Behind the Paula Jones 'story'
Paula Jones, the 29-year old woman who has charged US President Bill Clinton with sexual harassment, has become a pawn.
Jones' decision in 1994 to file a civil suit for sexual harassment against the most powerful politician in the world was a courageous affirmation of women's right to freedom from sexual harassment, regardless of the perpetrator.
It was also testament to the progress made by the feminist movement in its decades-long struggle to have sexual harassment acknowledged and treated as a crime against women.
During her three-year pursuit of justice, however, Jones' case has been transformed. It has been coopted, moulded and rendered "benign" by those whose interests are to de-legitimise and weaken feminist demands.
Jones' image make-over during those three years — from "whore" to "lady" — is a capitulation to and reaffirmation of the sexual double standard peddled by the mass media which automatically condemns as "guilty" women who present as sexual beings. Jones' new image is designed to conform to media stereotypes, to convey that she is "virtuous", passive and respectable.
Jones has also become a pawn of the radical right. The financial backing she is receiving from a number of prominent Republican organisations and other right-wing campaigners is undoubtedly motivated by the opportunity they see to destabilise the Democratic Party administration and tarnish the image of a president whose popularity rating is still at a record high.
The right-wing's support for Jones is blatant hypocrisy. These supporters are the same people leading the ferocious campaigns against a wide range of women's rights in the US, from abortion to affirmative action to equal pay. Their accusations of "political correctness" against feminists who have spoken out against sexual harassment and gender inequality reveal their reactionary agenda. It is to have laws against sexual harassment abolished, not upheld ... after they have extracted as much political mileage out of Jones as they can.
Jones has also become a pawn of muck-raking politics. Sex scandals, in which the roles of women are pretty much confined to either "whore" or "betrayed wife", have become staple fare in parliamentary politics. This "pornographication" of politics, in which the media packages and sells politicians' personal sexual lives to the public, doesn't just trivialise any criminal abuses of power that are committed by politicians. It also diverts attention from the politicians' and parties' policies in relation to sexual and women's rights.
Presenting Clinton's treatment of this one woman, Paula Jones, as a "sex scandal" is selling Murdoch and Co. a lot of newspapers. Sexual harassment, however, is not a "sex scandal". As a product of institutionalised gender inequality in capitalist society it is a public, not a private matter.
Sexual harassment is also (for the moment at least) illegal and it is unjustifiable under any circumstances. Jones has an unqualified right to lay charges and expect justice.
But hers is just a tiny part of the story. The main story, which is not being told by the media, is the story of a President and parliament which have enacted social and economic policies which render millions of women in the US — poor, African-American, young, immigrant, indigenous and unemployed or underemployed women — more vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault.
Unless the feminist movement mobilises to reassert the right of all women to be free of sexual harassment at work, school, at home and on the street, the mass media, governments and the radical right will succeed in creating the social conditions in which all victims sexual harassment will be silenced and made invisible.
By Lisa Macdonald