To combat sexism, Alaska has to stop looking the other way

Last week, we watched Rep. Zack Fields deliver a humiliating “Happy Birthday” speech to a younger woman colleague, followed by a vague apology on Facebook. We knew this moment was linked to so many other such moments, this behavior part of a pattern in the Alaska political world and in Alaska communities.

As a state that has set the bar in so many ways with the leadership of women across all branches of government, it is deeply disappointing that the environment women walk into — whether in the state Capitol, Department of Law, or election campaigns — is rife with gender discrimination and steeped in resistance to change. The disappointment we felt and the actions many people took to urge Rep. Fields to learn from and be accountable for this (which we believe he is now doing), were a response to every part of this environment.

It was not just what Rep. Fields said that we were feeling and responding to; it was everything that made him think it acceptable to deliver a speech like that. It was everyone who signed off on that speech, on that kind of behavior. It was everyone over the decades who has looked the other way when they knew a legislator was having an affair with a staffer, who ignored the whispers about legislators sexually harassing pages or staff or — worse — who’s told these young people to stay mum. It was everyone who remained silent when Rep. Eastman made false and disparaging comments about rural Alaska Native women, everyone who ignored women’s issues — especially the issues of rural women and women of color — everyone who’s laughed at rather than addressed threats to women’s safety.

We were responding to every adult who knew what then-27-year-old Ed Sniffen had done and yet failed to hold him accountable, and to Sniffen for believing that, despite having allegedly committed statutory rape, he was entitled to be top cop in the state with the highest rape rate in the nation. We were responding to every official in the Dunleavy administration who knew Kevin Clarkson was harassing a junior colleague and attempted to cover for him. There is not enough room to name all these instances. And while Rep. Fields’ comments do not rise to the level of the ex-AGs or legislators or the Lieutenant Governor who’ve resigned, his comments are still part of a culture and structure that unfairly favors men and burdens women.

We’re members of a parent/caregiver-led activism group called Growing Alaskan Leaders. Many women in our group felt exhausted and disappointed to be experiencing this again, including from someone who champions our issues. Many women put in hours responding, some even helping Rep. Fields understand what we needed in an apology and in next steps for accountability (which, to his credit, he was receptive to, as shown by his amended apology). The men in our group felt outrage, and a sense of responsibility not to leave women alone to shoulder the work of convincing men to see and behave differently. We know that we must use our positions as men to demand better of our entire political culture. The men in Growing Alaskan Leaders understand that it’s on us to support policy change that centers the well-being of children, families, and women, and on us to be part of changing the cultures, norms, and behaviors that shape Alaska. In our workplaces, communities, personal lives, and civic roles, we have to demand better of one another.

What all of us ask for now is that men in political environments be humble, curious, and non-defensive about what they don’t know — asking women for honest feedback and acting on that feedback. We ask that they do their homework to learn what it’s like for women in these hostile environments, and how they, as men, can proactively change them. We ask them to speak up, not to avert their eyes, to put in the kinds of emotional labor that women put in every day. We’ve got a long way to go, Alaska, and we need men to step up to this challenge.

Laura Norton-Cruz, Stephen Courtwright, Justin Williams and Samuel Ohana are members of Growing Alaskan Leaders, a group of parents and caregivers working to build a more equitable Alaska.

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