Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 11/03/84 (WLS Mods); site astrovax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!mario From: mario@astrovax.UUCP (Mario Vietri) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: San Quentin strip searches -- a new twist Message-ID: <546@astrovax.UUCP> Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 17:20:41 EST Article-I.D.: astrovax.546 Posted: Wed Feb 13 17:20:41 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 02:12:31 EST References: <802@druxo.UUCP> Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics Lines: 64 Nancy Parsons uses a faulty argument when she tries to explain why she feels differently depending on whether it is male guards searching female prisoners, or viceversa, at S.Quentin state prison. First, she claims that security, not privacy, should be the overriding concern on the issue. Then, she says that women are more threatened by men than the viceversa. > First, I think that felons *should* lose many of their rights, including > the right of privacy, when it interferes with security. > However, it seems worth noting that female prisoners searched by male > guards are likely to experience a greater sense of being threatened than > when the roles are reversed. Obviously, the two things are contradictory. Either security prevails, in which case body searches by guards of any sex are permitted on prisoners of any sex, or the dignity of the prisoners should be protected even within the relatively secure confines of the prison. Even if she prefers security, one may notice that the prisoners were NOT objecting to body searches per se, but only to who was performing such body searches. I of course side with the preservation of dignity even in these confines, which is in line, of course, with what is explicitly stated in the constitution. In this case, though, NP still makes a strange claim when she says... > ... female prisoners searched by male > guards are likely to experience a greater sense of being threatened than > when the roles are reversed. This is certainly true, but why should YOU decide how really threatened and humiliated men feel in these situation? Why should the fact that women feel humiliated under these (or different) conditions ... > Women experience different levels of anxiety and self-doubt than men do > when they receive promotions, get married or divorced, are searched by > members of the opposite sex... imply that men do not, or should not? In general, I believe whoever tells that s/he feels humiliated, because it is their feelings, their freedoms, their personal dignity that are being humiliated, not mine. The simple statement that somebody feels humiliated is sufficient ground, for me, to take that person seriously. At the same time, I do expect everybody else to feel the same the way, and it is exactly this that is disturbing in Nancy Parsons' letter: the presumption that she has a right to say whose claims to privacy are justified and whose are not. The episode per se is slightly irrelevant, given also that we have neglected the conflict between prisoners' rights and affirmative action. > Women experience different levels of anxiety and self-doubt than men do > when they receive promotions, get married or divorced, are searched by > members of the opposite sex... Quite true, but what does this have to do with my feelings when it is me who is being body-searched? Unfortunately for us men, and as every black, chicano, mexican man can easily attest, women do not have the monopoly on humiliation. Mario Vietri {most majors}!astrovax!mario