The Place for Us

Joe Paterno and the Myth of the Innocent Bystander

2011-11-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

Imagine, if you would, the one person you love most in the world. This might be your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, mother, father, sibling, grandparent or best friend. It can be anyone you like – hold their image in your head.

Now imagine that person is in some kind of danger. They are somewhere that is unsafe, they are in harm’s way, or maybe there is someone who wants to harm them. The person you love most in the world is in some kind of danger, possibly fatal danger, and you can’t help them.

You can’t help them, but there are people who can help them. There are people who see that the one person you love most in the world is in danger, and they can help. They might even be able to stop it.

But they don’t. The person who can help or save your most loved person chooses not to. They chose to walk away, they chose to turn away. They say things like, “I’m not getting involved in that,” or “I don’t know that person,” or “Maybe that’s not that big of a deal,” or “Someone else will help.” There are people who know that your loved one is going to be hurt, but they don’t step in.

The emotion you are feeling right now probably ranges from confusion to anger to frustration, disappointment, and even powerlessness. If we know someone is going to be hurt, or may even be killed, why wouldn’t we intervene?

The Penn State sex scandal has been building in the news lately, and came to a head just a few days ago when long time Coach Joe Paterno was fired. Outrage has ensued. Paterno was fired because he was aware of the fact that his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually assaulted young boys, and at least on one occasion in the Penn State locker room. Paterno was told of this incident in particular by a graduate assistant who walked in on the rape by Jerry Sandusky of a 10 year-old boy in the showers. All of this information is in the grand jury report.

Rather than calling the police immediately, the graduate assistant left the building and later went to Paterno’s house, with his father, to tell the head coach. Paterno also did not call the police. Instead, he called university officials, who also did not call the police. Their only response? Taking away Sandusky’s keys to the locker room.

That 10 year-old boy was someone’s most loved person in the world. There were people who knew he was being sexually assaulted, and they did nothing to intervene. They turned away, they walked away, and they opted not to get involved. They opted to assume that someone else would help. Someone else would take the responsibility for stopping Sundusky and his predatory behavior. They chose a powerful and successful football program over the well-being of vulnerable children who were being raped.

One might think that Sandusky would have stopped this sexual violence after such a close call. However, it continued. No doubt Sandusky was empowered to continue it, perhaps even increase it -- after all, he had the Penn State head coach and administration covering up his crimes. What more sanction could he ask for? So he no longer had access the locker room, Penn State had taken that away. However, this is a man who started a non-profit to help underprivileged kids, and now it seems clear that he really started the non-profit to help gain access to underprivileged kids for sexual abuse. Not having access to one place would not have deterred his perpetration.

And what of Paterno, and his graduate assistant? They did the right thing by reaching out to their bosses at the University, correct? No. What was witnessed by the one person and heard by another was not an “incident” that involved Sandusky, it was a crime. It should have been reported to the police immediately. What Paterno did to intervene was the equivalent of offering a band aid to a shotgun victim. Did Paterno followup with the Penn State official? Did he demand stronger action, maybe even suggest that Sandusky should be fired? Apparently not.

There is no such thing as an innocent bystander. In your own mind, when you imagined that the one person you love most in the world was going to be hurt, did you excuse the people who didn’t intervene by saying, “well, after all, they’re just innocent bystanders. I don’t expect them to do anything.” When it is someone we love who is in harm’s way, we want people to do something. Paterno and the graduate assistant did something, but it wasn’t the right something. Sexual assault is a crime. The real crime, however, is that children’s safety was sacrificed for the safety and name of the Penn State football program. That means that everything Penn State and the Nittany Lions stands for, and all that Paterno worked hard for during his 46 year career, means nothing when a 10 year-old boy, someone’s loved one, wasn’t helped at a dangerous time.

A Red Light District in Atlantic City? Really? Really!?

2011-09-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Gloria Steinem, that historical bastion of second wave feminism, has a very simple test for whether or not something is sexist. When considering the situation at hand, ask yourself this: “Would a man be subjected to this? Would it be normal if this involved men and not women? Has there been any historical time when this was done to a man?”

Now comes the news that the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority is considering establishing a zone in Atlantic City’s South Inlet district for sexually oriented businesses. It leaves one to wonder if this area was targeted because of the presumption of a low NIMBY factor (NIMBY -- Not In My Back Yard). This may be a false presumption if the opposition to the Marina District tunnel is an example.

Unfortunately, this is not the only instance where Atlantic City has been sexualized. The city’s tourism slogan is “Always Turned On.” Some of the highest prostitution rates in the state happen in Atlantic City, including high numbers of sexual exploitation of children through prostituted youth. The casinos have capitalized on this by promoting the Naked Circus, the Angels – the list goes on and on.

A district specifically for sexually oriented businesses would be institutionalized sexism.

Don’t necessary buy that?

Consider Steinem’s test...would the city set up a district specifically for sexually oriented businesses that cater to women and use men as the strippers and dancers? Would the city open a shop catering to pornography that is primarily for women, showcasing men? Would many people come to a naked circus that had only men performers?

Or would the city be concerned that not enough revenue would come from such a venture? After all, the city has a big stake in any tourism venture—they gain 13% of each tourism dollar spent in Atlantic City. You know the saying, “Sex sells!” But is that really true? Or is it just that sex that exploits women sells? Would sex exploiting men and targeted to women still sell?

Probably not.

This makes the red light district that is being supported and codified by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the City of Atlantic City institutionalized sexism. The state sanctioned sexual objectification and exploitation of 50% of the population. Our tax dollars at work, helping to sell sex.

The Hidden History of Women in South Jersey

2011-02-17T15:32:00.000-08:00

Jersey is not without its reputations. Television shows – from The Sopranos to Jersey Shore to Boardwalk Empire – have only added to what people believe they know about New Jersey.

But long before Snookie and showgirls walked the boards, women were making history in South Jersey. South Jersey has written across its sandy beaches and blueberry fields the history of women change makers – from the woman who cultivated commercial blueberries to the woman who staged a sit-in at a prestigious mathematicians association.

While this does not claim to be a complete or comprehensive list of women’s history in South Jersey, it includes some of the little known chapters.

Anyone with a historical perspective of women in New Jersey will recognize the name of Alice Paul. She is the Quaker suffragist portrayed by Hillary Swank in the epic movie Iron Jawed Angels. She grew up in Mt. Laurel, where her house remains to the day as a central organizing agency around women’s history. If you’re a woman, next time you go to vote, thank Alice Paul. But no woman is a silo – Ms. Paul was part of the New Jersey Suffrage Association, which held its Founding Convention in 1867 in Vineland. It included such notables of the movement as Lucy Stone and Lucretia Mott.

Next time you’re traveling towards Cape May on Route 50, be sure to notice the beautiful mansion nestled in the woods just past the Estell Manor Park, part of the Atlantic County Park System. You won’t be able to miss it – it’s the only building with fluted columns. This is the birth home of Rebecca Estell Bourgeois Winston, the first female mayor in New Jersey. Her father owned the glass factory and land that now encompasses the park. Rebecca petitioned the state to recognize Estell Manor as a municipality, and then worked hard to get herself elected mayor – in 1924.

Incidentally, this was a banner time for women in politics in New Jersey – in 1921, the state elected not one, but two women, Margaret Laird and Jennie Van Ness, to the state legislature.

Agriculture has always been a part of South Jersey’s history. Women were depicted as early as 1878 in Harper’s Weekly harvesting cranberries in the bogs in Ocean County. But Elizabeth Coleman White, in the early part of last century, was a pioneer in agriculture. Coleman White grew up on a cranberry bog, and was very interested in the native plants of the Pine Barrens. She fought hard to rescue the American Holly tree from obscurity and was recognized by the State Agriculture department. Previously believed to be impossible to domesticate, she propagated wild blueberry plants to commercial success. Next time you enjoy a handful of wonderful blueberries, know that it was a woman who made it possible.

Atlantic City, up until a few years ago, was known for The Miss America Pageant. This was exactly what feminists in 1968 were banking on when they planned a protest on the boardwalk in front of The Convention Center (now Boardwalk Hall). Not only were they interested in demonstrating that the “personal is political,” for women, but for women of color as well. They wanted to know why a woman of color had never won The Miss America Pageant. Did people in the watching audience understand how the “ideal image” of women as blond and blue eyed with curvy figures impacted the rest of the world? A banner was unfurled in Convention Hall that read “WOMEN’S LIBERATION.”

Protests went on for five days. A sheep was crowned Miss America on the boardwalk. Bras were not actually burned, but thrown into a trashcan as an example of theatre of the oppressed, a la Augusto Baol. Bra burning was mistaken reported by a newspaper, the rumor spread, and before long the term “bra-burner” came to mean a radical feminist. Next time you conduct some feminist political action, know that it had its roots right here in South Jersey.

One of the best stories comes from the math and sciences department. Mathematics has long been an area where women have struggled to find a seat at the table. Finally, one group of women decided to stop looking for a seat, and to simply build their own table.

In 1971, academic and professional mathematicians held their annual Joint Mathematics Meeting in Atlantic City. This was a field dominated by men and who actively excluded women. Find that hard to believe? According to Lenore Blum, past president of the Association of Women in Mathematics (AWM), the running “joke” in graduate programs at the time was, “There have only ever been two women mathematicians in the history of mathematics. One wasn’t a woman and the other wasn’t a mathematician.” Needless to say, there weren’t many recognized or quickly advancing females in the math world.

Mary Gray, a professor of math at the American University, started the shift that
became the AWM by sitting in on an organizational session of the Joint Mathematics Meeting. When she was told she would have to leave or the cops would be called, she stated that she found nothing in the by-laws that restricted the attendance to men. The leadership at the time told her it was a “gentleman’s agreement.” Without blinking an eye, Mary Gray replied, “Well, obviously, I’m no gentleman.” The Association of Women in Mathematics was born.

The next time you’re laboring over the thought of academic math, remember that South Jersey had a hand in that legacy. See, our reputation’s not all that bad.

Tanya's Story: Human Trafficking is the Responsibility of All of Us

2010-05-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

by Erin O'Hanlon, Coordinator of Community Initiatives, The Women’s Center

Tanya (not her real name) was 13 years old when she first met the woman who introduced her to “The Life.” She was out at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday night, hanging in the park across from the apartment building where she lived with her mom in Detroit.

The woman, driving a beautiful Mercedes, showed lots of concern for Tanya. Why was she out at that time of night? Would she be able to get up for school the next day after being out so late? What would her parents say about her hanging on the street corner?

Tanya blew all that off with a scowl. Her mom was a drunk, and she could see the truant officer coming in his government issued vehicle a mile away. Her mom's boyfriend was the main one to be avoided, with his grabby hands and offers of cash or pot in return for silence.

The woman bought Tanya something to eat, gave her an Ed Hardy hoody to keep warm. The woman said girls like them, girls who had it hard growing up, had to stick together. She said she would come back to check in with Tanya, make sure she was doing okay. She did, always providing food and warmth in her nice car, sometimes taking Tanya to get her nails done.

Before long, Tanya was crashing at the woman's place whenever she wanted, had a disposable cell phone the woman put minutes on, borrowed her clothes. It all seemed too good to be true. Tanya took on the nickname “Shorty.” The woman and her boyfriend, who watched her from across the room, promised to take her on a weekend trip to Atlantic City where they like to gamble. That trip to Atlantic City changed Tanya's life.

______________________________________________

The average age a girl enters into commercial sex work is 13 years old. The same age some girls get their first boyfriend or go to their first formal dance, there are girls who are being bought and sold in America. Atlantic County has the some of the highest rate of arrests for juveniles being prostituted in the state of New Jersey. It also has the second highest rate of adults being prostituted. Atlantic City is a human trafficking hub.

Despite what many believe to the be case, these human trafficking victims are not always foreign born\or brought to this country illegally. Many are lured from local areas in other states, including large Midwest cities and small towns on the East Coast.

They come from environments that act as training camps for exploitation. Dysfunctional families of origin, with histories of substance abuse and previous sexual violence, is all too common for women and girls who are being commercially sexually exploited. Their vulnerabilities are preyed upon by those who “turn them out” or introduce them to the streets. The person who turns them out may be a “bottom girl,” – a female who recruits for a pimp and helps to monitor and dispatch workers. It may be a pimp who portrays himself as a boyfriend initially eager to treat a girl like a princess, and then later eager only for the money she can hand over.

For every girl or woman walking the streets, answering escort calls or working the bars in the casinos, society also plays a part in putting her there. American cultures aggrandizes pimp culture and promotes sexuality available and ready, 24-7. Look no further for this than LasVegas' nickname, “Sin City,” and Atlantic City's slogan, “Always Turned On!” When society doesn't recognize a larger system of poverty and dysfunction at work or tries to make excuses – “She chooses to do it,” or “It's hers to sell” – we all participate in human trafficking. When society doesn't recognize that these girls' lives aren't filled with choices, but are completely void of them, and that this often leads to their involvement in trafficking – we look away from the real root of the problem.

In Atlantic City, a group of nonprofits, law enforcement agencies and community members want to stop the selling and buying of women and girls that happens daily. The Anti-Trafficking Task Force of Atlantic County (ATTAC) is working a multi-leveled strategy: prevention, protection, and prosecution. Strong partnerships between child protective services, police departments and local youth shelters have formed to bring awareness to the issue and offer better options for those being sold. ATTAC's latest goal is to create a “John School,” to deter the demand for commercial sexual exploitation. This would offer a re-education program for anyone arrested for soliciting commercial sex. The fees paid to the school would help to fund ATTAC's prevention and intervention efforts.

______________________________________________

When Tanya got to Atlantic City, everything changed. She was told the trip wasn't free, and she would have to earn her way back to Detroit on the “track” doing “dates.” When she resisted, she was beaten into submission and raped by the pimp. Her “wife-in-law,” the woman who had recruited her, showed her how to dress to gain attention. She had her 14th birthday on the street.

After 2 months she fled, called her mom from a pay phone, walked into a police station. Still today she thinks about that time, the flashes of money she saw, but never had. Over $2,000 a week passed through her hands. With support and counseling, she has recognizes that she has been changed by that experience, but refuses to be defined by it. She hopes someday to talk to young girls about The Life and its false promises. First, though, she wants to finish 8th grade.

For more information about ATTAC or the services offered by The Women's Center, please contact our 24 hour hotline at 1-800-286-4184.

New Year’s Resolution #1: Let New Jersey Know How Harmful Tucker Max is!

2009-12-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

The new year is almost upon us, and so that means that there are many people preparing to make New Year’s Resolutions. In past years, I would resolve to exercise more, sleep less or stop to smell the roses more. For 2010, I have nothing so ethereal. For 2010, my one and only resolution is to let New Jersey know what a negative message Tucker Max brings.

Who is this Tucker Max, you may ask? And how does Tucker Max have me so riled up? If you have a minute, do a quick reconnaissance mission over to Mr. Max’s blog site at http://www.tuckermax.com. If you can stand to look at it for more than 15 minutes, I give you a lot of credit. If you can’t stand his dribble for that long, here are some of the choicer quotes:

Tucker Max disparages women’s rights to sexual consent and openly speaks of acts that fit the legal definition of sexual assault, specifically, “I’m trying to get you drunk, so you can’t consent to sex anymore.”

Tucker Max wants to decide who deserves human rights. An example from his book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell: “The lowest of the low is a fat woman with a loud personality. This woman is generally just so annoying that you have to actively restrain yourself from kicking her in the crotch and stomping on her throat until she drowns on her own blood. There is no insult too mean or crude for her, and basic human rights do not apply to her.”

Tucker Max promotes the sexual objectification of women. For example, here’s a quote from the New York Times: “When a journalism student from Paramus, New Jersey asked if she could take a photograph with him, he agreed, and pressed his hand into her cleavage when the camera flash went off.”

Tucker Max spreads an epidemic of hateful ideology that denigrates women, people of color, and disabled people, and perpetrates verbal, emotional and psychological abuse and promotes sexual violence and physical abuse of vulnerable people.

Tucker Max is coming to New Jersey in January. And you’re paying for it.

Specifically, on January 20, 2010, he’s coming to The College of New Jersey, having been invited by the College Union Board, the internal college activities board. The College of New Jersey is reportedly paying him over $15,000 to come to the campus and promote his book and show his movie.

The College of New Jersey is funded in part through tax payers’ money from the Commission on Higher Education, and the College Union Board is financed in part through student fees that go to the college. The College is also funded by alumni who donate. As a community, is this where we want to be putting our money?

The irony of all of this is that The College of New Jersey also funds one of the most successful anti-violence initiatives on any college campus in New Jersey. Through the Office of Anti-Violence Initiatives, Jackie Deitch-Stackhouse has successfully begun a Green Dot campaign. Green Dot is a strategy to end power based personal violence such as sexual assault, dating violence, stalking and domestic violence. More about that program can be found at http://www.tcnj.edu/~greendot/.

1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in New Jersey face sexual violence in their lives, and Tucker Max treats sexual violence like it’s a joke and openly blogs about having committed such acts. This event is January is supporting and contributing to a culture that promotes and encourages sexual violence against women. What if this was you? Your sister? Your girlfriend? Your friend? Tucker Max makes light of real people’s experiences, and by doing so, robs them of the voice they deserve to have.

Statistics show that nearly 95% of men on college campuses DO NOT commit rape, and 75% of college men are uncomfortable with other men’s sexist behavior. People who don’t support this event are automatically supporting thousands of women that are raped and sexually abused every year, many of which occur on college campus. If you openly oppose this event, you will be supporting thousands of people of color and people who are disabled, and you will send the message that you do not tolerate the rape or abuse of women and the disparagement of people of color and people who are disabled.

If you have even a minute to do something, and want to send a message loud and clear, below is the link to send a message to the TCNJ president and the Chair of the TCNJ Board of Trustees about the Tucker Max event in January. Please email this link to whoever you think would be interested: http://capwiz.com/njcasa/issues/alert/?alertid=14483841

And make your own New Year’s resolution to talk to people about why Tucker Max is hurtful and hateful to people in our communities. It’s certainly an easier and more important resolution than that one to sleep less.

I Stand on the Bra Straps of Giants

2009-10-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton

To paraphrase Isaac Newton, if I have seen further it is because I stand on the bra straps of giants. Those bra straps have been on the shoulders of some powerful and forceful women, women who weren’t afraid to make a change, talk about how the world could be different, be bold enough to request a place at the table. In some instances, I stand on the bare shoulders of women, like the ones who destroyed their bras on the Atlantic City boardwalk in 1969.

Let me tell you a story. Like all good stories, it starts a long time ago, in 1975 to be exact. This was six years after the famous Miss America protest in 1969, when Carol Hanisch and some other women who were part of a small group called the New York Radical Women threw their bras, and girdles, mops, and pots and pans into a garbage can on the Atlantic City boardwalk. They didn’t actually burn bras, but the media, looking for a sensational angle, latched onto the idea that these women were “bra burners” and that myth was created. A “bra burner” quickly became the moniker for a radical feminist. Or maybe just a feminist. Or maybe a gay woman. Or maybe someone who just believed that women should have equal opportunity with men. Each ideology was just as ground-breaking, shocking and sensational as the next.

In 1975, a group of women who were natives to Atlantic County decided that, as the civil rights movement had changed the country, so too could the women’s rights movement. One of the greatest needs was to provide battered women and children with shelter and safety. These women, with their own families to care for, with their own careers to consider, founded the Atlantic County Women’s Center. Were they inspired by the protest of the “meat market,” as the New York Radical Women considered the Miss America pageant? Possibly. For six years, a sea change was happening in the way society viewed women. Status quo didn’t work anymore, and women in Atlantic County were no less impacted than women in counties across the nation.

Change was sweeping the nation, and this included southern New Jersey. Atlantic City was morphing from an economic dead-zone, as portrayed during the 1964 Democratic convention to a city soon to be the Monte Carlo of the East Coast. These women followed the mantra of the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead, who spent her childhood summers in Hammonton – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

2010 marks the 35th anniversary of that founding. The Atlantic County Women’s Center has been a place created by women for women for three and a half decades. Through seven American presidents, eleven New Jersey governors, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the electronic age, the Women’s Center has stood as the only organization in Atlantic County focused on improving the quality of life for women and their families.

Does that mean that we don’t provide services to men? Are we, in fact, those preverbal bra burners? We provide services to men. We provide services to children. We provide services to families. We provide services to people and families that fall in the margins and fall through the cracks.

All of the services we provide are built around improving the lives of women – so, we work with batterers in the Alternatives to Violence Program, because we know that, for every person with battering behavior, there is survivor of that abuse. Working to change the behavior of the batterer benefits the survivor, even in small ways. The services we provide to families help women as well, even if the family is made up of men, women and children. We recognize that women have the lion’s share of the childcare responsibility while typically bringing home the smaller portion of the “bacon.” Childcare resources and referrals are a large part of what we do.

Our job readiness programs, Home to Work and Self Sufficiency, recognize that, in order for a woman to have a place at the table, she has to first have the job, the professional clothes and the transportation for her to get to the table. These programs help people who need assistance with resumes, job searches, and educational advocacy.

For 35 years, the Women’s Center has been creating a place for us in Atlantic County. Although who that “us” is has changed…when the founding mothers came together, it was women and children who were escaping abusive homes. Today, the Violence Intervention Program still offers confidential shelter, a 24 hour hotline, advocacy and community education – for women, men, children, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered individuals. These services are for survivors and their loved ones – all survivors and their loved ones.

Soon it was recognized that, if a woman’s childcare didn’t work, neither did she. This idea today has is expanded to families – in an economy where both partners work, if a family’s childcare doesn’t work, neither does that family. Before too long the Women’s Center realized that, to keep up with a society that was evolving, it too would have to evolve. Today this is done by exploring the transferable skills people have, how to turn these into a new job, or a better job, or a chance at an education.

During 2010, we are celebrating our 35th anniversary and paying homage to the bra straps that have come before us. We are also celebrating the place we have created – not the physical space, not the building. Instead we are celebrating the place we have worked to carve out in Atlantic County and southern New Jersey – for women, for children, for people who are marginalized or invisible, regardless of gender, because of need, not in spite of it. We are celebrating the place that we have at the table – be it the kitchen table, the playroom table or the boardroom table.

And we are looking forward to providing the shoulders (and the bra straps) for the next 35 years.

-- Erin O'Hanlon

(Erin O'Hanlon is the Coordinator of Community Initiatives at the Atlantic County Women's Center. This is the blog of the Atlantic County Women's Center, a non-profit organization in Atlantic County, New Jersey, that has been creating a place for us since 1975. For more information, check out our website at acwc.org)