Culture of sexual abuse and harassment needing to change
Make it stop. Not the daily cavalcade of reports of sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men against women.
No, men need to stop.
Stop accepting and perpetuating a culture within fields such as politics, journalism and entertainment that has for many, many years not only tolerated boorish and sometimes criminal behavior but deliberately turned a blind eye toward both.
Every day there seems to be a new disgusting revelation.
This week’s name of shame: Charlie Rose, who is — was — a major news figure for PBS and CBS, and who is 75 years old. But his age, even subtracting a few years to match the reports from women he abused, wasn’t an issue. But his position of power was.
And that’s what you see, over and over and over in these reports.
Mostly women, usually younger, trying to break into high profile fields or land coveted roles, and who are preyed upon by men in high places for sexual favors or for some kind of perverted gratification.
And while men acting badly toward women has been around for all of recorded history, the behavior seems even more egregious in our time where the pervasive eyes of social media and click-bait journalism are on the prowl for anything that might scintillate an audience.
And these accounts certainly do that. But the torrent of accusations and reports didn’t start with Harvey Weinstein or even Roy Moore.
Leaders who are personally corrupted and seemingly get away with contemptible behavior have tremendous influence on other leaders and influential persons.
And the degradations of two U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, set a low bar indeed.
Clinton idolized John F. Kennedy, whose numerous affairs were actually national security concerns during his presidency, which ended with an assassin’s bullets on this day in 1963.
Clinton’s affairs, including allegations of rape and using his office for sex with a White House intern, also involved lies and a deliberate smearing of the reputations and motives of the women who accused him. It nearly brought his presidency to an end; if similar accounts surfaced today, he almost certainly would have been tossed from office. Sadly, in another era of hyper partisanship, many women continued to support Clinton, despite the lies and cover-ups, and he escaped impeachment.
Trump is on his third marriage, and has a reputation as a serial sexual predator, even if he has never formally been accused or sanctioned. The infamous Access Hollywood videos only confirmed his opinion and treatment of women. But many Republicans continued to support him and he used the Clinton White House as a counterweight in the 2016 election to obfuscate his own behavior.
And many Christians, especially in the deep South, continue to support Roy Moore in his bid to become a Republican senator, despite numerous and credible reports that as an adult in his 30s he was frequently on the prowl for underage girls.
And the lists roll on: Democratic senators John Conyers and Al Franken; California Democratic state Sen. Tony Mendoza and Democratic Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra; Amazon Studios head Roy Price; filmmakers James Toback, Brett Ratner and hiphop music mogul Russell Simmons; actors Kevin Spacey and John Travolta (with younger men), along with actors Jeffrey Tambor and Ed Westwick; comedian Louis C.K.; and in the media, New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, Michael Oreskes, news chief at NPR; Lockhart Steele, editorial director of Vox Media; and Mark Halperin NBC News and MSNBC contributor, and co-author of “Game Change.” And that’s just a partial list. Some defenders of the abusers say that the women were willing accomplices, only too willing to go along in exchange for career advancement and only coming forward now because it’s become the cause du jour.
The truth is that far too many women have been silenced out of fear, shame and the knowledge they’d never be believed.
Good thing, then, that there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, nothing concealed that will not be brought out into the open. Even powerful men can’t escape the truth.