Retaliatory Tactics

To some, these facts might make Silkwood less like a hero and more like a tactician focused on securing a better union contract. But we should avoid fixating on her supposed personal motives. A focus on the character attributes of a truth-teller rather than the context from which they emerge not only runs counter to the concept of whistleblowing — which is fundamentally about the disclosure of information that serves the public interest — but also plays into the hands of a retaliatory management.

This is why the most powerful whistleblower protection laws afford confidentiality. A boss has a harder time retaliating if he doesn’t know who blew the whistle, and an anonymous complaint keeps the focus on the behavior of the employer.

Karen Silkwood’s death eliminated the need for Kerr-McGee to use typical retaliatory tactics like dismissal, transfer, or blacklisting. Instead, it gave management free rein to engage in the most damaging form of retaliation: attacking a whistleblower’s credibility so as to divert from the unwanted questions she raises. Misogyny is a timeless tool for diminishing a woman’s credibility.

Because Silkwood died, she could not respond when Kerr-McGee suggested that she had been a drug addict who smuggled plutonium in her vagina, slept around, and abandoned her kids. When Silkwood’s family filed a lawsuit against Kerr-McGee, these insinuations became more overt in depositions.

In 1977, when corporate lawyers questioned Silkwood’s family and friends in sworn testimony, Kerr-McGee’s lawyer asked Silkwood’s father, “Did she ever become hysterical?” The same attorney probed Silkwood’s boyfriend: “Do you think Karen may have been what medical science classifies as a nymphomaniac?” The answer to both questions was “no.”

Bosses’ “Nuts and Sluts” Subterfuge

The flagrant misogyny of Kerr-McGee’s efforts at character assassination shouldn’t obscure the broader power dynamics at play. Retaliation against whistleblowers like Silkwood often appears to be an expression of revenge but is, in reality, a strategic way for management to discredit a whistleblower as troublesome and to discipline the workforce. By framing a complaint as resulting from an individual’s emotional disturbance rather than systemic corruption, employers shift attention away from structural issues and onto a whistleblower’s credibility.

Retaliation is fundamentally an affirmation of power, demonstrating the harm to one’s reputation, career, family, and sense of security that awaits those who confront authority. Although sexism was especially vivid in the Silkwood case, men who resist unethical and illegal workplace practices are also subject to these dynamics.

Indeed, dismissal, demotion, transfer, and blacklisting can be understood as techniques of emasculation insofar as work enables a man to provide for his family — and also highlights his dependence upon his bosses. Employment lawyers call these techniques of diversion the “nuts and sluts” strategy: casting doubt upon the message by focusing attention upon the messenger.