“The women of El Dorado and Sacramento counties will not fall to our knees in submission to a man or men . . . who would like to keep us in the position of women in the pre-suffrage era.”
This defiant statement from Jenee Compagnone, 58, of Placerville, California, makes one wonder what the men of the region were up to. Were chauvinist Neanderthals really out to take the vote from women? It might come as a surprise that no men were actually involved. Indeed, this could be the first use of feminist boilerplate to defend fraud. And this fraud could be the first to come billed as “Women Helping Women” and “Women Empowering Women,” but which was really women exploiting women. Here’s how it worked.
In northern California and other western states, women were offered the opportunity to become “birthday girls,” treated to lavish parties where they could unwrap gifts including Monopoly games stuffed with real money, up to $40,000. There was a catch, of course.
Each $40,000 birthday bash required the participation of 14 women, or groups of women. The chance to get the big prize required an entry-level “appetizer” of $5,000. After seeing the delight of the birthday girls, some women even borrowed money to kick in their $5,000. But for those 14 to reach the payoff, they had to recruit 112 others, who had to recruit 1,568, and so on.
Before becoming a birthday girl, women had to advance to the “soup and salad” then “entrée” levels. The birthday party was, in effect, the dessert. Most would never get their birthday bash and would lose their money, which they were not told.
This is a classic pyramid scheme, illegal in California and everywhere else. But warnings from the police were insufficient to keep women away. The difference here was the feminist angle as part of the con game. Leaders of the scheme attacked critics as “anti-women.” The birthday parties, promoters said, were a way for women to show sisterly solidarity, to help each other pay bills, buy cars, purchase houses – to rescue themselves from evil men who supposedly wanted to drive them back to the “pre-suffrage era.”
It amounted to a powerful pitch. The scheme involved 10,000 women and took in $12 million. What the police, male and female, were doing was trying to prevent women from being defrauded. The police arrested Cheryl Lorraine Bean, 54, a former human resources officer with Pacific Bell; Pamela Ann Garibaldi, 57, a part-time English professor; Ann Marie King, 47, co-owner of a Montessori School; and Cathy Louise Lovely (sic), 49, whose sole source of income was the gifting parties.
An unlikely group, but that changes none of the facts. If equal treatment under the law is to apply, nobody should get special points for being an upscale suburban woman in northern California. It was this respectability, in the first place, that helped push some women into the scheme. The leaders of the “gifting” network were what many of the younger recruits aspired to be.
Since the prime movers were intelligent, successful women, the chances that they failed to grasp that the scheme was illegal are remote. Each of the four women arrested received more than $100,000 from multiple “birthdays.”
With apologies to Jenee Compagnone, this case makes it abundantly clear that women are quite capable of exploiting other women, without the help of men. This was a very slick con job. To proceed, knowing full well that women's hopes would be dashed as their money disappeared, requires a particular callousness. Many victims were already struggling economically, and they now find themselves in a deeper hole and humiliated to boot. To deploy feminist slogans in defense of the scheme only adds farce to fraud.
Instead of indulging feminist rhetoric, women should strive to understand economics: You don't get something for nothing. Or as the adage has it, one should look a gift horse in the mouth.
Sally Pipes is the President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.
