Friday night duty

Gotta love working all night friday night. Actually that isn't entirely sarcastic-- Friday duty does mean you'll have the next four weekends off entirely (on a six-day rotation). I digress. But shit, I dont even have a topic from which to digress. So let the free-association begin.

What a stressful week. But if I write about how stressful work has been, it will bore you all to tears, so I suppose I should find a new topic. Wow, I just thought of about five new subjects and they all had to do with work or the ship or people on the ship. Conclusion: I have no personal life. I guess I came to that conclusion long ago though.

Well.. an interesting case that came up recently may actually interest some of you. So I'm taking over as the ship's next CMEO-- Command Managed Equal Opportunity-- officer sometime in the next month or so. And yesterday we got together all the females on board for a "female meeting" which of course all the guys joked about, but it was what you'd expect-- sexual harassment, discrimination type stuff. It was actually really good. We started out with an NCIS agent telling stories and talking about the resources she offers. Then "Doc", our senior corpsman onboard (female), talked about sexual assault and how to present oneself confidently and consistently to avoid bad situations. Finally I talked about CMEO stuff and defined discrimination (versus how Ops always jokingly describes himself as an "equal opportunity fucker" where guys, girls, blacks, whites, etc are all treated equally poorly). Then we opened up the floor and Doc and I moderated what turned into a very good conversation between the 30 or so females we had at the meeting. But a couple of issues of interest did come up.

1. How do you deal with a situation that has been "addressed" before, but a group of people still feels they are being discriminated against? I heard stories, but it is hard to piece together solid evidence from what seems like a pile of heresay. However, it does seem pretty legit when I hear it from 5 or 6 different individuals. And it sounds like no one really listened the first time they complained, at least not with an open mind. If there's one thing I'm good at it is listening and empathizing. I am always inclined to believe someone until I have reason not to. But, I don't really have any evidence to make a case for discrimination to the XO, CO, etc. So what do I do? My plan now is to collect more stories and try to get people to tell them as straightforward and fact-filled as possible. Then work it out on my own and present a story up the chain of command. I'm not sure this will lead to a solution though. Any suggestions?

2. Second issue is simpler and I think more common. One female reported sexual harassment, and said she had reported it but it had never been fully resolved. I was planning to investigate (ie talk to her) but I soon heard from a trustworthy source that in fact she had been encouraging the behavior from the guy. Now, this follows the same line as "rape" where the slightly tipsy whore begs the guy for sex and later says he raped her. But in the case of sex, no matter the situation we draw the line at sober consent. However, for talking/touching/acting without sexual contact, I think it is equally up to the girl to draw the line before the guy crosses it. If she encourages that kind of behavior, it is as much (if not more) her fault than his-- she can't later claim sexual harassment for something she has instigated. The more women abuse the privelege of calling out guys on sexual harassment/ sexual assault by placing labels on situations where it is THEIR responsibilty for him acting that way, the worse our reputation as women.

My god, I sound like a full-fledged feminist. Not sure how I feel about that but I guess it depends on your definition of feminism. Eh, I think at my wise old age of 22 I've grown out of labels anyway.

My First Entry

I have really spent all my mental energy coming up with a title for this blog, so now I have nothing to write, and will probably delete this post later, when I have other real posts that are more interesting to read. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed these few sentences.