It is with an equal measure of amazement and disgust...that I read the sordid details this week about the Vito Lopez scandal...that this behavior continues to be exhibited...that it was condoned, covered up and perpetuated by Assembly Speaker Silver...that young women of the 21st Century are unable to work without fear of being sexually harassed...
Those of us who began our public service careers in the 60s are all too familiar with the leering...the unwanted pawing and groping...the lascivious comments...the payoffs for keeping quiet about the relentless bad behavior of the powerful men in our work lives...
My generation of women came to expect sexual harassment as a routine side effect of having a job...we created defenses against it...sometimes succumbed to it...all in the name of making a living...a living I might add where men earned considerably more money for performing the same jobs we were doing...
Until Monicagate, I had been lulled into a false sense of satisfaction that sexual harassment policies and training had accomplished their goals...then, late in my career, two real-life incidents permanently disabused me of this idea...
Graffiti along the Via Dell'Amore trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola...
First, a boss who became addicted to internet porn simultaneously began sexually harassing his female staff...the three women who came forward were questioned, disbelieved, subtly encouraged to drop it...the boss' male boss, after ignoring repeated reports of bad behavior, successfully covered up his own failure to act...just like the Vito Lopez case, except it appears Sheldon Silver may not escape castigation...
What I learned from this incident was that sometimes the only escape is finding a new job...working for a woman...
Second, at my very next place of employment, I came upon a coworker who was softly crying at her desk...she was a young woman...a recent immigrant from China who had difficulty speaking English...she slowly, quietly confided her boss' repeated attempts to get her to accept a date with him...despite being refused, he continued to enter her office...stand behind her, bending over the back of her chair...his overpowering presence far too close for comfort...
She was afraid to report it...afraid of retaliation...afraid of not getting a much-deserved promotion...she begged me "please, do not tell anyone"...and I might have kept her confidence, except that I later witnessed the bad behavior first-hand...except that the basis of a good sexual harassment policy is being able to safely report it...except that sometimes...this time...the process will work as it should...
What I learned from this incident was that women do get promoted, even after reporting their boss' bad behavior...that bad behavior does get addressed...and that it helps to have a woman boss to handle the situation...
As I sit here this morning...puzzling over this latest scandal...and those emerging from our military services that will likely eclipse this...I realize that, despite the many laws and rules and resources we have directed at solving the problem, young women today face the same treatment from their male bosses that I did decades ago...and there are also young men who are experiencing harassing treatment from their female bosses...
I cannot help but wonder when as a society we will create work environments where women and men are truly treated equally...where there is no subjugation...no subordination...no harassment...where there is equal pay for equal work...and where male and female authority figures are ousted if they fail to show their employees commonplace respect...