Perhaps Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney summed it up best when he said he found the sexual-harassment allegations being lobbed at Herman Cain “disturbing.”
After watching Cain’s news conference in Phoenix, I would use another word. Unbelievable.
Not the claims of harassment against him. But the fact that he claimed not to even know Sharon Bialik or recognize her name and that he “rejected”– as opposed to “denied,” what she said happened. Which is this: after he upgraded her to a luxurious suite at a Washington,DC, hotel and took her to dinner, he pulled over the car they were driving in afterwards put his hand up her skirt and then tried to smash her face down into his crotch. “Aren’t you looking for a job?” he asked.
Cain, who was turning out to be the male version of Sarah Palin– an unqualified yet charismatic candidate whose shortcomings became more and more apparent under the media spotlight, is in dangerous territory with this sort of Twilight Zone, amnesiac blame game. We predict he won’t be in the race much longer.
First, he blamed fellow candidate Rick Perry. Then he blamed the, um, “Democrat” machine. Now he’s blaming Bialik, saying she’s a liar and that the fact that she’s had lawsuits filed against her, has declared bankruptcy and been evicted in a lame attempt to back that up.
He is not following Arnold Schwarzenegger playbook. When the randy movie star turned California gubernatorial candidate was slammed with accusations from women of his bad behavior, he acknowledged that where there was smoke there was fire, apologized for his sexual boorishness and trotted out his wife to vouch for him. You have to admit, it worked out pretty well for a while. Until he couldn’t control himself with the maid.
And then there were the sexual-harassment allegations thrown at Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill. Again, the powerful man won–and retains his lofty position on the highest court in the land.
Ask any American woman in the workplace if they have been sexually harassed by their bosses or other men in positions of power and you will find a vast majority will say yes.
It’s the seamy underbelly of a society which has told women for decades that they are equal to men when it comes to careers, when the fact of the matter is that inappropriate sexual behavior is just one of the many challenges that most women have to overcome at the office.
When I worked at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles as a producer on the late newscast, one of the prominent anchormen would come back from dinner completely drunk and start spewing profanity and lewd descriptions of sex acts, just a few feet from where I sat–with two male producers who laughed and egged him on.
The fact of the matter is, although his inappropriate behavior was not directed at me personally, he was standing right behind me and distracting me from my work, therefore creating a hostile environment. I complained to management and asked to be moved away from the situation. Just like so many other women have reported, the company did one thing: exactly nothing. Thank you, I say sarcastically and somewhat bitterly, for forcing me to endure listening to someone drunkenly narrate a porno film when I’m trying to produce a newscast on deadline.
The only way the situation was resolved: the anchorman appeared drunk on air one night–it was inevitable–and was shipped off to Betty Ford and never regained his stature. In the meantime, I just had to deal.
Then there was another on-camera talent, again, not my direct boss, but a man in a position of prominence and power who repeatedly sexually harassed me by following me to empty parts of the building and making suggestions about what we could do together. No, it wasn’t going to get coffee. I repeatedly told him I was not interested. It culminated in an ugly episode where he cornered me in an empty office after hours and grabbed me and started trying to kiss me. I pushed him away and got the hell out. It was deeply disturbing, to say the least.
Because the management had proved to be so unbelievably unresponsive in the other situation which was so easily remedied, and chose to do absolutely nothing, I decided not to report this incident and handle it directly with this loser scumbag. I wrote him a letter discussing how his behavior in the vacant office after hours where he had stalked me was a physical assault, that he had been harassing me for a lengthy time during which he had been told on many occasions his advances were unwanted and it needed to stop now.
Here’s what happened. As you might expect from a jerk who is confronted with his inappropriate behavior, they never apologize or own up to their behavior. He proceeded to give me angry, hostile treatment for the next two years that I was forced to work with him. At least his lewd come-ons came to an end.
For all the people who question why women– and yes, it is mostly women who are harassed in the workplace– don’t report behavior like this, this is why. The decks are usually stacked against them.
In the case of Herman Cain, two of the women, including the newest accuser to go public, a woman with a long history of government service, got settlements from the National Restaurant Association that he headed in the late 90s when all of these incidents supposedly took place.
From my experience with corporate America, the fact that these women were paid at all means, well, you guessed it. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And for Herman Cain, it’s time to call 911 on his candidacy.
