Rand Paul:
"There are people now who hesitate to tell a joke to a woman in the workplace, any kind of joke, because it could be interpreted incorrectly," he told the National Review. "I don’t. I’m very cautious."
Paul, whose own campaign was marked by allegations he mistreated a woman years ago, says the media shouldn’t be reporting stories like the one that’s put Cain in all the hot water he’s in this week.
"In my election, I had an anonymous girl from college — who I still don’t know — make accusations against me," he told NR. "I don’t think you should print stuff like that. To libel someone’s character and not put your name on it, I think is inappropriate and shouldn’t be printed."
TPM here.
National Review here.
Poor powerful men: Can’t tell a joke to a woman; can’t trust "girls."
Yessir, we joined the workforce to get you.
I'm just saying that it doesn't happen a whole lot of times people admit to it happening. They'll make a settlement out of court rather than go to court to litigate it just to get rid of it. It's become an accredited way for malcontent women to score some money; there's no question about it.
Why? Politics. Evil liberal women are infiltrating the workplace in order to bring phony sexual harassment suits against potential GOP candidates – even if the potential GOP candidates were, at the time of the complaints, heads of, say, national lobbying groups for restaurants, or whatever.
And the phony, fraudulent, fake ones are not about sexual harassment; they're about politics, pure and simple. It's undeniable. Don't even try to argue it with me, I'm not in the mood.
Rush Limbaugh
And these are POWERFUL women, these malcontented liberal infiltrating evildoers . . . because one of them even got a whole year of severance pay . . . which amounted to $35,000.
Let me educate you, Rand, Rush and acolytes thereof: Sexual harassment is something few women report lightly now and fewer still did in the 1990s.
For one thing, despite all the advances in the law, reporting sexual harassment by a superior (particularly against a superior who is the boss of the whole organization) remains risky business. Unless you have incontrovertible proof, it may largely be your word against your superior’s, and while you may end up with something, you may also end up without a job.
For another, this is 2011; and the reports of sexual harassment surfacing now with regard to candidate Herman Cain occurred in the 1990s.
Things were worse then; they were even more worse in the 1970s, when I entered the job market.
At my first job, an executive of my company offered to drive me home one night. It was very late, and as I worked in a very big city, this appeared to me to be a kindness, and I accepted. As we walked down the ramps of the parking garage, a spark inside me told me that maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea after all, but what to do? I was 23. He held sway over any promotion I might want and had worked hard to get.
Once in the car, he was all over me. So there I was, 23, 5'2", 110 lbs. in a car with an big executive, being pawed. It wasn’t likely that anyone was going to come to my rescue. So I said, repeatedly, "Please take me home.' And, finally, he did.
At 1 a.m. or so, I called my mother, and I was hysterical. She was from a generation that understood that this kind of accusation would do me no good (I completely understand now where she was coming from) and told me not to say anything. She told me to forget it and move on. But I did not.
I was sick with fear when I reported it. And, as a very modest person, I had a very hard time describing what had happened to me. And all the while I felt I had done something to encourage it. (Which was, looking back, utterly ridiculous, but that’s how many of us thought back then.)
As it turned out, my report brought other young women forward – I was NOT the only young woman he had approached or harassed.
Not much was done, of course, this being the 1970s. But at least all of us were safe from him while we were trying so hard at our jobs.
I cannot imagine making a false report about harassment of any kind; I do not discount the fact that someone could.
But sexual harassment is very personal and very horrifying . . . and, Sen. Paul and Mr. Limbaugh, it has nothing to do with "joking" or "politics." It has to do, instead, with having respect for women in the workplace. And respect for the law.
Which, it seems to me, should be two basic requirements for seeking the Presidency.