Reforming Sexual Harassment in America

The Editorial board of The New York Times today asks whether the fall of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein will finally reform men. It cites the fact that even as Weinstein was expelled from movie making for his “serial predation,” many women continue to come forward to accuse other powerful prominent men of similar conduct.

But the editorial then reminds us that no one listened to Anita Hill back in 1991, or was greatly concerned about Bill Clinton’s purported dalliances, or has made any real impact on the ambition and meteoric political rise of “Grab Them By The P____” Donald Trump.

We are reminded of a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision of 2013 (with only male justices in the majority), Vance v. Ball State University, in which a female African-American dining room server alleged sexual harassment pursuant to a series of sexist incidents (and the use of a racial epithet) that resulted in the lessoning of the plaintiff’s work opportunities initiated by co-workers, unjust discipline measures, mandatory overtime duties, and more.

On appeal, the Supreme Court held that that was insufficient evidence to prove an unsafe or hostile work environment and that, in any event, the actions of the plaintiff’s co-workers were immaterial. Only employees who had the authority to hire and fire, said the Court, were capable of the kind of employment harassment that could entitle Ms. Vance to appropriate relief. The district court decision in favor of the university had been affirmed on appeal by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals before SCOTUS finally ruled against the plaintiff.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a dissent that the decision ignored the realities of current workforce conditions and did not track the definition of sexual harassment set forth in the regulations of the EEOC—which made illegal the kinds of actions committed by the plaintiff’s co-workers, who were in a position to enable the sexual (and racial) harassment.

In California, hundreds of women are speaking out about sexual harassment in doing the state’s business as elected officials, employees, and lobbyists. Their stories are eerily similar to those told by the women who accused Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, and Roger Ailes of violating their bodily integrity and attempting to set up “business” meetings in hotel rooms and other private spaces.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, “[n]o matter the details, each story involves a man with power.” And each man assumed that he was entitled to demand sexual contact or services as the price to be paid by a woman for simply trying to do her job.

Today, showing the solidarity of women on both sides of the ocean, women and their allies under the hashtag #MeToo “took part in rallies across France . . . to protest gender-based violence and assault,” including a large rally at the fittingly named Place de la République. Women were called upon to “go on the street” to show that the protestors were ordinary women “who have to live, cushion the blow, digest it and handle often-traumatizing experiences” according to Mic.com and Le Monde. Some teenage protestors reported that men had been “rubbing against” them, assaulting them even as they protested publicly outdoors. One of many French Tweets defiantly declared that, "Quand une femme dit ‘non,’ c'est ‘non’!” (When a woman says no, it is “no”!)

Gloria Allred, the California feminist and veteran women’s rights attorney, has been providing support and legal services for hundreds of wronged women for decades, “going after rich and powerful men, including O. J. Simpson, Bill Cosby and Tiger Woods.” She is currently pursuing a legal action in New York against the Transgressor in Chief—Donald Trump—on behalf of Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos who claims that ten years ago Trump assaulted her in a hotel room.

Allred explained the importance of proceeding in the courts with legal actions against sexual harassers:

“Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, and sex discrimination is against the law because it interferes with a woman’s right to enjoy equal employment opportunity. It puts her in a no-win situation.

“If she says no to the sexual harasser, he may go into ego shock and retaliate against her because he’s upset she has rejected his sexual advances.

“If she says yes, he may get tired of her, and also not employ her or terminate her, or in some way negatively impact her life. It’s wrong. That’s why it’s against the law and that is why we are pursuing justice for the victim because none of her daughters should have to be subjected to that.”

Jessica Valenti cogently asks in The Guardian, “What I want to know . . . is where all the men are in this. Not the men accused of wrongdoing, but the men who say that they’re as horrified as we are.”

Do you know? Do the women in your lives know? How about the men? Do they go into ego shock when they are refused sexual favors in an employment pay-for-play employment situation?

As with racial bigotry and homophobia, one cannot in good conscience straddle the margins of an issue like sexual harassment which has the potential to negatively impact a woman’s career and emotional well-being for many years, even a lifetime. One must take a stand. Timidity cannot hold people hostage on this critical issue. Either women can go about their lives without the risk of continually being threatened with sexual assault and/or imploding careers, or they must slink back into the netherworld of impotent fear and distress.

The only "sides" to this issue are a Right Side and a Wrong Side. Good and bad, kind and evil, suitable and unacceptable, virtuous and corrupt. All of us must please our “Better Angels” in the Age of Assault and the Swamp of Trumplandia.

Hence, as we ask about the future of sexual harassment in America, we must look deep within ourselves and ask if we have the courage to speak out regardless of the consequences, knowing full well in this age of ubiquitous social media that legions of men who feel affronted by the subject matter per se will counter even a total stranger who speaks out with threats of violence, strings of profanity, and sexually explicit language that might in another era make a sailor blush.

The time for blushing is past. The time for action has long been upon us. We much teach our children—the boys as well as the girls—that fairness in life includes treating both genders (and the LGBT community) with dignity, civility, and equitable treatment.

We must also zealously revitalize the art of drafting statutes and lobby members of Congress to amend existing incomplete federal civil rights acts to take into account and prohibit all forms of sexual discrimination, insidiously effective as well as blatantly obvious. Our great American experiment in democracy demands this.

And when men ignore those strictures, we must “screw [our] courage to the sticking point”—a la Lady MacBeth—and call them out in the cold hard light of day. They needn’t go so far as to commit murder at our beck and call, but they had better be ready to conduct their lives without sexually harassing women and with a spirit of protecting women from the harassment of other men. Only in this way can America’s men be reformed and liberated from the harmful constraints of their sexist perspectives in these United States. Only then can they banish "ego shock" and its ramifications from their vocabulary.