0308blog
They’re You Go Again
Full disclosure: I have sexually harassed women though I was never rich enough, famous enough or powerful enough to get anywhere near the levffel of the pantheon of harassers, but nevertheless, I feel like a heel and would apologize for my behavior that may have hurt another person and doesn’t that all sound like the drivel that is spewed by every man since men could tell the woman that they get no food tonight if they don’t do the womanly thing.
It’s been a while since the ugly head of sexual harassment has publicly resurfaced from the dung heap where it festers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reminding us all that bad behavior is alive and well and going big guns.
As long as there are overblown egos and people in vulnerable positions there will be a continued need for vigilance and exposure of those who use their position and power to sexually exploit. And it looks like the need for #metoo is not going to fade for a very, very long time while the powerful and their lawyers fall back on the same boring, neanderthalian playbook.
The smug-faced, condescending, arrogant, supercilious, bullying, 63-year-old Cuomo is about to join an ever expanding club of politicians who have been accused of sexual harassment or more that includes among many, many others both known and unknown, Presidents Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, Rep. Bobby Scott, Rep. Trent Franks, State Sen. Ruben Kihuen, Rep. Blake Farenthold, Sen. Al Franken, Rep. John Conyers Jr. and the infamous Rep. Anthony Weiner who has to have had the worst name at the worst time.
Cuomo who is extremely powerful and vainglorious and can’t find it in himself to just admit that he used his position and stopped just short of propositioning female staff members and fess up that such behavior remains as American as a rancid piece of old and bacteria-ridden apple pie.
Let’s pass Cuomo a shovel to deep himself in a deeper hole over sexual harassment allegations and while he’s digging he should check out what Queen Gertrude had to say about protest in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” as in “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“I did not have sex with that woman” and “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything” are the classic examples of male chauvinism and sexual harassment but Cuomo had a few of his own choice responses to the growing calls that he should resign. Here’s a few.
“I’m not going to resign because of allegations.”
“Every woman has a right to come forward. That’s true. But the truth also matters. What she said is not true. She has been a longtime political adversary of mine.”
“I say to people in the office, ‘How are you doing? How’s everything? Are you going out? Are you dating.’ That’s my way of doing friendly banter.”
“I never knew at the time that I was making anyone feel uncomfortable. I certainly never, ever meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone any pain. That is the last thing I would ever want to do.”
“This is not about me, and accusations about me. The attorney general can handle that.”
Come on Andrew, I would expect a bit more creativity and originality from you but then again I suppose you figure you can just bluster your way through this without a whole lot of thought.
As you turn the pages on this tawdry tale of bloviation, you will surely hear some, if not all of the following, to explain away any guilt for anything:
One of the most favorite excuses is that women ask for it in how they dress, however, the truth is that women could wear full-form burlap bags and they’d still be targeted for harassment because it’s an issue of power and not sex.
Another time-worn piece of twaddle and clap trap is that the victim took so long to report the claims that they must be lying. Could it be that victims have long feared retribution whether it is physical, emotional or financial until they just can’t bear it any more? Yes.
Accusers go after the powerful and rich so they can get the money and the media attention is just another piece of drivel in the harassment playbook. Usually, victims suffer through mounds of legal bills and public embarrassment and hardly get to grab the gold ring.
Victim, it is your fault because you led him on by making out and dating him, but this falls flat because the woman always has the right to say “no” and that should be the end of that.
Then there’s Trump’s absolutely abusive response that women can easily make stuff up and that it boils down to he said and she said, but usually, it ends up a he said/she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, and she said.
And then there is denial, that the situation simply never happened, which reminds me of an old “Love America Style” episode where a wife walks in on her husband and another woman and the other woman calmly gets dressed and the husband calmly gets dressed and the woman leaves and the husband asks his wife what is she staring at and is anything new.
There’s the Mike Pence explanation that sexual harassment can and will lead to much more as long as men and women are in the same physical space, thereby negating any blame or that people can exercise self-control and be respectful and not act like a monster.
Finally, icons and age explain why a long-revered, almost god-like, man cannot possibly exert sexual leverage and add to that the fact that old men don’t think about such things and what planet are you living on?
And for all of you thin-skinned victims, just man-up or woman-up, and the next time you are on the bad end of harassment realize that other people wouldn’t have been offended or reacted so negatively and that it was all just an innocent joke, anyway, so get over it.