Misconduct

Two more of American broadcasting’s high profile men have met the sexual harassment axe today. 

And you know what?  I am heartily sick of this whole "He sexually harassed/assaulted me years ago!" shtick. This is a complicated and serious issue that has recently risen to the level of pop culture fad.   As far as I’m concerned, you can’t dredge up an incident from thirty years, or even ten years ago, and apply today’s standards of acceptable behavior to it. 

For one thing, “today’s standards of acceptable behavior” are so out-of-whack and situational, they can’t be applied consistently to anything or anyone.   A celebrity presidential candidate assaults women and brags about it on an open mike; we just shrug our shoulders, mumble “Boys will be boys!” and vote for him anyway, because he’s gonna “Make America Great.”  If he messes with a few women along the way, who cares?  Let a liberal icon like Al Franken or Garrison Keillor come under the shadow of suspicion of sexual misbehavior, and the call for their heads on a platter can be heard round the globe.  But our sexual predator-in-chief remains steadfastly above the fray.  What the fuck? 

Secondly, we need to maintain a sense of the history of the issue.   I am a woman who grew up during the “sexual revolution,” and I can say with certainty that the path has never been easy.  Sallying forth into a man’s world of casual sex and work outside the home—an action almost universally perceived as a threat to American manhood—was bound to be fraught with tension, roadblocks, and, yes…harassment.  We took it for granted that that would be the case.  We quickly learned to fend off unwanted or threatening sexual overtures, ignoring when possible, striking out (sometimes literally) when necessary. 

Eventually, a body of legislation was created to give women legal recourse against harassment that threatened either our physical safety or our upward career path.  Not that these legal remedies are always effective…but they do exist.  And they did NOT exist fifty years ago.  Those of us who blazed the trail for today’s young women put up with a LOT of crap.  If we hadn’t, if we had allowed ourselves to be intimidated and dissuaded from our goals by a male-dominated culture that was going to do everything possible to maintain the power of the status quo, women would still be the sweet, silent sexual slaves chained to home and hearth that they were expected to be in the 1950’s.

That said, NOW is not the time to try to turn back the clock thirty or forty years—or even a decade—and attempt to apply the gratuitous outrage that has grown up around the subject in recent months to the time a guy grabbed your ass when you were 25.  Like everything else in our thin-skinned 21^st-century American culture, the “crime” of harassment has been blown out of proportion, and the inconsistently applied “punishment” is not only completely arbitrary, but motivated by...anything BUT actual justice.  Conservatives rush to defend a senate candidate reputed to have indulged in sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old, while liberals allow men like Al Franken to roast over a spit of hypocritical right-wing outrage, because the left has to appear to adhere to higher values.  It’s a mess…and it’s just getting worse and worse.  Today, Matt Lauer’s and Garrison Keillor’s heads rolled from the sexual misconduct guillotine.  All very suddenly and, as far as I can tell, without giving Keillor at least the benefit of even a smigeon of doubt. (I've since dug up more about the Lauer allegations, and it appears that he really WAS a serial douchebag.  But the man was on the job at "Today" for over 20 years, and up until the past month, his behavior was tolerated with a "nod, nod, wink, wink" by those involved with the show.  What does this say?  That for nineteen years your bad behavior was tolerable, but thirty days ago it suddenly became a terminatable offense?  Again...what the fuck?)  

And, I’m sorry…I think it’s insane that sexual misconduct allegations have become so popular that women are coming out of the woodwork to report incidents from years ago.  In my humble opinion, you made a decision about whether to report or ignore an incident when it happened.  Waiting until now to gasp and point your finger in outrage about something that happened three or ten or twenty-five years ago doesn’t make you brave.  It makes you an opportunist. 

Yes…now the time may be ripe.  Our American culture of hypersensitivity has risen to such psychotic levels that virtually ANY allegation against a man who might be politically vulnerable will be not only heard, but hyperbolized  beyond any reasonable proportion.  There might even be financial reward involved in sharing unsavory details about the past of a media personality.  It’s much easier—and possibly more lucrative—to cry “Foul!” now.  When it would have taken real courage to make it an issue—at the time when the incident occurred—you chose to remain silent.  And don’t tell me that you were too frightened or too intimidated or too shocked to do anything at the time.  Bullshit.  You made your choice, for reasons that were obviously valid to you when the incident occurred.  Believe in yourself and your personal autonomy enough to let your decision stand and put it behind you, where it belongs.                 

No, I don’t believe that men should be allowed to objectify women, or touch them inappropriately, or demand sexual favors in exchange for career advancement, or engage in any of the myriad of ugly behaviors toward their female co-workers that they have been getting away with for decades.  But if we let them get away with it ten years ago, five years ago, or even last week, it’s OUR FAULT that the behavior still exists.  Now is not the time to get vindictive about past incidents.  You can’t change them…they are history. 

Now IS the time to draw the line in the sand.  To say, “No more.”  To put men we encounter in the workplace on notice that unacceptable behavior will be reported, and timely discipline will be demanded.

Can we do that?  Or are we going to allow ourselves to retreat into that “I don’t want to make waves” mindset that got us in this mess to begin with?

Come on, ladies.  Grow up.  Grow a set.  Shrug off the past and go forward with strength and resolve.

We can do this.