Sexual Harassment: it's all a lie!!
Or, at least, that's what Dahlia Lithwick says conservatives believe in a Slate piece on the Herman Cain situation. (In case anyone's been living under a rock, you can find multiple sources for the Cain story, including here.)
"Conservatives," the tagline goes, "aren’t just defending Herman Cain. They’re denying the very existence of sexual harassment."
The gist of the article is basically thus: conservatives don't believe that sexual harassment actually exists. Instead, they ascribe what those pesky liberals commonly think is "sexual harassment" to two root causes: stuffy Puritan women who can't take a joke, and unattractive women of mediocre talent who can't advance on their merits and so decide to go all out and bilk the system (read: successful, talented males) for enough money so that they'll never have to work again.
To wit:
[G]reat swaths of [Cain supporters] have opted to assert that there could never be a valid sex discrimination claim because the whole thing is just a racket. And they went even further: The same folks criticizing the National Restaurant Association employees who came forward with claims that they were uncomfortable in their workplace are willing to deploy the most archaic and gender-freighted stereotypes to get there. Sexual harassment can’t be "real" because the women who claim it are money-grubbing, hysterical, attention-seeking tramps.
Now, personally, I think Lithwick is being a bit over the top here. Sure, conservatives believe in sexual harassment...when the alleged harasser is a liberal. The same people who decried Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas as a last-ditch effort to keep him off the Supreme Court were all too eager a few years later to push the Paula Jones case against Bill Clinton to the limit.
Now, I do think Lithwick has a point with the "can't take a joke" thing. I have heard a lot of grumbling among my, well, shall we say, more vigorous male peers, complaining about not being able to "flirt" or "joke around" at their jobs, because the stuffy/repressed women in the office get offended too easily and don't understand that they're merely being friendly. That, of course, being the core of their argument, the tired old "boys will be boys" logic that serves as an excuse for males to act like Neanderthals around females. The odious idea of "hysterical women," something that should be a relic of the days of bustles and corsets, is also alive and well. Boys will be boys, everyone knows that, and boys flirt and joke around; it's just their way of showing how much they love and appreciate women! But those hysterical women, they take every joke, innocent hand on a thigh, or surprise back-rub in the break room when no one is looking as an unwanted sexual advance. It's not fair!
Among my Cain-supporting friends, multiple Facebook posts have expressed complete support for Cain, and complete disbelief of his accusers. Typical of these is the following, which I saw last night:
Now, of course, there were liberals who played the same stupid game when Bill Clinton was accused (although I think even his most ardent supporters knew he was a un-zippable lecher). And I think Lithwick is right when she says that denial of sexual harassment is just one part of a larger war on plaintiffs, piled generally like a group of steaming turds under the umbrella of "tort reform." Conservative hysteria over a rash of "frivolous" sexual harassment lawsuits costing hard-working males millions is a ludicrous idea. Lithwick rightly points out, and I can back up with case law, the fact that sexual harassment lawsuits are notoriously difficult to pursue; proving that a hostile working environment exists is very hard, even when no one really denies that harassment took place (I have read multiple court rulings that held "not all harassment is actionable," for instance) and an overwhelming majority of sexual harassment suits are thrown out at the summary judgement stage.
So, I think Lithwick has a point in saying that conservatives generally look with disfavor on sexual harassment claims (unless, of course, Bill Clinton did it), and that the "can't take a joke" and "hysterical women" arguments are still, to our collective detriment, still around, but I am not prepared to say that all or most conservatives believe it doesn't really exist. I think she's closer to the mark when she ties it in with "tort reform," because the same people who are hostile to Cain's accusers also tend to be hostile towards product liability , personal injury, and other negligence claims.
[SHAMELESS PLUG: The law review article cited by Lithwick, 34 Wake Forest L. Rev. 71 (1999), was written by one of the Constitutional Law professors at my school]
"Conservatives," the tagline goes, "aren’t just defending Herman Cain. They’re denying the very existence of sexual harassment."
The gist of the article is basically thus: conservatives don't believe that sexual harassment actually exists. Instead, they ascribe what those pesky liberals commonly think is "sexual harassment" to two root causes: stuffy Puritan women who can't take a joke, and unattractive women of mediocre talent who can't advance on their merits and so decide to go all out and bilk the system (read: successful, talented males) for enough money so that they'll never have to work again.
To wit:
[G]reat swaths of [Cain supporters] have opted to assert that there could never be a valid sex discrimination claim because the whole thing is just a racket. And they went even further: The same folks criticizing the National Restaurant Association employees who came forward with claims that they were uncomfortable in their workplace are willing to deploy the most archaic and gender-freighted stereotypes to get there. Sexual harassment can’t be "real" because the women who claim it are money-grubbing, hysterical, attention-seeking tramps.
Now, personally, I think Lithwick is being a bit over the top here. Sure, conservatives believe in sexual harassment...when the alleged harasser is a liberal. The same people who decried Anita Hill's accusations against Clarence Thomas as a last-ditch effort to keep him off the Supreme Court were all too eager a few years later to push the Paula Jones case against Bill Clinton to the limit.
Now, I do think Lithwick has a point with the "can't take a joke" thing. I have heard a lot of grumbling among my, well, shall we say, more vigorous male peers, complaining about not being able to "flirt" or "joke around" at their jobs, because the stuffy/repressed women in the office get offended too easily and don't understand that they're merely being friendly. That, of course, being the core of their argument, the tired old "boys will be boys" logic that serves as an excuse for males to act like Neanderthals around females. The odious idea of "hysterical women," something that should be a relic of the days of bustles and corsets, is also alive and well. Boys will be boys, everyone knows that, and boys flirt and joke around; it's just their way of showing how much they love and appreciate women! But those hysterical women, they take every joke, innocent hand on a thigh, or surprise back-rub in the break room when no one is looking as an unwanted sexual advance. It's not fair!
Among my Cain-supporting friends, multiple Facebook posts have expressed complete support for Cain, and complete disbelief of his accusers. Typical of these is the following, which I saw last night:
Now, of course, there were liberals who played the same stupid game when Bill Clinton was accused (although I think even his most ardent supporters knew he was a un-zippable lecher). And I think Lithwick is right when she says that denial of sexual harassment is just one part of a larger war on plaintiffs, piled generally like a group of steaming turds under the umbrella of "tort reform." Conservative hysteria over a rash of "frivolous" sexual harassment lawsuits costing hard-working males millions is a ludicrous idea. Lithwick rightly points out, and I can back up with case law, the fact that sexual harassment lawsuits are notoriously difficult to pursue; proving that a hostile working environment exists is very hard, even when no one really denies that harassment took place (I have read multiple court rulings that held "not all harassment is actionable," for instance) and an overwhelming majority of sexual harassment suits are thrown out at the summary judgement stage.
So, I think Lithwick has a point in saying that conservatives generally look with disfavor on sexual harassment claims (unless, of course, Bill Clinton did it), and that the "can't take a joke" and "hysterical women" arguments are still, to our collective detriment, still around, but I am not prepared to say that all or most conservatives believe it doesn't really exist. I think she's closer to the mark when she ties it in with "tort reform," because the same people who are hostile to Cain's accusers also tend to be hostile towards product liability , personal injury, and other negligence claims.
[SHAMELESS PLUG: The law review article cited by Lithwick, 34 Wake Forest L. Rev. 71 (1999), was written by one of the Constitutional Law professors at my school]