The sexual harassment claims by women are serious running the gamut from stalkers to the casting couch. Many women’s lives have been turned upside-down by the hostile threats posed by unwanted sexual advance to the quid pro quo of sex for career advancement. These legitimate harassment cases brought by women against men and employers should never be taken lightly or minimized for the psychological and emotional effects it can cause a true victim who has been violated.
Indeed there once was a silence to this abuse by a combination of sexism and chauvinism in our social past that helped disguise and excuse indecent proposals. Today however, much like racism it exists but rightfully no longer condoned by social acceptance and no longer widespread. It is hard to find many males that still hold chauvinistic views or would dare express them publically if they do.
Therefore, all women have been freed from not just the miscreant mind of the lone male letch but an old boy network mindset that would snicker and do little to defend the honor of the woman being harassed. When a society knows better it does better and those that fought to bring better harassment and stalking laws to public awareness should be commended.
Yet, like all trail blazing activism when do you accept you have achieved success and stop pulling the rope to create an imbalance in the opposite direction? There is a good argument that our society has changed from being racists and sexist to colorblind and workplace neutered. Why then are there those activists still claiming racism and pushing for new laws? Why are they those still active in claiming sexism and pushing for more laws?
If the goal is to completely wipe out every racist and every sexist male in our society then I charge those activists with dumb naivety. It would be like passing laws to stop poverty, or homelessness. There will always be the fringe element that will violate the right of another for their own exploitive desire and all the laws in the world will not abate their debased character.
If the goal is to be vigilant that we continue on the positive path of liberated respect for one another in society then I call out these activists as fomenting the opposite. Charging innocent people with racism or sexism makes society view the finger pointers as the harassers in a role reversal that actually diminishes real genuine victims. Those that cry out sexism for every off color joke or gesture diminish the gravity of harassment because they equate the imprudent miss-steppers with actual misogynist culprits.
Moreover, the intellectual dishonesty of those that seek anonymity while asserting a charge years after the so-called events of their harassment while not so concerned about trashing the reputation of the accused. The fact that they did not file suit at the time for fear of damaging their reputation or not wanting to create a stir is acceptable as a choice they have right to make but not arbitrary to then un-make and only after the alleged wrongdoer has a public profile.
There are ethics that sometimes get lost when society tries to write laws to protect the more subjective behavior and reaction of human interaction. We know that there are some people that are highly sensitive while others have duck feathered backs and might be unaware that they are even being slighted.
Even If we were to take these women at their word none of what has been alleged rises to the legal definition of harassment or stalking laws. Regarding the charge by Bialek that Cain grabbed and groped her, that is a sexual assault charge not a harassment charge and yet she did nothing about the so-called incident. She claims to have told her boyfriend at the time but without any details? That for me does not pass the smell test.
The ability to judge the veracity between the “he said, she said” finger pointing is as impossible on its own. Therefore, the past history of the accused and the accusers then becomes distilled for cracks in credibility. If more than one accuser surfaces then the accused seems less credible but in this case what is Cain being charged with by these woman?
Is it quid pro quo sexual harassment: no? Is it creating a sexual hostile work environment ; no. Is it sexual assault; possibly yet even the victim (Bialek) and her attorney Allred are not claiming sexual assault.
I find it interesting that if you look back to the era before sexual harassment laws and society’s ingrained chauvinistic days we forget that chivalry was the counterbalance to men’s disrespect of women. Those Sir Walter Raleigh days of gallantry are gone because defending a woman’s honor has been deemed chauvinistic and patronizing.
Yet what father back in those days before the liberation of women did not teach their sons to treat women with respect reminding them that their mother was in fact a woman? Equally, what mother today doesn’t teach her son to exercise extreme caution about making comments that might embroil them in a tainted charge of harassment? We have seen five year old little boys suspended from school because they hugged a female classmate.
Serious sexually assault, serious stalking, and verifiable casting couch evidence must be produced in court before the accuser’s reputation is red-lettered. Yet we all know that the mere accusation leveled against anyone is today sufficient to destroy their reputation forever.
I don’t profess to know the truth anymore than anyone else looking from the outside, in, at these allegations against Herman Cain. What I do know is this; what we were suppose to have learned through the Spanish Inquisition to the Salem Witch hunts was that allegations are not evidence of guilt. That innocence should always be presumed until proven guilty as our standard. But sadly just like being called a devil worshipper or a witch, when charged with being a sexual predator on any level your reputation receives a stain that regardless of innocence never can be wiped clean again.
I think Cain deserves at the very least to have my presumption of innocence to his character remain until evidence not allegation comes forward.
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