Enough is enough, what's up with all the Sexual Harassment?

Too much to tell and not enough public evidence to tell what's really going on.

I am 100% sure there are real creeps being brought to light. This is good. I am 100% sure I was accused of sexual harassment (albeit mildly) for saying "thanks, ladies!" as I was thanking two ladies as they left the conference room. It's hard to tell what most of these are.

Who knows where it's leading. Let's hope a broader overall respect for your fellow human beings.

that’s what she said. (seriously)

This just in

Women have been saying all this for years, we were just not listening. Now that people are finally taking is seriously (or the ladies are really fed up, probably both!) things are happening.

Consider this more like blackmail, they could not say anything before because nobody would take them seriously and they would wind up blackballed, canned, or transferred to a lower position, so it was shut up and put up. Now that the dam has broken, all the stories and accusations are flowing forth.

Because society has finally advanced enough for people to actually believe a woman, instead of being told for decades "don't be that girl" or "no one will ever believe you" or "how much do you like your job?" or much, much worse. It's tough to be the first person to stand up, but the more women that do, the easier it is for others to come forward without fear of backlash, persecution, or threats. Media and Hollywood are traditionally dirty industries. Every time someone comes forward, there are 10 others saying "well yeah, everyone knew that. That's how it works here."

I see what you're getting at though. Why now? Where's the proof? Surely some of this is BS and they're just looking for attention? It's much easier to think that than to truly empathize with someone whose experience on this planet is completely different from our own. 

Victims are coming forward now because they'll actually be believed. Not to bring politics into this, but look at what happened with Bill Clinton--no one believed the accusers. So, now you have everyone coming forward. It is a good thing. Few sexual assaults are actually reported, hopefully this makes it OK to do so.

I believe most of the allegations are true. I also believe that many of them are much more complicated than the face value--and we, as the public, will likely never know what really happened for most of the individual interactions. But there are gray lines everywhere as to what is and isn't ok, what is acceptable to one person and not to another. Garrison Keillor for instance, what he says he did seems innocuous enough to me and doesn't seem like a sexual assault, although likely workplace inappropriate. But I don't know the other side of the story. And I'm sure that there have been people in positions of power--whatever position that is--that have used it to their sexual advantage, and the "victim"* was perfectly ok with that and does not consider it sexual assault at all. 

*I put victim in quotes here because in that situation, the victim does not consider themselves a victim.

A woman i’m very close to was raped about 15 years ago on a work trip.  She’s never come out about it for fear her husband would leave her for putting herself in a bad situation.  How about that, for PUTTING HERSELF IN A BAD SITUATION.  Like she’s shouldering the blame for being berkeleyING RAPED.  There are lots of reasons, hers is just one.  

Everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard, some of them are just learning this.  

It has a very McCarthy feel to it at the moment.

Patrick said:

A woman i’m very close to was raped about 15 years ago on a work trip.  She’s never come out about it for fear her husband would leave her for putting herself in a bad situation.  How about that, for PUTTING HERSELF IN A BAD SITUATION.  Like she’s shouldering the blame for being berkeleyING RAPED.  There are lots of reasons, hers is just one.  

Everyone has a voice and deserves to be heard, some of them are just learning this.  

Well put.

Agreed.   Sexual Assault (to me) is slamming tongue where it isn't wanted, "thanks ladies" is a little frivolous.  However it's perception.  If they feel it, it is. 

I've been on both sides of this, as a machinist when SWMBO wore jeans around a bunch of guys and "shop talk" one guy grabbed her ass, it worked better for her to put him against the wall and suggest he not do that again.  Better results than all the turmoil of charges.   OTOH as a QC Inspector, I had a woman rate my butt on a scale of 1 - 10 almost every day depending on what I wore, OK if it was a Raquel Welch, but this 4 footer had a mustache. 

I had to take sexual harassment training every year, Congress persons don't.  I had to do security training every 6 months, if I was two days late on performing it, my computer was shut off, I was locked out of the building and lost the clearance I had.  Why are Congress and high staffers not held to the same standard?

Sorry, sounds like I'm trolling for a political debate, I'm not.   Is there a smoke filled room of planners doing this?

The Garrisson Keiller incident seems to be inflated heavily.  He patted a woman on the back to console her and accidentally touched bare skin.  Gasp!

I'm sure it's a coincidence that it came out 1 day after supporting Al Franken (which evidence also shows is blown out of proportion too).

So along with women finally feeling empowered enough to speak out, there are also bandwagoners and political motivations too.

Hopefully this will change the culture that has gone unspoken for too long.

Politicians are being asked to sign sexual harassment contracts, but many have refused to sign them (I'm looking at you NH...)

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

This. I"m not saying that there aren't legitimate claims here. I'm certain many of these peopel getting called out are/were peices of crap. But there is the flip side of people using this as an excuse for attention. Just like the "people" that decided to change my facebook comments and email them to my employer and demand I get fired for being racist. When shown the ACTUAL conversation (that was held off work hours, and made no mention of my job, employer or anything remotely racist) it was dropped. These people ran a group that had the entire intention of getting white people fired by calling them racist.(now been closed by facebook)

But false accusations happen regularly. There are just attention whores that want attention and will do anything to get it. That's not said to disparage the actual victims or change the severity of what happened to them at all. In fact, these people make it harder for the real victims to be taken seriously. 

EDIT: "people" is in quotes because they aren't really people. Just animals trying to case havoc. 

My question is how men who are such complete a-holes can rise to the positions that they have?  Weinstien was worth up to $300 million.  Lauer certainly was doing OK.  US Senators generally are not living paycheck to paycheck.  WTH?  I feel like adding "have never and would never sexually harass or assault anyone" on my resume as it seems to be a skill in short supply these days! 

Because enough is enough?

With a blatant, unrepentant and unpunished  sex  offender strutting around in a conspicuous position position of power, even after boasting of his crimes, it has become impossible to stuff the Genie back in the bottle. This particular offender will never be punished for what he admitted to, however, he did lift the curtain to let the world see what is currently acceptable for men of fame and fortune to do when it comes to abusing women.

Remember at all times, that man can only pretend at being civilized, we are still of the animal kingdom and subject to urges that reside within our DNA. When the checks and balances that control these urges are removed by putting people in a position of power where these urges can be let loose with no repercussions, the temptation to let the facade slip is strong.

We may be entering an era of repercussions. Unfortunately as with every pressure cooker that is pent up for too long, there is going to be an explosive moment while a new reality is established. 

In reply to pinchvalve :

I think it's their power/position that allows them to be the way they are.  They were probably just d-bags privately before they had the power to push themselves on to their victims.

And here is where I'm conflicted.  Not that I'm conflicted about sexual harrassment - it's not to be tolerated.  But the issue, of course, is figuring out what is intended as sexual harrassment, what is just stupidly tasteless, and what is innocent but taken incorrectly or received by someone sensistive to sexual connotations.  There has to be something between these:

mtn said:

I believe most of the allegations are true. I also believe that many of them are much more complicated than the face value--and we, as the public, will likely never know what really happened for most of the individual interactions.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

It has a very McCarthy feel to it at the moment.

...and this:

Patrick said:

A woman i’m very close to was raped about 15 years ago on a work trip.  She’s never come out about it for fear her husband would leave her for putting herself in a bad situation. 

My fear is that, while no one may ever know what actually happened (including the participants), a mere allegation is enough to get someone tried in the court of public opinion.  At the extreme of this is the female college student who was quoted as saying any accusation of rape or sexual assault should be automatically taken at face value and treated as if it were a conviction (I'm paraphrasing here).  In the current atmosphere, anything even remotely credible is tantamount to a conviction.

My even greater fear is that backlash against the current atmosphere of relentless high-profile allegations will cause the public to begin disbelieving actual reports and real incidents.  There is a very real danger of being labeled The Girl Who Cried Wolf, and the old "who's going to believe you" line gains a new kind of relevance.

And that would be a shame.  Because there have been great strides made in the last decade, the last 5 years, and the last year.  It would be terrible to go back to an environment where harassment is ignored and where victims are stunned or coerced into silence.  But majority backlash against vocal minorities has a lot to do with the current state of the political situation in America and how we got here.

I feel that the world is heavily populated with douchebags.  I also believe that men don't have a monopoly on such things.  I lived with a girl in the early 80's who told me repeatedly that if i ever hit her, she would have the cops there so fast my head would spin.  On the other hand, she was not particularly hesitant to draw blood during sex, and couldn't understand why I would stop what was happening.

I am now just about divorced, and between her and my ex wife, I have absolutely no interest in intimate personal contact with women at all.  Kinda sad...

pinchvalve said:

My question is how men who are such complete a-holes can rise to the positions that they have?  Weinstien was worth up to $300 million.  Lauer certainly was doing OK.  US Senators generally are not living paycheck to paycheck.  WTH?  I feel like adding "have never and would never sexually harass or assault anyone" on my resume as it seems to be a skill in short supply these days! 

Power, fame and fortune are intoxicating.  When they seem to have it all, they want more.  

From personal experience...

You ever been a Sailor, Soldier or Doodlebugger on shore-leave. Relatively large sums of $$$ in your pocket and people willing to provide whatever you want for as long as you can pay? It is a whole lot of fun. If you do it long enough,it changes you and becomes the new normal.

Imagine if you had enough money and power so that everyday could be like this?

I kinda outgrew it. Many that I worked with never did. They mostly ended up living in Thailand.

Another consideration is that these events tend to be shaming to the victim. They feel violated and dirty which are variations of shame. Some don't realize that they have been victimized but instead feel they have invited victimization.

The fact that somebody has come forward emboldens others to say, "hey that was me too."

I fear the unwashed masses will lynch those accused without validating the claims. Remember both the Duke Lacrosse team and Kobe Bryant. Both were trampled in the court of public opinion but were exonerated by the courts.

The courts aren't always right but a larger pool of victims helps create a preponderance of evidence. Perhaps this is another reason why more victims come forward too.

I think there's nothing nefarious with the amount of victims coming out, it's just a wave of women who feel powerful enough now that their voice will finally be heard, and they won't be shamed back into silence. Not all the stories rise to the level of criminal sexual harassment, certainly, but many do, and should come with consequences.

I work in a field that is dominated by women, probably 95% from top to bottom. There's sexual banter that goes on sometimes but I've never known a man who would even whisper that he felt violated. I certainly can't say the same is true for most of my female coworkers - most have been groped, kissed, or demeaned sexually by men in power. Heck, there's a guy now where I work who is a known harasser. A guy I used to work with loved to text nudes of himself to the younger coworkers - he was never turned in and nobody filed a complaint but it was definitely a known thing. 

So yeah, not all men in power are sexual harassers. But all men in power COULD get away with it if they wanted to in the past. Hopefully we are beginning to put the second part of that sentence behind us.

Like MTN said, I think it's important to remember that we don't hear the back story to any of these charges.  Maybe the incident that we hear about is just the final straw. Like in the case of Garrison Keillor, we don't if he had been a total creep this whole time or not. It's not beyond belief that his touching of bare skin was seen as an potentially dangerous escalation.

I initially thought that the ever rising number of accused men was crazy but at a second glance, it isn't. Which is awful. We're all aware of the dick pic trend, yes? Every single unsolicitied one is an instance of sexual harrassment. How many of those are sent every day? Hundreds of thousands? We clearly don't care as a society when known monsters are famous (see R. Kelly, Chris Brown, Kobe Byrant, Jameis Winston, etc.) so why should we be surprised when tons of women start coming forward? Lots of these people have been at it for years, so it makes sense that each one would have multiple accusers. 

One thing to note- nobody is going to jail.  It's just that companies are finding credible evidence that people are violating harassment rules, and they are being terminated over it.

(Ok, some people may be actually facing charges,  but most are not)

Personally, I think it's good.  Not the harassment, but that there is clearly a change going on in attitudes.  Good that women are finding a voice to defend themselves.  Good that society is starting to lean toward the side that it's just not acceptable to do any kind of harassment.  Good that society is really paying attention to people who are using their position to take advantage of other people, sexually.  

It's also very good that it's a bi-partisan (or non-partisan) effort to stop this bi-partisan or non-partisan abuse.   

Hopefully, this will also change some laws, as most cases that are brought are just dismissed, not even heard in front of a jury.  

Still, I think the trend to just no accept any sexual harassment is real.  Finally.  If there's backlash, it will be stood up to.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

It has a very McCarthy feel to it at the moment.

Amen