sleep with him, and a few weeks later gave her an unusually large promotion in responsibility and pay. Later, when she began to feel uncomfortable with the situation and questioned its propriety...

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