Yes, just as Hillary Clinton said, there really is a right wing conspiracy. It was explained best by Reagan economic advisor George Gilder in his book, "Sexual Suicide," when he wrote that, "the primary purpose of the workplace is to affirm male identity." Think about this. Here's a right wing economist who believed that the purpose of the workplace isn't to produce a product and make a profit, as most economists might think, but to uphold patriarchal privilege and enforce gender role stereotypes. The most flagrant example of this is the campaign to weaken President Clinton's presidency through sexual rumors and innuendoes. It doesn't matter to conservatives that the economy is in better shape and that there are more jobs. All they care about is forcing women into prostitution, and despite the fact that he signed welfare reform, they think President Clinton is not cooperating sufficiently with their agenda. Gilder suggested that in order to "affirm male identity," women be made sexually available to men by depriving women of all means of survival except marriage or prostitution, that is, by denying women all other means of survival such as jobs and social programs. But the President, while agreeing to cut social programs, has insisted on spending money to help welfare mothers find jobs. This infuriates conservatives and they will do everything they can to destroy the President. The right wing believes that women were created as sex objects and should be dependant on men in order to "affirm male identity." Women who can't find husbands to support them and who can't make a living through prostitution simply don't have any right to life at all--the right wing would rather see them dead than see them taking away "men's jobs" and competing on equal terms with men.

Gilder had some other interesting economic theories. For example, he believed that one of the ways to affirm male identity is to pay men more than they're worth because their income determines their sexual access to women. If this were true, of course, poverty would have been totally eliminated in three generations as women ignored kind, honest, caring, hardworking, loveable males who happened to be poor, and married only those males who had money. While it may be true that males who feel themselves superior to women can only get sex if they buy it, men who respect and care about women have always been able to find women who return their feelings without regard to wealth. Gilder also seemed to believe that a supportive husband could be found for any nonworking woman who wanted to marry one. Most other economists find that only a small percentage of men can afford to support a nonworking wife, and, as it turned out, I believe that Gilder himself ending up marrying a career woman.

Many women and gays who have been in the military or worked for the government as civilians understand that conservatives are conspiring to perpetuate patriarchal values at any cost. And the cost has been truly immense. Every year the government spends many millions of dollars investigating people's sex lives without any justification, exactly as in the Clinton case. Any male who doesn't sexually harass females comes under suspicion of being gay, and any female who is doing an excellent job is thereby suspected of being a lesbian, since a "real woman" wouldn't try to compete with or even outdo men. Billions more are spent defending the government against sexual harassment and discrimination suits as conservatives attempt to use the workplace to further the right wing agenda rather than to do the work of the country. And as a result, the best and the brightest end up broken in spirit or avoid government work altogether. Worst of all, national security has been forfeited at a cost of trillions of dollars due to spies like Aldrich Ames, John Walker, and others, who were able to sell classified material to enemies of the United States for many years because all the conservatives cared about was sex. White males who were sexist bigots had no trouble maintaining high-level security clearances no matter what they did. So long as they weren't liberals or homosexuals, nobody cared if they compromised the lives of others and gave away military secrets. When the government called people in for a polygraph to test to check their security clearance, they were asked if they were gay, not if they were in the pay of a foreign power. If they entered the room making sexist and racist jokes, they were assumed to be good old boys who would uphold white male patriarchal values, and nobody looked at them twice.

I can truly feel the President's pain. I was fired from a government job in l984, despite the fact that my work was "flawless and excellent," according to my employer. And the government spent a fortune investigating my sex life too. Fortunately for the taxpayers I was living alone and didn't have a sex life at the time. But the number of laws the government broke were incredible, and nobody was ever punished. What's more, despite the fact that the job was offered "without regard to sex," I have file cabinets full of transcripts proving that they weren't interested in anything else but sex. My work was totally irrelevant. In fact there were strict rules about firing disabled employees, and I had been told that I couldn't be fired unless there was something wrong with my work, and that this had to be proven by my getting at least 2 "unsatisfactory" monthly evaluations during a three month period. I never had an unsatisfactory evaluation. But when I took them to federal court to try to get my job back, the court was also interested only in sex--the rules, the laws, and the facts of the case were totally irrelevant.

As an emotionally disabled woman I became a victim of the right wing conspiracy when Reagan became President. I had been trying for several years to become self-supporting and get off disability checks. To this end I had, despite being homeless most of the time, gotten an external college degree by passing numerous standardized exams including 5 GREs (Political Science, Biology, Education, Sociology and Psychology) and various math tests through 1st year calculus. I had also completed a Vocational Certificate in Business Machine Technology and was working with the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (Voc Rehab) to find a job. My inspiration for all this effort was a book called, "Why Not the Best?" by President Jimmy Carter which had convinced me that this country could use intelligent people.

Totally unaware of the right wing agenda, I continued to educate myself and look for work. With the help of Voc Rehab I sent out thousands of resumes and went to a few hundred interviews without getting a single job offer. Voc Rehab had helped me work out a self-support plan that was approved by the Social Security Administration, and I was determined to find a job. Some of the biggest problems were that I didn't have a steady work history. I'd been married and divorced, I'd had two children, I'd been homeless for many years, I was almost 40 years old, and I looked older than my years because homelessness had hardened my face and at that time Medicaid would only pull teeth but wouldn't pay for replacements so my mouth had many gaps and the remaining teeth were rotting. But I'd gotten excellent grades in school, and with my external B.S. and Vocational certificate, I hoped to find a job based on skills and ability rather than on appearance. Voc Rehab bought me clothes, and I'd gotten a furnished room, so I was able to look neat and clean when I went for interviews.

One of the instructors at the Skills Center had told me about apprenticeship tests for Navy jobs, and I registered and took them. I felt I'd done very well, but I got a letter from the Navy telling me that I'd failed the mathematics portion of the test. Well, I knew that was impossible. I'd been studying math for several years, it was fresh in my mind, I'd just completed a calculus course, and the math test they'd given was very simple. There were about 2,000 applicants for the jobs, but only 6 people in my section opted to take the math part of the test. I'd had time to finish it and to check my answers carefully. I'd also had time to check to make sure that I hadn't accidentally filled in the wrong boxes on the answer sheet. I wrote back to the Navy informing them that they had made a mistake and that I could not possibly have failed their math test. I got an immediate response from the Navy admitting that they had indeed made a "mistake," that I had definitely passed their test, but informing me that they had already selected their apprentices and could not consider me that year, but that they would put my name back on the list for consideration the following year. It would be years before I'd learn that they'd kept many other women out of apprenticeships the same way and that most hadn't felt confident enough to challenge them.

I kept up my job search with unflagging diligence, but a few months later I still hadn't gotten a single job offer and suddenly I got a letter from the Social Security Administration saying that they were giving me 2 months advance notice that they were cutting my disability checks the previous month. Yes, I got 2 months advance notice in November that my checks were going to be cut in October. Without disability benefits, I would no longer be eligible for Voc Rehab services, so my self-support plan was also terminated. I became desperate and extremely depressed. If I didn't get a job I wouldn't be able to pay my rent and I'd be homeless again. I was a lot older and times were tougher, there was more street violence, and I made up my mind that rather than be homeless again I was going to kill myself if I didn't manage to get a job before my rent ran out. I redoubled my efforts to find work. I also filed an appeal with Social Security, but it was denied. Reagan had become President and a quarter of a million totally disabled people had their benefits cut-- I was only one of many. Social Security claimed that I was capable of working and I agreed with them. The only problem was that I couldn't find work.

At this point conservatives would assume that, unable to find a husband to support me, and unable to earn a living, I would turn to prostitution in order to "affirm male identity." Instead, as many women throughout history have done in similar circumstances, and as many will inevitably do in the future until and unless women have equal rights and opportunities, I concealed my sex in hopes that an employer might not realize I was female and would hire me on the basis of my skills and abilities without regard to sex. My female Voc Rehab counselor thought it was a great idea and on the day I walked in with short hair, neat clothes, and no makeup, jewelry or frippery whatsoever, shouted, "You look ten years younger--this is going to help your job chances immensely!" I didn't look ten years younger, of course. It is simply that many employers will consider a man of forty but think a woman of forty is over the hill. I legally changed my name and notified everyone I knew or had dealings with of my name change, including the Navy, as they still had my employment application on file. And miraculously, or so it seemed at the time, just before my rent ran out I was told to report to a nearby Navy base for a Civil Service interview for an apprenticeship job.

I wasn't overly optimistic. I'd been to many interviews without getting hired. But I wasn't in a position to neglect any possibility however remote it might seem. I wore simple clothes, a pair of khaki slacks, a white dress shirt, and a cardigan sweater. I carried an attache case. I arrived early, obtained a pass to enter the base and directions to the interview, walked over, found the office, and sat down in the hall outside to wait until I was called. Civil Service interviews are done according to strict guidelines and I'd looked them up beforehand. I knew that 3 people would be interviewed at a time and that the interviewers weren't supposed to ask our names. Two other applicants arrived shortly afterwards and we chatted casually as we waited to be called. One was a younger man, either still in or just out of his teens, with a chubby baby-face. The other looked like a typical San Francisco gay male and said he had previously worked for the IRS. As we talked the office door keep opening and closing and each time someone would peer out at us intently for a few minutes before closing the door again. This went on for almost a half hour. Finally a man opened the door, came out, walked over to us, and asked each of us our names. In hindsight I now realize that the interviewers knew that one of the applicants was actually female, but couldn't tell by looking at us which one I was. By now the Navy had done two things that were illegal and discriminatory: they had fiddled with the test scores, and they had asked my name before the interview. I had no way of knowing that they had also created what is called a "dumping program," that is, a program that would permit them to hire women in order to meet their EEO goals without giving women the same training and opportunities that men got. The interview seemed to go well until the end when I was asked if I would accept any of three different jobs if offered. I stressed that my Voc Rehab training had been in electronics, that I qualified for an apprenticeship in electronics, and that I would prefer electronics. I was asked the same question again, and after asking if the pay scales were the same, I agreed to accept whatever job was offered. Naturally I was placed in the Aircraft Electrician program, the only 88% female apprentice group at a 93% male workplace. I'd been "dumped" but I was so naive that I thought it was great that the Navy was hiring women. Since I really didn't think I would actually be hired, or that, if hired I would be kept on (the longest job I'd ever held previously had been for 3 months), I saw no reason to change my name or appearance back to what they'd been previously. After all, if jobs were offered without regard to sex, my sex wouldn't matter and the only important thing would be if I could do the job or not. I really believed that, but then I'm an emotionally disturbed person and I both wanted and needed to believe it.

Soon after the interview I got a notice to report to the Navy base for a physical exam. Again I got there early, but I wasn't called until late afternoon after everybody else had been examined. The doctor was an older man with a German accent. He had me remove my shirt and demonstrate that I had all my fingers and could move them easily. Then he told me to take off my pants and underwear and come over to his desk. He said he had to check for hernias. This didn't seem right to me, but since I had come this far and had no other job offers, I did as he said. He took a pencil and separated my labia, examined my clitoris closely, and then poked his pencil into my vagina. The report of that medical exam states clearly, "has vagina." So much for, "without regard to sex." Was I supposed to do aircraft electrical work with my vagina? Is that why only the aircraft electrician apprentices were predominantly female, while all other apprenticeship groups were predominantly or entirely male? I'm sure you're wondering why I didn't sue at this point, but it never occurred to me. I was on the verge of suicide and needed a job desperately. I had no money for a lawsuit and didn't think anybody would believe me. Besides, maybe he really did have to "check for hernias," although I have since learned that such exams do not usually involve vaginal penetration.

When I got the notice that I was hired with the date and time I was to report for work, I felt as if my life had been saved, as indeed it had. I was determined to prove that I could work and keep a job. But the shock of being hired was too much for my system to take. Despite the huge grin which didn't leave my face for days, I got a splitting headache which recurred with regularity for years afterwards. Of course I never mentioned it to anyone for fear that they'd say that I wasn't fit for work.

At the orientation meeting, the Director of Apprenticeship Programs made sexist remarks and sexist jokes in his speech.

When academic classes began the instructors passed around pornography.

Male apprentices were given advanced credit for shop experience, but female apprentices were denied advanced credit for academic achievements. I was forced to take a class in simple shop math despite my presenting documentation that I had recent academic credits in arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and calculus.

The academic classes were given aboard the Navy base by instructors from a nearby community college, so we were formally enrolled as students at the college. I got straight A grades (a 4.0 GPA) in all my classes and made the Dean's list. Then we were introduced to our Navy instructor who was going to teach our trade theory classes. He gave us our Navy evaluations for the previous semester, when we had taken the college classes and he had not been our instructor. I was given "satisfactory" evaluations, while many apprentices who had much lower grades got "outstanding" evaluations. When I questioned him, the instructor, a functionally illiterate sexist male (he started our classes by telling us he'd taught the bases' first class of female aircraft electricians and had flunked all of them because "women aren't cut out to be electricians") explained that he wanted to leave me "room to grow." Determined to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble, I was forced to accept his explanation without protest.

The trade theory classes followed a simple procedure. On Mondays we would go over a module in a workbook. The modules were short, simple, and easy to understand. On Tuesdays we would go over the same material again. On Wednesdays we would take the 10-question test at the end of that week's module. On Thursdays we would go over the test and the teacher would give the correct answer to each of the ten questions and explain it carefully. On Fridays we would take the same test again. At first I always got 100% on all the Friday tests (in fact to this day I can't understand how anybody who could pass that Civil Service test could fail to do so, and can only conclude that most of my classmates got their positions through nepotism, favoritism, or corruption and could never have passed the same test I passed), and this made the instructor and my classmates very angry. So the instructor made a new rule: If anybody got 100% on the Friday test, the test was no good and everybody would have to take it over again. Naturally I had to be extremely careful after that to mark at least one answer incorrectly so as to avoid the wrath of the instructor and my classmates. I later filed a claim of discrimination, but both the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Courts upheld the instructor's policy. Think about this the next time you hear about a Navy aircraft accident in the news. Oh yes, this all happened at a base with a "zero defects tolerance" policy.

If you lie on an application for federal employment it is cause for them to fire you. I did not lie. The forms did ask for some personal information, but stated clearly that all such information was confidential. Nobody told me that some of my classmates had previously worked in the personnel office at the base, had read my files with interest, and had shared this "confidential" information with their friends. When I began to be openly harassed at work with information that could only have come from my "confidential" files, I filed complaints. Since people knew information about me that they should not have known, and used this information to harass me at work, it became extremely difficult for me to get along with them. I was later fired for "difficulty getting along with people." As a disabled person, I was supposed to have the right to have accommodations made to enable me to work, if such accommodations weren't too inconvenient, or else to be transferred to another job or worksite. The only accommodation the Navy would have had to make to enable me to "get along with people," would have been to keep my medical and personnel records confidential, as they are required to do by federal law. The Navy, the MSPB, and the federal courts all felt that it would not be convenient for the Navy to accommodate me by keeping my files confidential, and that it would be unreasonable to expect them to obey the law.

Although they proclaimed a "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment, it was constant, overt, and mandatory in the shops. A group of women who worked as electrical helpers were suing the Navy in a class action suit because none of them had had a promotion in 15 years, while all the males who had been hired at the same time were journeymen, foremen and supervisors.

Despite the fact that the job was offerred "without regard to sex," the Navy claimed that they had hired me "as a man," despite knowing at the time that I was female. When people who had seen my "confidential" files began calling me by my previous name, I asked to have my files sealed. The Director of Personnel responded by agreeing to take my previous name off my files, but insisted on putting "F" for female, instead of "M" for male on all my forms. Every federal employment action form has a space for sex. When shop foreman got my next promotional form stating that I was female, they called me into their offices to question me about my sex and classmates also began to ask me if I was male or female.

After I was fired I learned from a union representative that the base had previously hired a female-to-male transexual who they had harassed to much that the person had committed suicide. Apparently they thought I was the same sort of person and wanted to do the same thing to me. Unfortunately for them, I was not, am not, and have never been homosexual and I had concealed my sex purely for economic and survival reasons, so investigations into my sex life revealed nothing more than a strictly heterosexual past and abstinence since being hired.

When I was sent to the shops, males who had learned that I was female refused to work with me and foremen refused to give me assignments. I received death threats. I was also accused of being "disruptive." Written complaints against me by classmates stated that I had disrupted such activities on their part as passing notes, talking about movies, talking about lesbians, and drinking coffee, all of which had taken place during the "valuable and important" class time. It was later ruled that it didn't matter if I disrupted classes or breaks, as they were no different. I have to agree. And they were spending $85,000 a year for each apprentice.

Although the Navy was very concerned about my (nonexistant) sex life, they had known child molesters working there. They had a federal court ruling that said that it didn't matter what a child molester did after work outside the worksite. This policy did not apply to homosexuals or suspected homosexuals. Patriarchy apparently believes that if a man has sex with another male who is under 18, he isn't homosexual.

When they could find no other grounds to fire me, the Navy sent me to several psychiatrists including 2 sex and gender specialists. The Navy then refused to follow the advise of the specialists to return me to work, which was to provide me with a separate bathroom and seal my files or transfer me to another area. The Navy was shocked to learn from the sex and gender specialists that I was not a transexual, and withdrew that allegation. They then visited another psychiatrist, who had written a report stating that I was competent to work and should be reinstated, and told him to write a 2nd report saying that I was unfit for work, which he did. I was fired and reinstated several times as everything they tried to use to fire me proved untrue, until the 2nd medical report was used to terminate me for being disruptive and not getting along with people.

When I went to federal court to sue to get my job back, I thought the case would be very simple. By federal law the job was offerred "without regard to sex," which was obviously untrue. To fire me for medical reasons, there had to be something wrong with my work, which there was not. After three years in court, mostly representing myself as I had no money, I had to contend with 4 legal teams representing the Navy including 17 Justice Department attorneys. Whenever I would win a point in court, the attorney would be removed and replaced with another one. With no job, no disability benefits, and suffering from extreme depression, I gave up after three years. The judge's final ruling spoke about whether or not I was obviously female.

I had gotten a chance to question a Director during MSPB hearings and I asked him if everybody in the shops had to know an employee's sex. He was under oath and said yes. I asked if everybody had to know an employee's race. He again said yes. I asked what would happen if somebody was a light-skinned African-American and appeared to be Caucasion. He said they were supposed to make their race known. The Administrative law judge then refused to let me continue my line of questioning.

A few years later the Supreme Court ruled that disability checks shouldn't have been cut in the first place and reinstated them. Ten years later the Social Security Administration again cut my disability checks, 10 years retroactively, on the grounds that I had worked for the Navy. I appealed this decision. Social Security rules say that earnings don't count if they're subsidized, and that work must be productive to count as gainful employment for the purpose of cutting checks. Productive is defined as something an employer can make money from. The Navy's money came from a revolving fund established by Congress. In order for the fund to replenish itself, all work done had to be billed to a specific job. Work orders were given out by supervisors and employees completed the work orders and used time cards for billing purposes. One of the times I was fired the grounds were that I had disrupted the shop by asking for a work order.

I'm back on Social Security disability now. The entire episode took 16 years and cost the taxpayers, according to my best estimates, at least two million dollars.

Do I believe in a right wing conspiracy? You bet! Do I believe that the right wing is out to destroy President Clinton? Yes! Do I believe that their attempts to destroy the President are part of their attempts to deny women "all means of survival" outside of sex work? Yes, that's exactly what I believe.

But I also suspect that the right wing is consciously or subconsciously jealous. No matter what their economists say, they know that some people are likeable and others aren't, regardless of income bracket. The President is likeable, and most right wing fanatics are not. Maybe they should get a life and quit spending tax money to meddle in other peoples' lives.