Battling Sexism in the Trenches

She is a career soldier who was forbidden to fire a gun her first 18 years on the job--a loyal Army hand who learned early to expect ribald jokes from colleagues at her expense.

So when U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Evelyn Patricia Foote spoke with more than 300 women law enforcement officers in Anaheim on Monday, her message was simple: Sexual harassment in the military and on police forces will live as long as women remain an unequal minority in those professions and men aren’t taught to respect them.

Foote, 66, should know. One of just four female brigadier generals in the U.S. Army, she was recalled to active duty from retirement in December to serve as the second-highest-ranking member of a panel appointed by Secretary of the Army Togo West to review sexual harassment in the institution she served for 29 years.

While Foote declined to elaborate on the findings of the panel, expected to be released in May, she said her travels to Army bases throughout Asia and the Pacific as one of four women on the nine-member panel have convinced her that while sexual harassment is endemic in her branch of the military, incidents of rape and sexual assault are few and far between.

“Sexual harassment is a symptom; it is a symptom of something that perhaps lies deeper, a pattern of poor behavior that members of the Army learn from early on,” Foote said. “We can’t train it out of them. We have to go back to the beginning and change the values we teach them, and tell them what we expect of them. . . . If we fail to do that, then we have failed them and our society.”

Among the police officers gathered at the Anaheim Sheraton for the annual conference of the National Center for Women and Policing, Foote’s detailing of the panel’s investigation was far less important than the chance to meet a woman who has been a pioneer in her career.

Laughing wildly and cheering, the policewomen nodded their heads in understanding at Foote’s stories about coping with porn magazines around the office and sexual innuendo from colleagues. The fact that Foote is an Army, not a law enforcement, officer did nothing to dilute the power of her message.

“We’re looking for mentors. We need them desperately, and there aren’t a lot in our own field,” said Sheree Stewart, a captain in the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department.

“We are looking for examples; we are looking for qualities to emulate. Along comes this woman who is just an inspiration. While we are hitting the glass ceiling, she’s standing on top of it.”