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 it?)

 

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.