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The road to hell was paved with handbags
By Susan McCarthy
An innocuous response to the key-stowage dilemma, or the first step on the slippery slope of obsessiveness? Carry a purse and find out
(03/02/99)

In the tub with Leadbelly
By Sarah Seager
An ex-punk rocker turned mother contemplates her latest passion, children's folk music
(03/01/99)

Mother Time
By Jennifer Bingham Hull
We have lots of some kinds of time, little of others -- which is why people who live outside this zone, including many politicians, don't understand our lives
(02/26/99)

Amnesia
By Sallie Tisdale
It's easy to pretend that we are not who we once were, to treat our painful condition as an echo of someone else's mistakes. Reading my teenage journals forced me to stop pretending
(02/25/99)

A dime bag for the schoolgirl
By Janet McDonald
I thought escaping Vassar to make Harlem drug runs meant I could be in the elite world, but not of it.
(02/24/99)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

WE BELIEVE YOU, JUANITA (WE THINK) | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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Gloria Allred
(attorney -- filed a friend of the court brief in Jones' sexual harassment suit against Clinton)
I think Juanita Broaddrick appeared very credible on the interview on NBC. I don't find it a problem that it occurred 20 years ago and it was in a hotel room -- just because it was in a hotel room doesn't mean that she couldn't have been a victim of sexual assault. Because she didn't report it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I can identify with her because I was a victim of sexual assault in a hotel room. I never went to the police. It was a long time ago, I was in my 20s. It was in Mexico by a physician who told me on our first date that he had to see a patient in this hotel room. I said, "OK," and I went in and he pulled a gun. I was in total shock. At the time, I thought, Who would believe me? I was a teacher and he was a well-known physician. I told a girlfriend of mine and we just left Mexico. I can see Juanita Broaddrick thinking, He's the attorney general -- who would believe me? Also, at the time, she was married and having an affair.

There are complex reasons why women don't report rape, especially when it involves powerful men. If the physical evidence isn't there, it's unlikely that the case could be prosecuted. Only a small percentage of rape cases are prosecuted. But they're really difficult when they're against powerful men.

I can sympathize with Ms. Broaddrick, but I can't reach a conclusion. She was not under oath or cross-examined as a lawyer would in a court of law, so it's impossible to draw a conclusion.

On the other hand, the president's denial through his attorney, David Kendall, does not necessarily carry any weight either, because he has admitted that he lied to his wife about Monica, lied to his cabinet, lied to the American people. I can't say that I believe the president didn't do this -- and I can't say that he did. But it's disturbing. If the president did commit a rape or sexual abuse to a child or murder 20 years ago, I think it should still be relevant to whether or not he should be president. But we won't know this because there's no forum like a court of law to decide these issues.

There are people who say this is his modus operandi, but I don't think that's fair. He hasn't been charged with rape before. He doesn't have an M.O. for rape; he does have an M.O. for consensual sexual relations outside his marriage. But I'm very disappointed with the president. I supported him for six and a half years, I contributed to his campaign, I know him personally. I'm very disappointed in his conduct, and the fact that he lied to the American people. I think he should resign. I'm probably the only feminist who is calling for his resignation.

Barbara Ledeen
(executive director for policy of the Independent Women's Forum)
I found Juanita Broaddrick credible in part because I'm 51 myself and I remember that, back in the olden days, if you weren't married and you weren't a virgin, you certainly couldn't claim rape. She was vulnerable because her company had to be licensed by the state of Arkansas, and because she was in a small town and she was a married woman having an affair. It was a terribly different climate. All those elements combined together means she absolutely couldn't go and file any charges. She would have been a fool to have said something.

I also believe her because biting in many cases is a component of rape. Rapists bite generally on the lip or the breast. This [incident] fits the pattern of a rapist.

To my mind, Mr. Clinton's feminist policy is lie down, shut up and ignore it. Feminists have had to go outside their box at every level to protect Mr. Clinton. With Anita Hill, one mantra was "Women don't lie about things like this" and another was "I believe you, Anita," and there were immediately buttons and things like that. The media immediately released all her allegations. And the idea that a charge is not provable didn't matter in Packwood's case -- nor did the statute of limitations. In the case of Justice Thomas, there weren't any criminal allegations or anyone saying it was just a private act. None of the parallels work.

I think the Democrats should demand that he come forward. The press should demand that the president release the calendar of where he was that day, which is eminently doable. We need the facts. There has to be a systematic calling of the accounts of this guy.

Patricia Weaver Francisco
(author of "Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery")
I don't feel in a position to comment on the story itself, but I do have a reaction to the notion of it being about 20 years later. I was raped in 1981, and even though I was a writer at the time and still am, I didn't write about it for 10 years. I didn't call the police that morning until a nurse at the hospital talked me into it. I felt immediately ashamed and responsible for the crime, even though a man broke into my house while I was sleeping. So I'm very aware of the pressure that descends very quickly on women who have been raped. One of the reasons I wrote "Telling" was to encourage the kind of conversation about rape that I think Juanita Broaddrick's telling is making possible. So I do have gratitude to her for that.

Something that always stood out to me was a sentence in a 1993 Department of Justice study, explaining the reason why it is so difficult to gather rape statistics: "The perceived stigma and the belief that no purpose would be served in reporting the crime prevents an unknown portion of the victims from talking about the event." A lot of women come to me when I do readings, correctly perceiving that I'm someone who would want to hear their story. Last week, one woman said, "I walked into the book store, I saw your book, and I said to myself, it's time to start dealing with this." And I said, "How long ago was it?" And she said, "Seventeen years." Another woman, who was in tears, said, "It's been 11 years and I just started therapy." It's just much, much more common than we can even stand. There are many, many women walking around with this story untold even to themselves or to a therapist, let alone in a public way.

We have more rape here than any other country. And we just kind of all accept it as normal. We ask the victims to quietly and gracefully get over it and go on as if this wasn't a serious problem, and it is. The first step is a general level of raising the understanding about how this occurs, how much this occurs and what the consequences are for the woman or man who must carry on after that. One of the truths is that there is a tremendous pressure to be silent. So I think that this conversation is a good one, even if it doesn't end in any resolution.

Margaret Talbot
(fellow of the New America Foundation)
In terms of whether Juanita Broaddrick is credible, I think she is. The story is plausible, because she was a reluctant witness and she didn't want to be a right-wing cause célèbre. People have said it doesn't fit Clinton's sexual M.O., what we know of it, but it could be a cruder, earlier version of it. And he is peremptory and abrupt with his approach. Do I think it actually happened? It seems not completely out of his league.

It's difficult to believe him because we all have this picture in our mind of him wagging his finger and saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." But I think at this point, everybody is so tired of this, so relieved that impeachment is over, they just want to let him fill up the next two years. For a lot of people, if it's true, it fills out a picture we have of him, of him being a morally unsavory, sexually compulsive guy. I think that's as far as it goes.

I think it could be discouraging to some women who have been raped. The ho-hum that has greeted this would be discouraging to me if I were a rape counselor or trying to reform rape law.

Clinton should come forward. When there is an allegation of this seriousness, and it is not possible from past history to dismiss it, I think he does owe some sort of response to her and to the people who are wondering about this.

Eleanor Smeal
(president of the Feminist Majority Foundation)
I just don't know how you can make a judgment by a television interview that's been heavily edited. We really can't have trials by television. This is not a hearing.

This is not a typical case, as we all well know. It's something that has been in the paper for years. Some people have responded, "Well, that's what happens in rape cases." Other people have responded, "How can it be, since he ran for president?" There's no way to pursue it.

In famous cases like this in the past, the feminist movement has called for hearings because there could be something done. That's not possible now. This is after the impeachment trial, which lasted a whole year. There's just no remedy, and people just have to go on.

The odd part about this is that there's such a lack of interest beyond the Beltway, it is amazing. The minute you get out of here, no one asks a question. We have field representatives on campus and no one brings it up! It's been going on too long. It's more than fatigue; there's an exasperation. I mean, if the right wing knew about this and could not use it, only used it selectively, chose not to go public with it, there must have been a reason. The public to this day does not have the story on this. And in essence, they took their best shot. Ken Starr has been investigating him for six years and the House managers had one year. These things have to end. They had this information -- it would be a different story if they didn't have this information, but they had this information when they [impeached the president]. Clearly they couldn't use it. They say they couldn't because they were looking for obstruction of justice, but that was late in the game; initially they were looking for anything.

[The criticism of feminists on this issue] is a broadside attack. If anybody's hypocritical, they are. They said that sexual harassment charges shouldn't count when it came against Clarence Thomas. But they did more than that -- they opposed sexual harassment laws. Many of these same people have opposed and been for weakening the Title VII employment law. These people want to act like they're the champion of women, but for the past 25 years they have attacked the very laws that they now want to enforce. They act like all of us have amnesia and don't remember that they were opposed to this in the first place. It just doesn't bother us at all.

I think that the right wing's attempt to attack the feminist movement has backfired on them. I believe it is why there is such a large gender gap in voting and in the polls. The gaps are getting larger because these people, when in doubt, attack feminists. The women's rights movement has strong support from the general public. They know that we're trying desperately to improve the status of women. Even now, what with all this, we're trying to make lemonade out of lemons, saying at least everybody could unite to pass the Violence Against Women Act that's before Congress.

N E X T_ P A G E: Do we have to wait for Milosevic to protest Clinton's behavior at the U.N.?

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