by Joy Carlson
BRINGING TO LIGHT TO MAKE A CHANGE
JUROR 11
How men treat women needs to change. How people look at abortion needs to change.
How does one go about making a change? How does one go about bringing enough attention to how one group of people is mistreating another group of people? Enough attention needs to be brought to the situation by something big enough to draw people’s attention to how one group is treating another.
A case in point is the case that made a shift in the responsibilities of businesses to their customers in 1992. People had been burned by McDonald’s coffee before. There had been lawsuits settled between McDonald’s and the party injured. In this case, the woman’s injuries were worse because she was wearing sweat pants. Sweat pants held heat to her body longer than other clothing, so she was burnt worse than the vast majority of McDonald’s customers.
This case brought to light that McDonald’s was in the wrong for their choice of temperature of the coffee. During the trial, the statistics revealed how many people approached McDonald’s because of being burnt by their coffee. It could probably be assumed that there were more people burnt by McDonald’s coffee but not enough to pursue damages, or they did not want to go through the hassle of a lawsuit.
Although the number of people who pursued some type of remuneration from McDonald’s was small compared to the number of people who are served by McDonald’s, there still were people who were suffering who did not need to suffer. It was shown that the people who decided the temperature of the coffee believed people did not drink the coffee until they got to their destination, so the coffee had to be handed out with such temperature to still be hot enough at a later time. It turned out to be incorrect thinking.
There were people who said they did not like McDonald’s attitude, that they should be penalized for that. Did McDonald’s need to be punished as much as they were to get them to change their policy? I do not know, but it changed the industry.
In Kathy’s case she was hurt by Doug, not necessarily physically but by Doug’s attitude. Doug, like McDonald’s, paid for his attitude. He paid a bigger price—his life. I hope that this case would cause people to look at the way people treat one another, how they treat others, especially how men treat women. Hopefully it will cause people to think through their own attitudes. It is too bad that it takes something drastic and so harmful to get people’s attention. Hopefully there does not need to be another Doug.
COLLEGE
Kathy was looking forward to college. She and Ellen were going to the state university. They would start out as roommates. They talked of how they wanted their dorm room to be, what style they wanted it to be. They went shopping for bedding, some furniture, and décor. She had her father’s credit card; Ellen had her mom’s. They each got laptops and other accessories. It was great to fantasize.
The time arrived. They loaded their stuff into Kathy’s car and off they went on their high adventure. Everyone was moving in. They kept bumping into each other. Most of the other women were friendly. A few were reserved. That was okay; they could get to know those later. They headed down to the dining hall of the dorm. Spaghetti was the main entrée, but there were hamburgers and hot dogs, sandwich makings and salad makings. Kathy decided on the turkey sandwich with a side salad and Ellen had a hamburger. Ice cream for dessert, with hot fudge topping. It seemed they would like college life.
The men were eyeing the women as they maneuvered around the salad bar. The atmosphere was bright and festive.
Kathy decided that she did not want to get into any relationship too early. She wanted to avoid the dating scene altogether. However, she discovered that it had too strong of a pull. This had been her life. She had been groomed since she was born. Her dad had started it while changing diapers. He started involving her brothers. Even when Kevin was born two years later, he eventually became a part as well. How could she avoid being involved with men?
She started going to the parties. Kathy figured that since she was not living at home anymore, she could finally use birth control pills. Her mom would not be able to find out.
It was after Christmas that she met Sue at one of these parties. They became fast friends. Eventually Sue told her about some websites she could go to find men who would pay for sex. Ellen also found a lesbian service site. She was not as in demand, but she was bringing in some money as well.
She enlisted on three of them to begin. Each of them took a percentage of her earnings. She discovered she could make extra by offering the types of sex that Dick had taught her. She would offer to do more than what was outlined on the online contract for cash. Many of the men were interested. She got to know other women, as she would often see them in the lobbies of the nicer hotels or hanging out by the front doors. Some of them talked about their experiences. They told that there were some times when men were rough with them, very controlling. One told how she had ended up in the hospital after one night. These stories made Kathy a little wary, but it was easy money. She was also warned that if she stayed with a certain site too long, they would eventually own her. That caused her to stop for a while, but the attraction was too much. She found other sites.
She got good reviews on the sites she serviced, so was approached by a site. They offered to pay her more if she would be willing to service their higher-paying customers. That was attractive. More would be asked of her. She would have to dress according to the client’s preferences. She was often taken out to eat before the room service. Sometimes the client would insist on some type of drink that left her feeling a bit out of control. She did not have to work as often, which was good. She was in her third year of college and needed to give more time to studies. Her body was also maturing, which helped. She was not aware of what the men were being charged, only what she was being paid. She still would work the lesser sites at times when she wanted quick cash. There were more clients on these sites. She could often get work, even that evening, if she did not get online too late.
She also worked at a job in the library so she could put something on job applications after college. She did not have to work many hours a week. She could study while sitting at the desk waiting for students who needed help finding some materials. The peace and quiet helped to soothe her soul. It also determined her major: library science.
Kathy looked at Robby and Maria. After Robby and Maria had graduated, they got married. They actually seemed to love one another. They had something that she had never seen in her parents. Her parents had lived together. They “loved” each other enough to have her and her three brothers, yet there was a connection that was missing. They had good times together, took the family on vacations, yet Kathy’s mom and dad did not do a lot together. They each liked being with their children, but not necessarily each other.
As graduation approached, she thought more about what type of person she would want to spend her life with. Who would want her for more than just her body? She felt she had a mind in there somewhere. It had not necessarily ever been acknowledged by anyone. She felt she had never really been acknowledged by anyone. Even the men who took her to dinner only made small talk or brag about themselves. Even the women who talked about women’s rights were fighting about women’s vaginas, not women’s brains or skills and abilities, as if sex were the most important part of women. No one really cared about her except Robby and Maria. She did enjoy spending time in their home, especially as little ones came along. It was so peaceful. When she babysat for them on Saturday nights, they would invite her to spend the night and then go to church with them the next day. There was a longing in her heart for it. It seemed too unknown though. Would the people there really accept her?
No, she figured, not if they really knew what she was like. No one knew what she was like. Graduation loomed ahead with hope that her life would change. She landed a job in a nearby city’s library. Perhaps a larger venue would yield better results for life?
WHO’S CHOICE REALLY?
JUROR 2
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Women never really have had choice. It’s men who have the choice. The woman needs to go along with the man’s choice. If the man does not want the child, what is the woman to do? It is hard to raise the child by herself. It costs to prove that the man is the father if it would come to that. The man may tell her to get rid of the child because he does not want to take on the responsibility. Sadly, if a man’s father did not want to take on the responsibility of fatherhood, this keeps getting passed down from one father to the next.
It is hard for a woman to make it on her own because of how society is at this time. It helps to have a man to have a better life. People are made for relationships and men take advantage of this fact. It has been made easy, acceptable, in our society, for people not to be in a committed relationship. So, men just use women for their own pleasure, then they are gone when that is no longer the case. Men can have many women they are in a relationship with, even if they are living with one particular one at the time. It’s a man’s world.
Men are the ones in power. Men are the ones who are in the position to support a family. If a woman needs to support a family, she has to work twice or more as hard. It is normally the woman who becomes the parent who cares for the children. I know this is not always the case, but the mom is the one who usually ends up with the children. She has to be there day in and day out. She is usually the one who has to set the standards and help the children hold to them. If the dad is involved, it is to take the children out for fun. This confuses the children into thinking the dad is the better parent as he is fun and she is the “mean one” who “doesn’t let me do anything.” This perpetuates the lie that men are better than women.
Yet if the man had committed to the family by first making the choice to be committed to the woman, single parent homes would not be happening as frequently. If the man had made the choice to be committed to the woman even before sex, we would have many more healthy families.
Some men make the choice not be committed. They figure that if they do not make a commitment, they will be able to have better control of the situation. They can always threaten to leave if the woman does not do what he wants her to do. Basically it means they can run when they want to get out of the situation. This leaves the woman always trying to please the man to keep the relationship.
In this case, Kathy decided she did not want to terminate her pregnancy. She wanted the relationship with Doug to continue, but did not like the pressure he was placing on her to get an abortion. That is a hard thing for a woman to do, because of how women have been raised to think less of themselves. Kathy is the first woman to make a choice. She made the choice to terminate a life before it really started happening. Was Doug human yet or just an animal going after the satisfaction of life? It seemed the latter case, so Doug was terminated.
Will this happen again? I hope not. This trial and all the information presented has opened my eyes to how society really is against women. If I had a daughter whom I cared about, would I want her life to be like that? Would I want to be in those shoes? I do not think so. Is it possible for society to change? I think so. It will take some time. Hopefully this situation will bring attention to the fact that it needs to change and men will rise up and become human beings and not little two-year-olds who just want their way. I know there are men who do care about women and their status and treat women right. It just needs to pervade society to a greater extent.
STARTING OUT
For the first time in her life, Kathy was on her own. It was so freeing yet scary. She was the one who would be responsible for her life, no one to tell her what she had to do. People did not know what it was like to not be able to say no. She wanted to be able to put boundaries on her sex life and other areas of her life. She decided it would be good to get a gun. That might help her feel more powerful, more in control. She did her research online so that when she went in to look for one, she could act knowledgeable. It was convenient to work at the library as she could do the research while she worked. No one questioned why she was so diligent at her computer for a few days. Once she felt confident in her choice, she found a gun shop, had all the correct paperwork, and ordered her gun.
In the meantime, she was also working at furnishing her apartment. She began to realize that her life, her tastes, had been dictated a lot. Her dad had dictated it while growing up. Tom had wanted her to dress a certain way for him in high school. In college, she had followed the crowd as well as gotten certain clothing for her side job. She decided to donate all of her old clothes away and start new. Since she really did not know what she liked, she would buy a few outfits and wear them for a while, deciding if she liked them or not. Then she would try some other ones. She realized that since her body had been such an important selling point before, she now preferred loose-fitting clothes that had some tailor fit to them but not tight. She did not want to draw attention to her body for a while.
The furniture she picked out was simple. She did not have the student loans that so many others had because of her lucrative side job. She checked out some DVDs and books on cooking and experimented on what she liked. Robby and Maria lived in a suburb of the city so she would visit them often. Their home was so peaceful in spite of their growing family.
Kathy took her gun classes and found a safe place in her apartment to keep the gun safely hidden and yet easily reachable.
After two years, Kathy felt settled enough to start dating. She again looked at the different available web sites for getting matched up. She filled out the forms on a couple of them and waited. She was contacted by some men. She chose a couple of them to pursue. It came down to Ken and Alex. After a few months, Alex dropped out and Kathy continued with Ken. Eventually Ken moved in with Kathy. They had similar interests. They loved art. They loved going to the beach together. Life was going well. Kathy decided to get off the birth control pill.
It took a while, but Kathy became pregnant. She waited to make sure before she told Ken. He was furious. He said he never wanted a kid. That she had just used him. He told her to get an abortion. Kathy thought that he would be happy. They had so much in common and had talked about having children. He said that was just talk to keep her happy. He wanted nothing to do with it. That weekend he moved out. Now what was Kathy to do? Again, she did not know whom to talk to about it. Who would understand? People at work had talked in the break room about a coworker who had gotten into the same situation. They had all been in favor of abortion. She did not know if any of them had had an abortion. Did they know what it was like?
Kathy decided to get an abortion. She looked up a women’s health clinic and made an appointment. She was hoping they would help her work things out. It was in a lower class area of the city, supposedly because women from that type of neighborhood are the ones who need help more. She entered and waited in the waiting room. Looking around, there were actually more women who looked in her socioeconomic class than women from the neighborhood.
When called into the office, she received an exam. Then the doctor told her about the methods they used for abortion. Some took longer, others were quick and over easy. They could do it right then. Kathy thought they would counsel her on her options of keeping the child—giving it up for adoption or straight abortion. The only options were the type of abortion. What else was she there for? She decided on the one they said was the quickest.
She was ushered into another room toward the back. She was remembering the last time she had had an abortion. It seemed so long ago. The nurse seemed nice yet robotic. The doctor came in and the procedure was done. The nurse was called out for another patient and the doctor finished up and left. Kathy lay there awhile and then sat up.
There was the bucket. There was her baby, in pieces. Kathy threw up all over the floor. The nurse came in and realized what Kathy had seen. She tried to make light of it and apologized for being called out. The nurse said they would clean up the floor. She grabbed the bucket and left. Then she came back in to clean up Kathy. She made small tal
k to get Kathy to think about other things. They got the floor cleaned up and helped Kathy get dressed. They moved her to a room that was a little darker and where she could recover from the procedure. It seemed the workers were avoiding eye contact. Then a nurse came in and said it was time for her to go. She went to the accounting desk and paid her bill. A nurse escorted her out to her car. In ways it seemed they just wanted her out of there. She headed home.
She headed into the bathroom and threw up again. Trying to calm her stomach was not working—it was not really her stomach that needed calming. She wondered how many women who received abortions ever saw the results of the abortion. She looked up online to try to find out. Suicide rates were the main outcome. She looked for places that would be able to give her the support she needed. There did not seem to be many. Some churches had some. Could she trust them to accept her and not condemn her? She had been told so many times by others that churches were places of condemnation. She laughed a little as she recalled how she realized that the place supposed to be known for love was less loving than the very groups they condemned.
Yet then she remembered Robby and Maria. They did not seem to be judgmental but very caring. It seemed that their church might be a caring place. She remembered the peaceful atmosphere she experienced with them. Would that level of peace ever be possible for her again?
She lay there listening to the pain. It was overwhelming. She was finally able to just shut down all her feelings, all her confusion, all her thoughts. She must have drifted off to sleep, numb to her world.
IMPACT OF ABORTIONS ON INDIVIDUALS
JUROR 1
People do not realize the extent of abortions. Sure they hear the numbers, yet they do not know whom those numbers represent. Do they know which of their friends, their coworkers, or their acquaintances have had abortions? Do they know the women who have prominent positions in businesses, agencies, committees, churches, etc. who have had abortions? Would these women be in such positions if people either knew that they had an abortion or if they had decided to keep the child and raise it without the support of the man? Of course if you would ask them they would probably deny it, for they do not want to lose the position, they do not want to lose the life that they have been allowed to have because no one knows. This is not a statement about the women as much as it is a statement about our society and its institutions that do not value women in their role as mothers.
