"It's gonna take more than that, Sweetheart."
As the woman was attempting to manhandle (pun intended) a stack of boxes that had gotten hung up a conveyor, the supervisor called another crew member over to lend a hand and the three of them pushed and shoved, eventually getting the job done.
The next morning, 'Sweetheart' filed sexual harassment charges against the supervisor; a very old, usually kind, southern gentleman type (old school, the kind that doesn't use profanity within earshot of a lady... out of respect) who casually addressed most all of his charges as 'Son', 'Honey'... etc. Especially new hires, who were normally a generation or three younger than he was.
The rest of us on the floor laughed our asses off for a few days following.
But it was no laughing matter as the charge worked it's way to corporate.
Alas, within eight months, 'Sweetheart' was promoted to a supervisory position after spending less than 10 months on the job.
The years following the Clarence Thomas sideshow did much to blur the lines of communication and how co-workers address/interact with each other in the workplace.
Many well meaning people learned the hard way that the rules were changing. What sucks: in the case of this supervisor, who had never, ever been hostile or unfair toward anyone in the plant, had this mark of shame on his record.
This is why I gave little to zero credibility to the reports of Herman Cain being accused of sexual harassment many years ago. The term "Sexual Harassment" means nothing to me in and of itself.
Can a crime or offense that need only exist in the eyes of the accuser in order to be deemed legitimate be all much to get hyped about? My answer is "No."
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Further than that, it's a crime of itself. It is form of bearing false witness against one's neighbor.
W.B.
Further than that, it's a crime of itself. It is form of bearing false witness against one's neighbor.
W.B.
I'm still trying to process what exactly you mean by a crime "that need only exist in the eyes of the accuser in order to be deemed legitimate".
If I read you correctly, you're saying that the difference between sexual harassment and a person in a position of authority merely making a sexual advance is whether or not the person on the receiving end is up for it or not. While I suppose that is technically true--i.e., that it's not objectively a crime the way, say, stealing a car is--I'm not sure that makes it any less of a crime.
After all, couldn't you say the same thing about rape? Or at least the subset of alleged rapes where the issue of consent is contested?
The fact that a crime might be difficult to parse doesn't make it any less legitimately a crime.
i used 'crime', and followed it with 'offense' to soften it. sloppy writing on my part.
crimes are generally defined by statutes, like sexual battery.
in a current case, Cain has been accused of just that with an attempt to grab/grope etc.
was it a crime, if true? i still say no.
it appears to me, according to the story, he had reason to assume the door was open, and he didnt persist when the stop sign went up.
in the case of the supervisor: nobody took offense before, but suddenly, this women wins a lottery.
Gino, honestly, you are speaking from a POV of privilege. Women put up with this stuff all the time. Not as much at work as say, walking down the street, but yes, it still happens at work. Men used to say incredibly offensive things to me at work. I would list the kinds of things that have been said to me and about me, but honestly, I'm too embarrassed to repeat it, because it devolves into some nasty stuff. The vast majority of women put up with inappropriate comments because complaining makes you a pariah, and more often than not, gets you edged out of your position, rather than fired OR promoted. In the case of the instance you describe, you don't know that "sweetheart" is ALL this man said to that woman. You aren't her, and I doubt she confided in you personally.
Aside from that, it's utterly preposterous to suggest that one incident of which you feel suspicious means that "all women who accuse people of harassment are liars."
Re: Herman Cain - how many women do we need to come forward and say this before considering that he just might be a harasser afterall? Three wasn't good enough. Four isn't good enough. How many women did it take for Republicans to believe that Clinton was a harasser and a cheater?
And if Herman Cain is the victim of political sabotage, then why didn't this happen to George Bush Jr? MILLIONS of more people hated that dude, and yet somehow he avoided any kind of sexual scandal?! How is this possible? Is it believable that men who avoid sexual scandals actually don't harass and assault, and that men who do, are likely guilty as sin? That explanation makes more sense than the conspiracy theories, to me.
Also, I am tired of people saying that waiting a period of years before coming out with it is some kind of evidence that it didn't really happen. If you say that, then you have read or studied absolutely nothing about the effects of sexual harassment and sexual harassment, and/or you've never been harassed or assaulted. Blocking shit out and getting away is an extremely likely reaction. Waiting until you are no longer paralyzed by pain or fear, or are no longer in a position to feel threatened? Common. Further, did anyone say that when priests started being accused by men of sexual assault that happened decades ago? (No. Because when men say it, it's magically believable, and obviously MEN wouldn't do all the slutty dressing and boob-having that women do to deserve harassment and assault, am I right?!)
Argh, one more thing: It's also entirely possible that women feel compelled to come forward out of a sense of civic duty - if someone is about to be in a position like president of a country, then people need to know if he has hurt people in any way. I WOULD. If it were me, and some asshole tried to get me to give him head in a car one time, and threatened to not hire me if I refused, then I could probably deal with it on a personal level and opt to avoid accusatory HR crap. But if I found out later on that this person might be given a large amount of public responsibility and power over citizens, I'd want other people to know what he's really like. The increase in power ups the ante, in other words.
(Tangent: Although I get that this is an old-fashioned thing, I'm utterly impressed by the idea that men think using profanity around women is disrespectful. I'm a big fan of profanity, personally, but moreover, it suggests that women are delicate and "proper" which not only stigmatizes women who behave in "unacceptable" ways, but demonstrates that respect for women is actually lacking, when compared to respect for other men.)
In the case of the instance you describe, you don't know that "sweetheart" is ALL this man said to that woman. You aren't her, and I doubt she confided in you personally.
ha! i been waiting for this. YES, i do know. there was minimum one witness, two depending how you count them. she went to the union first, and gave her account. the union talked to the supervisor about it.
when she didnt get what she wanted (and it wasnt an apology she wanted) she went to the state labor board and filed charges.
the union has all documentation of her moves.
and if it matters that maybe he was 'coming on to her': she was not the coming on to type, wieghed about 275lbs, and took equally good care of her presentation.
And if Herman Cain is the victim of political sabotage, then why didn't this happen to George Bush Jr? MILLIONS of more people hated that dude, and yet somehow he avoided any kind of sexual scandal?! How is this possible? Is it believable that men who avoid sexual scandals actually don't harass and assault, and that men who do, are likely guilty as sin? That explanation makes more sense than the conspiracy theories, to me.
^^^THIS^^^
Where there is smoke, there is often fire.
There has been (to my knowledge) no credible accusation of sexual impropriety against Obama, either Bush, Reagan, or Carter. And there is/was no shortage of people with reason to take them down.
That doesn't make the accusations against Cain automatically credible, but it sure does give me pause.
that is why i've tried to avoid addressing the Cain issue directly. i'm not defending or convicting.
its just that i've seen nothing credible til a couple days ago, which is why i approached it then.
even still, i'm not seeing something that you can completely blame on Cain. it looked like he assumed the door was open.
why?
could it be because of past experience with open doors? if that is the case, why arent those women being blamed for setting the stage?
guys try to get laid. its what we do. men of status get offered pretty regularly. is that the man's fault? blame the women as well, for making sex so cheap.
ha! i been waiting for this. YES, i do know. there was minimum one witness, two depending how you count them.
I considered that there might be more - something along those lines, of course I have no personal knowledge of the event. But really, if this instance describes something that shouldn't be considered harassment, there are plenty of more legitimate harassment stories, and believe me, only a few of them actually get reported.
"Gino, honestly, you are speaking from a POV of privilege."
Translation:
"Gino, you're a man so you're viewpoint is illegitimate."
"Privilege" is a word used to favor some people's testimony over other people's testimony in a purely and nakedly discriminatory manner. It's the same as Arab countries requiring multiple women's testimony to equal one man's.
Illegitimate, eh? Did I respond to Gino's next comment that stated he did know more of the facts in the case, by arguing with it? I don't think that I did!
WBP, have YOU ever come back from a lunch break to hear gossip from your coworkers that includes a bunch of degrading stuff that a group of them - including people who are not necessarily nice to you, or who have never even spoken to you personally - said about your body and your imagined sex life?
Have you ever had to walk down the street and deal with leering and with comments about your body that make you feel uncomfortable and/or threatened, from a specific group of people - ALL of whom are capable of physically over-powering you?
Privilege means "advantage," not "I win in an argument." It means specific groups of people simply cannot speak with authority on whether other groups experience certain types of treatment that only happen to them. My own privileges include being white/straight/cisgendered, so I'm not about to tell black/gay/transgender people that they are imagining the disrespectful treatment they receive, because they are the authority on that topic, not me.
But you know, I'm *sorry* if you feel discriminated against by the advantages afforded you in society by being born a white, straight, cisgendered male! It must be hard for you.
:)
Also, I find this comment to be ironic:
It's the same as Arab countries requiring multiple women's testimony to equal one man's.
- considering that this is exactly what our society seems to require when a famous man is being accused of sexual harassment/assault/rape. See: Herman Cain.
But you know, I'm *sorry* if you feel discriminated against by the advantages afforded you in society by being born a white, straight, cisgendered male! It must be hard for you.
Have you ever met WBP? He actually looks a lot like RuPaul.
Amanda, I am saying nothing about your experience because I know nothing of it. However, I do know that it doesn't give you special credibility to talk about anything other than your personal experience. No doubt some man could reply, "Have YOU ever been falsely accused of harassment? Have you ever been called a potential rapist on campus? etc..." And then we're stuck in a back and forth over who is the bigger victim. Public discourse cannot survive on that basis.
That said, it is a worthwhile endeavor for any person to place himself/herself in someone else's shoes (insofar as this possible) to try to understand their perspective. To that end, I can tell you that I would not like people talking about me like I was a piece of meat and not a person. That is wrong.
...it is a worthwhile endeavor for any person to place himself/herself in someone else's shoes (insofar as this possible) to try to understand their perspective.
Absolutely. And in that spirit, it has been explained to me by many female friends (whom I trust) over the years that the kinds of things Amanda describes (lewd comments, random harassment, groping, and worse) happen a lot more often than many of us guys realize. And good guys are often skeptical of that fact because we can't imagine doing such things, nor do we (generally, or at least knowingly) associate with the kinds of guys who would.
That kind of skepticism can get pretty hard to take if that stuff happens to you, I would imagine.
However, I think it is relatively easy for a good guy to imagine how awful it would be to be wrongly accused of such a thing. Because that could actually happen to us, whereas being sexually harassed, while not impossible, is pretty unlikely.
Cisgendered? You mean "not horribly confused," right?
And whether we like it or not, waiting to tell a story does reduce its credibility because every thinking person knows that it reduces the other person's ability to refute the charges. That's reality, folks. And when a Democratic activist just happens to come up with an accuser after a couple of weeks of looking, well, that impugns credibility, too.
Finally, let's face facts; if the story is as Gino tells it, it works against women everywhere, because apparently his entire workplace is, due to the behavior of his former coworker, primed to disbelieve accusations because they are persuaded that the episode they remember was a barbarous injustice.
I note here that Gino's knowledge implies an unethical leak of what I'm guessing should have been legally protected testimony ... and that Bike Bubba is not complaining about that as he did in impugning the (reputed) women who have (reputedly) broken a (reputedly) agreed-to-silence to accuse Cain.
For what it's worth, and I think it is tangentially related, I've noticed lately that the whole "meat" imagery set is just not very applicable. Lately, I've noticed that men seem to conceptualize women (or parts of women) as ripe fruit: ripe, chompable, juicy, melons ... all of which imply weakness, sweetness, crushability, diminutiveness. I never, ever thought I'd like sexist "meat" imagery in comparison to much of anything, but at least meat has some strength, staying power, resilience ... even if it is usually dead ... really, someday, I'd just be interested to see if all men *can* see women as human beings. Some men can ... this would imply men are *capable* of it ... (and yes, women objectify men too, and women ALSO need to commit to seeing men as human beings).
It is at these most basic levels of diminution that sexism gains its intractability. "Sweetheart" *was* considered and acceptable as an 'honorific' 60 years ago, despite the minimizing nature of the term (see also: sugar, honey, baby, ... ). *While I AGREE* that, with the facts as stated, this woman overreacted in a huge way (and I get very grumpy with women who use this sort of thing to move ahead--not least because self-absorption and lack of perspective is the last thing I want in a supervisor), it is *ridiculous* to assert that it "should" be OK for any person to address any other person this way unless they have a personal relationship that justifies intimacy ... and it is never OK for someone with job role superiority to denigrate the personhood of someone with an inferior job role. If this guy wouldn't have called another male in the same situation "Honeybear," his action was in fact sexist in addition to being denigrating. His being old does *not* justify his belief/habit that it is ok to denigrate the personhood of a person because they are female.
Again, *I AGREE* that if this is the full story she shouldn't have used it this way.
... Although ... thinking one step further ... if she was additionally denigrated by the union for complaining (I'd guess this was LIKELY, although Gino, you are welcome to correct me if you honestly think I am wrong), well, then: punishing the system might be justification enough for pushing "excessive" consequences ... it may have been revenge or it may have been an attempt to shout the message loudly enough to be heard (in addition to or instead of being primarily about opportunistically moving herself up) ... then it would be too bad the system doesn't sound like (from Gino's presentation) it has considered *it* may have misstepped. Union officers aren't well known for being interested in self-examination and apologizing for personal or systemic ... issues.
Amanda: well played with the "when a man comes out years later" parallel to illustrate how prejudiced it is to denigrate women coming forward years later.
And, yes, ABSOLUTELY if someone I knew was a sexist harasser or a rapist ran for office, I'd be campaigning hard to get the women or men I knew who had been assaulted to step up and help prevent that person from gaining office, because I don't think anyone who can't respect other human beings in real time can be trusted to run any part of the government.
Unlike Amanda, I think infidelity *is* one measure of a person's ability to stick to ethical choices, and therefore a legitimate public concern. Unless the couple chose an open relationship, in which case both members should speak honestly and without shame to that effect when the "scandal" breaks, thus removing, for everyone except hard-core religious types (like me), the concern that the most intimate promises were broken.
kr: the union handles all complaints in a serious considerate manner. it is their (our) fiduciary duty.
if the union cant prove, with documentation, that it performs this duty suffiently then it/we are liable to facing serious, yes serious, consequences and punishment.
trust me, if this women thought the union couldnt sufficiently defend itself in court, she would have filed charges and requested damages from us as well.
the union did NOT laugh her off. they took the supe in question to the office, filed the necessary paperwork, and counseled accordingly.
yer just gonna have to trust me on this one.
Glad to hear it.
kr - Thanks for the props! (re: waiting to come forward)
Although in general, just to keep my statements straight, I want to mention that I didn't make a qualifying statement (this is from the thread in the previous post) about adultery being indicative of one's ability to make ethical choices; I said it doesn't reflect their suitability to do a job. Ethics must not be divorced from suitability, but by that measure ethics include *any* dishonest act. The problem with focusing on adultery is that people make it about the sex, when its the dishonesty that's the problem (aside from the people in the relationship, but again, that's their business). If it wasn't about the sex, we'd be hearing about how all kinds of other personal dishonest/morally grey behaviors are indicative of overall ethical behavior, too. But for the most part, I only hear about sex being used for this argument. And in general, I tend to believe that if a dishonest adulterer is dishonest in ways that screw with their job, they will eventually be caught and outed for it anyway, without anyone having to pry into anyone's personal relationships.
mmm. Clarification acknowledged :).
I tend to feel that adultery does in fact have a special set of qualifications for "wow, you really don't hold to your word no matter how important it is," but for me that's more about the assumed-unless-stated-otherwise nature of a committed partnership relationship (= commitment to sexual monogamy is at minimum implied if not stated), than the sex per se (hence my 'unless they had a different agreement' qualification). But certainly we hear more about it in the media because of the O M G , S E X ! !
Which is dumb.
The harassment, if such exists, is actually the important part of the whole situation.
Gino, I've thought about this for a couple of days, and if you weren't in the room, should it not be the case that you *do not know* what happened in that room?
it wasnt a room, kr. it was the production floor.
quit defending the woman at every angle. what i speak in this case is documented, as i've said already.
i know what happened. so does everybody else. i repeat: its documented.
your starting to act like radicals. the woman is never wrong...
yeah, right.
women DO manipulate. its in the dna.
this one scored unfairly.
women DO manipulate. its in the dna.
As long as it's acceptable in our society to go around laying down insults as if they are truisms, upon HALF of all people in the world, then they will *require* defense.
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