PATRIOTS REPORT

Equal vs Special vs Fair

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Social movements have cycles. They seem to last about a

generation and then move back. The feminist movement which

piggybacked the African-American movement of the '60s has

evolved. In its evolution, the movement has bi, tri, or

multi-furcated. Key issues causing these divisions are the

intensities of approach and the notions of equal treatment

versus special treatment. Taking a back seat to the above

movements over the past thirty years have been men as a

group. Transparent perhaps better describes the group as

legislation, magazines, talk shows, etc. blossomed

unnoticingly around them or with scorn for them. It has been

written and spoken that the '90s will be the decade for men,

that publications, organizations and leaders for this gender

will emerge and prosper.

 

In the October/November 1990 issue of Men's Life, a

legitimate office/family magazine rack publication, a survey

of 815 men, conducted by Peter D. Hart Associates of

Washington, D.C. was reported. Men's Life writes, "But our

men's most frequently mentioned misconception is when women

say `men have no feelings or emotions.'"

The survey and article also articulated that more men felt

that their lives were worse (31% --about equal to the

percentage in favor of the American Revolution) since the

women's movement got started in the '60s than got better

(26%)... 40% felt that there was no difference. Relating

to women, 74% of the men felt that the movement made things

better for women, 14% worse, and 10% no different.

Where all of these feelings eventually surface is yet to be

seen. As it pertains to locker rooms, expect more civil

disobedience until the privacy "problem" is cured. American

men are modest... more modest than credited and perhaps more

modest than women in ways. Visual research proves the point:

The male bikini is a fashion failure; yet, women shave to get

into theirs. Loose shirts, loose pants with the exception of

jeans, boxy suits, and brief underwear (a.k.a. Jockey shorts)

are the bulk of American male attire.

Certainly, Coach Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals was

civilly disobedient in barring Denise Tom, a women reporter

from USA Today, access to a locker room well after the

Patriots' Incident. Wyche willingly stood in harm's way (he

was fined close to $30,000) when he stated, "I will not allow

women to walk in on 50 naked men." An action long delayed

after the court's admission of women to locker rooms was a

noteworthy step, nonetheless. No nudity. No Neanderthal.

Unfortunately, Coach Wyche's first approach to solving the

privacy "problem" was that the "problem" was not and is not

women; it is the locker room's design or the access by male

reporters to the private areas! Coach Wyche's second

approach, the curtains with access restrictions, was right

out of the US court playbook. Now, if only the NFL would

continue to require better interviewing environments, Coach

Wyche could relax without carrying curtains to each city.

Nevertheless, as reported by the Boston Globe 10/14/90,

according to the Bengals' front office, Wyche is receiving

checks daily to offset his fine with one amount for $1,700

sent in by a team that took up a collection.

Who still thinks that men don't have support groups?

 

POWER PLAYS 

Barry and Karen Oshry, Boston based consultants in power

workshops, continually prove the famous expression,

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely," as they deprive one

group of workshop participants while empowering a second

group and then mid-week reverse the roles. Those people

who were first deprived, rather than empathizing with the

newly deprived, forget them. This is a world of "haves"

and "have-nots." It is not a world of men v. women, per se.

"We are not more moral than men;

we are only uncorrupted by power

so far."

Gloria Steinem, 1970

When the Incident first unfolded, women's groups viewed the

events of the Patriots/Kiam Incident as a male versus female

battle. Ms. Toni Tropp of Boston NOW was quoted in the

9/26/90 Boston Globe as saying in part "This makes it obvious

that the gains women have made in the past 10 years whether

in the locker or board room are not as solid as many think."

(Can one football player, team, or owner make anything

"obvious" about roughly 1,150,000,000 -- that's a billion --

women/years of effort for equality during this 10 year

period, or the efforts that other men have made to assist

The facts indicate differently. It's difficult to say that

it's a men-against-women world when some men's indifference

subjugates other men to nudity and when male reporters,

identifying more with their reporting function than their

gender, rally around their female counterpart without giving

argument for, or benefit of the doubt to the male players'

innocence.

Just why did the male media immediately side against the

players?

Could it be the self-preservation of a time honored

privilege... the locker-room scoop?

After all, wherever male reporters have access, women

reporters have access. Knowing this fact, males should feel

threatened by the Incident. It draws focus to their own

presence in the locker rooms.

" O! Ye that love mankind!   Ye that dare
   oppose not only tyranny, but the tyrant,
Stand Forth! "
Thomas Paine, Common Sense 1776