Simonton Says

Justice for rape survivors? Look at the Kobe Bryant case

The dropping of rape charges against NBA player Kobe Bryant last week is being portrayed as an agreement that makes both sides happy.

ABC News called it a win-win situation. I think not.

The fact is, the deck was stacked against that young woman from the beginning.

Bryant benefits, of course, because he’s no longer being prosecuted for rape. He’s made a statement that he’s sorry, and, by the way, he thought the sex was consensual

Wal-Mart in the hot seat

“What surprised and offended me most about the low-wage workplace was the extent to which one is required to surrender one’s civil rights,” writes Barbara Ehrenreich. “I learned this at the very beginning of my stint as a waitress, when management warned me that my purse could be searched at any time.”

Ehrenreich, a journalist, spent several months in 1998 working as a waitress, as a maid and finally as a salesperson at Wal-Mart, where she earned $7 an hour.

Her goal was to investigate how difficult it would be to pay for housing, food and other expenses on those earnings. What she also discovered was a world in which workers were treated with very little respect. Drug testing was routine. At Wal-Mart, she was lectured on “time theft,” which essentially meant having conversations with co-workers. (It was a theft of Wal-Mart’s time.) She and other middle-aged women workers were patronized by their younger male boss.

In short, workers were viewed with suspicion and treated like children.