A long time coming

Fallout from abuse, harassment charges just starting

Have you ever gone into or driven by a factory and noticed a sign hailing how many days the plant’s workers had gone without an accident involving injuries?

Or, in human resources language, the sign probably says something about how many hours workers have put in without a “lost-time” injury.

The higher the number, the more pride to be taken in such a sign.

If a similar sign measured the number of days since the career of a renowned public figure nose dived as a result of sexual harassment or assault allegations — or in some cases, revelations — the count would have reset to “zero” on an almost daily basis in recent weeks.

On Thursday, Minnesota’s Sen. Al Franken became the most recent public figure to see his career and reputation damaged by accusations. Franken announced from the Senate floor that he will resign in the coming weeks because his effectiveness as a lawmaker representing the people of Minnesota had been compromised. He said some of the allegations were not true. As more instances involving more women were reported, support from Franken’s Democratic colleagues eroded quickly.

He joins a long and still growing list of public figures brought down by accusations, some acknowledged, others refuted, and still others falling somewhere in between. In politics, there’s also Michigan’s longtime U.S. Rep. John Conyers just within the last few days. From the news or entertainment fields, Michael Oreskes, Charlie Rose, Garrison Kiellor, Bill O’Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Matt Lauer. From corporations, executives such as Justin Caldbeck, Mike Cagney, David McClure, L.A. Reid.

The tragedy isn’t in the status of those men’s careers. To the extent a claim represents an actual incident of abuse of one’s power, that’s the point at which something tragic happened. The lasting damage was done in that moment, and not to the predator, but the prey. Men who engage in the abuse of whatever power they’ve accumulated as a tool of sexual conquest deserve the damage that comes their way.

It’s amazing that some of the reported incidents happened so long ago, the telling of them quelled in many cases by a fear of retribution, by making those so unfairly attacked or abused feel they had no choice but to just take it and go on.

The climate has changed, in a welcome way, so that women, and some men, who were backed into unbearable circumstances feel it’s OK to speak out. That’s not easy when the person they speak against has the power of fame or of authority that has, in other ways, earned them the respect of peers and audiences.

Is it a post-Weinstein era of sexual harassment reporting? Or is it post-Cosby? Post-Letterman? Post-Clinton? Post-Thomas?

The saddest reality is the list of prior cases goes back decades, indeed, centuries. Women, to the largest degree, have been battling a culture that was content to keep them shackled by wrong-headed, male-oriented attitudes.

Time magazine could hardly have picked a more appropriate “person of the year” than the so-called “silence breakers” who have sparked a movement of speaking out, of fighting against the silence that gives the aggressor so much control.

Members of Arkansas’ delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted for mandatory anti-harassment training, and not just for staff members. As we’ve seen a lot over the years, elected representatives can fall into the trappings of power and abuse them for their own personal gratification. U.S. Rep. Steve Womack said he co-sponsored the measure “because it’s the right thing to do at this time.”

It was the right thing to do before, but in politics, it sometimes takes a brush with a tidal wave before anyone thinks to ask where the lifeboats are.

Even with the recent onslaught of publicity surrounding allegations of improper behaviors, it seems we might just be at the very beginning of a new age in which past sins must be reconciled against contemporary cultural standards. It’s difficult to believe President Donald Trump’s dark history — remember the Billy Bush incident caught on tape? — didn’t contribute to strengthening the societal magnetic field that drew our moral compasses closer to true north.

Perhaps we’re learning nobody is too big to fail when it comes to how they treat others, particularly those over whom one has some kind of power. As disruptive as that lesson has been of late, it is a lesson desperately in need of being learned.