Senator Al Franken?

For those who doubt the women's stories, a series of audio items in today's New York Times describes the process women endure to report sexual harassment and what happens to them: What Happens When You Report Sexual Harassment?. Here I summarize some of the information:

• HR departments are often not supportive of women reporting sexual harassment.
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• Reporting sexual harassment often affects the woman's job, including firing.
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• Superstar performers are often strongly defended by their companies against charges of sexual harassment, including campaigns of lies depicting the woman as promiscuous, in debt, disgruntled, unreliable, unstable, etc.
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• Settlements often include provisions disallowing discussing the issue.
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• Even when the harasser resigns or is fired, he can later lie about what really happened.
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• Colleagues may not be supportive of a harassed woman's complaint, even other women.

Reporting sexual harassment has lots of downsides and very little upside. Woman report sexual harassment in the hope that it will make it go away. That's not what usually happens. What usually happens is a chain of negative consequences for the women.Sidenote: Since most sexual harassment occurs in the workplace, I'd like to provide my impressions of HR departments. HR is not a reliable ally for employees with sexual harassment issues. In fact, HR is often not a reliable ally for any low level employee on any issue. Their primary job responsibility is to propagate corporate policy down, not solve employee problems. Is your birthdate improperly recorded in the corporate database? They can help you, and with all kinds of things of that nature. Anything else? Forget it. I've experienced HR from both the management and individual contributor roles. As a manager, they made things happen regarding those reporting to me. As an individual contributor? Zilch.HR is composed of people just like you and me, and they're as baffled and nervous and full of trepidation concerning how to deal with harassment situations as we would be, despite the training they receive. Women should be very wary of reporting sexual harassment to HR. HR departments report to upper management, the head of HR is usually a VP who reports to the CEO, it isn't unusual for harassment claims to go straight to the top, and the response is usually to seek how to most quietly and inexpensively make the problem go away. That usually means sacrificing the person with the least power, the woman.--Percy

HR employees have no duty of confidentiality to a complaining employer that is stronger than their first duty to the company. Any woman or man would be well advised to talk to her attorney prior to any consultation with HR on a serious offense involving a senior employee. Of course, that kind of consultation adds an extra level of expense which may never be recouped; it is yet another barrier to even daring to report.If you have a legal grievance against a senior person at a company, you can expect your reviews will start featuring negative observations. You can expect that a paper trail will be started and that behaviors that are routinely tolerated by the company will become issues for you. You won't be selected for special projects that will enhance the careers of the folks who succeed in those assignments.In short, folks who report sexual harassment to HR should be prepared to leave their place of employment. It is small wonder that folks often file these things on the way out the door, or after they have left.

NoNukes responds to me:

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Really? Because I have yet to hear a "yes" or a "no."
Which means you haven't answered the question.

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No, that's not what it means.

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Well, yes, it does. It shows that you are uncomfortable answering it. Here is what you wrote (why does nobody seem to remember that we can all look back and see what you wrote?) Message 212There's no answer there. Instead, you try to fob it off on me. But let's actually analyze what you said."This hypothetical."What just a fucking minute. What happened to me was "hypothetical"? Or was what happened to Tweeden "hypothetical"? I was willing to let it go the first time, but you've decided to pretend that you've got some sort of moral high ground here so all pretense of civility has just been tossed."does not match any fact pattern for any of the relevant cases."Except it does. It is pretty much identical to what happened to Tweeden: In a scripted performance that includes a kiss, someone stuck their tongue in the mouth of the other without permission.You've avoided and evaded, hiding behind a claim that you need to hear whether or not I was OK with it afterward, refusing to explain why.And thus, your behaviour is dishonest. You have called my experience "hypothetical," denied the reality of the precision with which my experience matches that of Tweeden's, and run away from any attempt to have you define your reasoning.I wouldn't say we don't have anything to discuss. More accurately, you don't want to discuss it.

NoNukes responds to me:

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Do you have any facts to add?

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Do you have any defense of your argument? Do you even have an argument?

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Do you believe it was an accident?

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Franken does. Do we believe him? Does believing him necessarily mean that we don't believe the women?Can't they both be right?I'm in the identical situation to what happened to Franken, both in what happened to me and what I have done (neither of which were "hypothetical") and given that you can't seem to put forward an argument, your intellectual dishonesty is reaching epic levels.My conclusion is that you're running away.

Percy writes:

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For those who doubt the women's stories

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Name one.Name one person in this thread that "doubts the women's stories," Percy.Does the term "strawman" mean anything to you?

Two from back in November: Al Franken's Former Female Staffers Come to His Defense: 'He Treated Us With the Utmost Respect'36 Women From Saturday Night Live Sign Letter of Support for Sen. Al FrankenAnd from Jan. 7, 2018: Major Democratic donor threatens to pull funding from senators who called for Franken’s resignation

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Sen. Al Franken has resigned from the Senate amid allegations of sexual harassment and calls from his colleagues for him to step down. Now, a major Democratic donor is saying those senators may have to pay a price for pressuring him to resign.

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Susie Tompkins Buell, a liberal mega donor who primarily supports female politicians, said in interviews with Buzzfeed and the New York Times that she is reconsidering her financial support of politicians who called for Franken’s resignation, a move that she considered to be unfair, cavalier and a stampede.

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For me this is dangerous and wrong, Buell told the New York Times, saying that the senators moved too fast in condemning Franken.

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More at source.Moose

Not abusing all women does not excuse him from abusing some women. At the same time, there is a difference between an unapologetic misogynist and a dude that made a couple of serious errors in judgment.Franken should have gotten out ahead of this whole thing, made a serious apology, and even perhaps let the Senate ethics committee grill him in public so he could explain himself. Americans have always been willing to let people redeem themselves if they show heartfelt regret. What Americans will not accept is someone who abuses their power on a regular basis to support a ongoing corrupt system, and I don't see Franken being a part of something like that.

From today's New York Times: Catherine Deneuve and Others Denounce the #MeToo Movement. The public letter says in part:Damn, it's in French: Nous dfendons une libert d’importuner, indispensable la libert sexuelle. Looking for the English translation. I want to quote from the whole letter, not just from the excerpts in the NYT article...Tried Google Translate, but it's too rough, still looking...Okay, here we go, found it at WorldCrunch: Full Translation Of French Anti-#MeToo Manifesto Signed By Catherine Deneuve. I use the New York Times excerpts where possible:

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Rape is a crime. But insistent or clumsy flirting is not a crime, nor is gallantry a chauvinist aggression.
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Just like in the good old witch-hunt days, what we are once again witnessing here is puritanism in the name of a so-called greater good, claiming to promote the liberation and protection of women, only to enslave them to a status of eternal victim and reduce them to defenseless preys of male chauvinist demons.

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In fact, #MeToo has led to a campaign, in the press and on social media, of public accusations and indictments against individuals who, without being given a chance to respond or defend themselves, are put in the exact same category as sex offenders. This summary justice already has its victims, men prevented from practicing their profession as punishment, forced to resign, etc., while the only thing they did wrong was touching a knee, trying to steal a kiss, or speaking about ‘intimate’ things at a work dinner, or sending messages with sexual connotations to a woman whose feelings were not mutual.
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Already, editors are asking some of us to make our masculine characters less "sexist" and more restrained in how they talk about sexuality and love, or to make it so that the "traumas experienced by female characters" be more evident! Bordering on ridiculous, in Sweden a bill was presented that calls for explicit consent before any sexual relations! Next we’ll have a smartphone app that adults who want to sleep together will have to use to check precisely which sex acts the other does or does not accept.
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Above all, we are aware that the human being is not a monolith: A woman can, in the same day, lead a professional team and enjoy being a man’s sexual object, without being a "whore" or a vile accomplice of the patriarchy. She can make sure that her wages are equal to a man’s but not feel forever traumatized by a man who rubs himself against her in the subway, even if that is regarded as an offense. She can even consider this act as the expression of a great sexual deprivation, or even as a non-event.
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As women, we don’t recognize ourselves in this feminism that, beyond the denunciation of abuses of power, takes the face of a hatred of men and sexuality. We believe that the freedom to say "no" to a sexual proposition cannot exist without the freedom to bother. And we consider that one must know how to respond to this freedom to bother in ways other than by closing ourselves off in the role of the prey.

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She says some important things, like that women shouldn't be forced into the role of perpetual victim, and that the interplay between the sexes isn't possible without the freedom to bother. As Garrison Keillor said long before he was fired from Prairie Home Companion, "A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all, is a world in which there will not be any flirtation."But she also says that woman should tolerate some level of, well, there are no other words for it, sexual harassment. Is a crotch feel (DeNeuve's words: "a man who rubs himself against her in the subway") really to be tolerated?But I do see strength in the pragmatism of DeNeuve's view, less because I like it and more because, as much as I favor the #MeToo movement, I don't believe human nature will ever change.--Percy

Well, except for admitted sexual predator Trump. Separate from the individual women who accused Trump there are the documented occasions when he barged into the dressing rooms at his beauty pageants.Apparently, somewhere around half of the voting Americans do accept abuse of power and systematic corruption in the Whitehouse.

Yeah, that is a truism, but is it important here? Are there a significant number of "metoo" voices that are doing this? If so are they getting airtime? In my opinion, this "important thing" is just more of the same misguided thought that underlies the rest of DeNeuve's statement.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Percy, in Message 263, writes: This is interesting when you consider her role in "Repulsion".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repulsion_(film)Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix a link that shouldn't have needed fixing (system couldn't handle a "_").

I think what she is alluding to is that Twitter may have turned this legitimate issue into somewhat of a sideshow. Everyone now jumping on the bandwagon and it runs the risk of appearing more like a witch hunt which devalues what I think is a serious problem.At a core level, I think what #MeToo is striving to do is draw attention to how women have had to be complacent to advances from men in positions of power. There is a fine line between being flirtatious versus being outright aggressive. But ultimately, in my mind, the core issue is the abuse of power. Whether it be in Hollywood or elsewhere, too often have men (and some women) used their elevated status, wealth and gravitas to coerce women into uncomfortable situations. And if they rebuff the advances, they can be blacklisted. Case in point was Mira Sorvino who turned away Weinstein only to be passed over for many roles. Despite being an Oscar winner.

I strongly suspect that Trump supporters will claim that these events never happened.

Links for the record here:Garrison Keillor exposedWhich links to the lengthy:Investigation: For some who lived in it, Keillor's world wasn't funny | MPR NewsMoose

Rep. Elizabeth Esty pressured to resign following reports of sexual harassment in her office

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Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) is facing growing calls to resign over the role she played in a sexual harassment scandal involving her former chief of staff Tony Baker and former staffer Anna Kain. According to reports first published by the Washington Post and Connecticut Post, Esty reportedly kept Baker on her staff for three months after learning about a May 2016 episode in which Baker left a threatening voicemail for Kain that inspired her to obtain a restraining order.

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More at source.Moose