Sexual harassment and coming of age in the ’60s
When I was a boy becoming a man in the late 1950s and early ’60s, women were supposed to be sexually pure and virginal until they got married. Before birth control pills liberated women from unintended pregnancy, a “good girl” said “no.”
But, teenagers still engaged in sex with each other, risky as that might be, for risk is not much of a deterrent to youth. How did a “good” young woman keep her reputation if she had sex with a “good” young man?
The game was that she would say “no;” he would continue seducing; finally they would kiss, and she, overwhelmed by his romancing, would melt into his arms. We saw that game play out in countless Hollywood movies. The girl had plausible cover for her reputation by saying (and even believing) that she had fallen in love.
Both men and women were oppressed by these role expec- tations. As a young man, I felt obliged to take the initiative and pursue a woman or remain solitarily alone.
Women wouldn’t initiate a coffee invitation. Women had to dress and act provocatively around a man they were interested in, to incite his pursuit. Yet, her initial reaction to his pursuit would start with a “no.” Complicated game? Head-banging confusion!
So when baby boomer men get accused of inappropriate sexual misconduct — I’m talking about an unwanted embrace, not forcible rape — one needs to appreciate the social mores from which those men came of age.
A few years later, those same men carried banners marching in favor of equal rights for women, but intimate, personal attitudes were slower to change. Many men still think that any attractive woman has dressed provocatively to invite his pursuit.
I’m glad the change toward gender equality is now accelerating. But some good men are be- ing discharged for relatively minor infractions, along with some beastly scoundrels. And some beasts, whose strategy is denial and denigration of accusers, continue to be given the highest public honors of the land. That just ain’t right.
Garrison Keillor said he put his hand on a woman’s back to comfort her after she unloaded a tragic story, and her blouse’s wide opening in the back caused him to unintentionally touch her skin. He apologized.
Yet now, she accuses him of sexual impropriety and he loses his broadcasting contract, and the archive of his work has been taken off Minnesota Public Radio’s website. Perhaps there is more to the story; MPR claims it received multiple allegations, but they have not been substantiated. Could this be an overreaction of political correctness?
Sen. Al Franken’s situation is more complicated. He apologized to his first accuser, the lady in the flak jacket, years ago. She accepted. But now, as a Republican talk-show host, she reopens the accusation.
Was she motivated by some Republican plan to denigrate effective Democratic officeholders? Meanwhile, other women have also accused Franken of touching them inappropriately while being photographed together.
Franken has apologized, say- ing, “I crossed a line for some women — and I know that any number is too many.” Does contrition suffice? He called for an ethics investigation — of himself — yet, the pile-on of senators demanding he resign preempted a fair process. Is career destruction a just remedy?
This is what cultural change looks like. After 50 years of slow, incremental push toward treating women equally, we’ve reached a sudden tipping point.
I’m unhappy that some goodhearted liberals have been thrown to the curb without due process. Yet, I applaud women and men saying with new resolve, “It is not acceptable for a woman to be sexually harassed.” “Not acceptable” means not acceptable.
I fervently hope that the current occupant of the White House will meet a similar censure — and soon.