Is Herman Cain a serial harasser or himself the victim of political harassment? Ask most working women and I’d be surprised if they didn’t agree: when a man is accused by four women of blatant sexual harassment there really is only one word to describe him: sleaze.
Sure, it is not just men who harass. And there are occasional misunderstandings in the workplace. But that’s not what is happening when a guy grabs, offers to he
Most women have been there and had that done to them. One of the few benefits of getting older is that kind of sleazy “misunderstanding” doesn’t happen as often as it once did. And if it does, even if imperfect, there now are laws and remedies to he
More remarkable than the serial harassment history of the Herminator is that the media or the public ever considered this man a serious contender for President. If Cain were not a conservative Republican who also happens to be African-American would he ever have made it to this level of a major political primary? The tea party types need someone like Cain to support the claim they are not racist. His goofy antics, until now, have just been added entertainment. Sort of like Sarah Palin with her hunting. Makes for higher ratings and gives the Blovinators more to talk about.
But let’s talk about sex—seriously--for a minute.
An eleven year old girl is forced into a life as the second wife or mistress of a much older man. She frequently is subjected to forcible sex. She is not allowed to leave her one room. At the same time, she is indoctrinated into viewing the world as a dangerous place. She is totally dependent on the older man, her sexual tormentor, as her only source of food and companionship. Quickly she comes to accept her limited world as a “safe” but very limited home. At fourteen she bears her first child.
Of course, the child-mother is not allowed to go to school. But she has hopes of a better life: the occasional visit from the first wife; some day leaving her one room and feeling the sun on her face, even if only for a brief moment; her child having a better life. Three years later she gives birth to her second child.
The specific girl I describe above has a happy ending for two reasons: she was found alive and she is an American living in the
When Dugard was finally released from captivity the media went wild. Eventually she gave an interview to Diane Sawyer and was brave enough to share her horrendous experiences in a memoir, “A Stolen Life.”
But if we could all look away from the train wreck that passes for our national debate on important topics we might realize that Dugard’s story is not all that different from that of many girls, too young to be called women, around the world. While they daily are living the nightmare Jaycee Dugard lived, they have no hope of a happy ending.
If we devoted just some of the excess media attention and energy we spend on sexual harassment by politicians and instead directed it at the plight of sexual mistreatment of children, whether or not they are little blond Americans, we might be able to get them out of the forced marriages or daily rapes in a brothel and back to the schools and playgrounds where they belong.
We could start to turn some of the eyeballs and ratings, now wasted on stories about people like Herman Cain, and pay more attention to journalists such as Nicholas Kristof who has investigated the plight of women and girls subjected to sexual slavery throughout the world. See his book “Half the Sky” or his many writings, for example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?scp=39&sq=Kristof+girls&st=nyt
Let’s leave the Herminator and his ilk to the EEOC and the courts rather than the media. The national debate, and our eyeballs, should be focused on something worthy of our attention.
