Senate’s Male Clubbiness Seen as Inimical to Sex-Bias Sensitivity

Male members of the U.S. Senate no longer regularly repair after hours to their hideaway offices for drinking, cigar-smoking and all-male deal-making, as they did decades ago.

But, if they are after the exclusive company of their male peers, the Senate’s 98 men can still find it in the Senate gym, where the chamber’s two women are not inclined to venture. Or they can head for the Senate swimming pool, which asks the two women members to book visits in advance--lest they run into those male senators who swim in the nude.

Despite its many changes over the years, the Senate remains the male-dominated, male-centered institution that it has been since the founding of the republic. And that fact now makes it appear less than ideally suited to judging the sexual harassment charges filed by law professor Anita Faye Hill against her former boss, Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

The Senate has taken heat for failing to sufficiently investigate Hill’s charges, as well as for some of the comments about sexual harassment that male senators have made since the charges were disclosed.

“It’s still a club of powerful older men--run like a Bohemian Grove East,” said Pat Reuss, a lobbyist and former aide to ex-Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), referring to the club of powerful men that convenes in the California redwoods. “The place is organized to cater to their attitudes--their male attitudes--and doesn’t encourage them to change.”

The senators’ views may stem partly from who they are. Most are older, coming from an era when what is now considered harassment was viewed more tolerantly.

Most members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering the Thomas nomination, are over 50. And half of male senators have working wives--compared to two-thirds for the population as a whole.

Critics have argued that senators’ attitudes toward women--and other employees--are apparent in the way the Senate has exempted itself from federal anti-discrimination laws. The exemption means that female Senate employees who are harassed may not seek remedies through the federal courts. Rather, they may only appeal to the Senate Ethics Committee, where a jury of peers--of their boss--considers such matters in secret.

How many such cases have been filed, and what have the outcomes been? “I can’t comment,” said Wilson Abney, staff director of the panel.

Last year, after former Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) was accused of fondling a female aide, the House set up a special Office of Fair Employment Practices to mediate such disputes. But the Senate has held out against efforts--including those of Judge Thomas, when he was chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission--to persuade Congress to make itself subject to anti-discrimination laws.

“The place has never been the castle-keep of sensitivity to women,” said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University and author of a book called “Friend and Foe in the U.S. Senate.”

Indeed, some female staff members, lobbyists and even journalists complain bitterly--though privately--about the tendency of some male senators to make sexual advances to the women around them. They contend that the Senate fosters this attitude among its members because of the deference paid to them and the large number of young, often vulnerable, women attracted by the difficult, low-paying jobs of the Senate.

“They’re in a ready stream of young women in an atmosphere that fosters the attitude that they’re really terrific,” said Ann Lewis, a political consultant in Boston and former Senate aide herself.

Attention was focused on the habits of some male senators during the unsuccessful 1989 confirmation proceedings for ex-Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.), who, after he was nominated by President Bush to be secretary of defense, was accused of womanizing and excessive drinking. “Women began talking in the open about the senators that you never wanted to get near,” Lewis said.

There have been repeated allegations of liaisons between senators and employees. Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) has been accused of using government expense account money to carry on an affair with a congressional secretary--accusations that he has refused to discuss. Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.) was accused three years ago of drugging and sexually assaulting a 24-year-old former congressional aide. He has strongly denied the allegation.

A group of Capitol Hill aides two years ago began a campaign to persuade senators to voluntarily adopt anti-harassment guidelines. Thirty senators and six committees have adopted the guidelines.

“Sexual harassment is no stranger to the Hill,” said Lisa-Joy Zgorski, co-chairwoman of the Capitol Hill Women’s Political Caucus.

Some women have seen an insensitivity in some senators’ reactions to the charges against Thomas. Some senators said that they did not think the charges should halt the nomination, because Thomas was not accused of touching Hill. But some women asserted that touching is not necessary for sexual harassment to occur.

Also criticized was the comment of Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) that the uproar would cause Hill to suffer “real harassment” rather than simply “sexual harassment.” “Sexual harassment is real harassment--that’s what so many men don’t understand,” said Los Angeles lawyer Jane Harmon, a former chief counsel of a Senate subcommittee.

Baker, the Rutgers professor, said that the male clubbiness of the Senate is reinforced in informal contacts among members in a variety of settings that often do not include women. The Senate gym and the pool, for instance, “are important places for members to meet and carry on contacts,” Baker said. “But you aren’t likely to have a male senator getting a rubdown next to a female senator.”