Posted on 11/29/2017 4:03:03 PM PST by The_Media_never_lie
Thank you
A 30 year old Muslim who will no doubt place women on alabaster pedestals
Speaking of, it looks like more trouble for that old fart congressman from Texas, Joe Barton. His former paramour released more of his text messages. Just sayin'... keep the eye bleach handy.
You may be right. But I think they lit a grass fire and can’t get out of its way.
You asked why NOW...
I would add that IMHO it appears that we are finding out that an increasing percentage of successful pols, actors, and media personalities used their power and notoriety to take advantage of women—some women were more willing than others.
I don’t know how we as a society will navigate this—however, I think that in the private sector, men have had a better track record than in the above-mentioned industries...Perhaps it is because unlike the politicians, media personalities, and actors, laws and rules were enforced all along.
I returned to a photo services company where I had once worked and hired on as a division manager. My boss said I should just pick out a girl in the division. This was about 100 employees. It occurred in 1983. I doubt if it changed much over the last forty years. Mad Men was on the mark. This stuff was normal. Women used it to get ahead, men used it to get women.
Sorry, that just was not my experience in the Midwest in the 80s.
In grad school, I was told that a young professor had a crush on me and will admit that he flirted, but nothing happened. Did not see it among any of other profs I had. Knew of one student I met later whose life was ruined because she had an affair with a prof.
Outside of grad school,
I did not see any unprofessional behavior personally nor with anyone with whom I worked in the 80s with the exception of one man, a former director of a training center—and the reason I know of the exception is that an investigator came to visit me as a former employee to ask if there had been any sexual gestures/propositioning/harassment, etc...So it was clearly not acceptable.
In all my employment settings, everyone was very standup and even tho there was joking around, nothing anyone considered harassment, tho a few singles did date.
Oh and I worked as an executive assistant in an office for several years. Had a great working relationship with my boss and his boss...Most of the time, it was just the 2 of us alone in the office, long hours, but no “hanky-panky” - I was married and so was he.
So I guess I just lucked out in that this stuff was not normal in any offices/schools/training facilities where I worked. No women I knew used it to get ahead and no men used to get women...
#45 the women on the View are neither hot or skinny....
> I have never understood how a man who could write so lovingly about middle America can be such a leftie. His Lake Wobegon stories are utterly charming and entertaining; our family has enjoyed them for years.
I enjoyed his radio shows greatly in the early years (and vaguely recall appreciating some of his writing), then turned against him later because of his paradoxically radical leftist political views. He’s a man with a beautiful voice but not a beautiful face (so far, no blame there).
I haven’t investigated to see exactly how unbeautiful his conduct toward women was. Making passes from a position of power is blameworthy, but how bad depends on how far they went, and whether there was retaliation against those who resisted (I haven’t checked because I wrote him off earlier politically). As you say, it’s amazing that a person with the sensitivity to write and say some of the things he did could, in turn, act toward women and opine in politics in a way that we’d never have expected.
> I did not see any unprofessional behavior personally nor with anyone with whom I worked in the 80s with the exception of one man, a former director of a training center—and the reason I know of the exception is that an investigator came to visit me as a former employee to ask if there had been any sexual gestures/propositioning/harassment, etc...So it was clearly not acceptable. <
I’m male, and recall from a bit before that period just two female professors, one married and elderly. (I may have had more, but those stick in my mind.) Both were among the best teachers I’ve ever had. I recall no sexual advances toward me or rumors of such toward others (Wow! That idea would have shocked me. :-)
When I gave up teaching in high school, I briefly enrolled in graduate school in Library Science, a career path rife with homosexuality. The adviser for the program emphasized the importance of having “males” in the field. (Of course, he could have been a macho kind of guy, just interested in having male role models, but I don’t think so.)
It took me just one day to be disgusted with the first course I took of his. He ridiculed the mild-mannered objections of an elderly librarian to ignoring community standards (that is, the standards of the persons whose children are being taught and whose taxes pay public-school teachers’ salaries). Then he had us divide into groups to make a report on a topic (my group wanted to do so by means of puppets). As I left the class, I think an expression of disappointment showed on my face.
How many teachers would be paying such close attention to the expression on the face of any student? Yet he spotted mine, and actually followed me into the hall, and tried to make the case of continuing his class. I dropped it, though, and Library Science too.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he was sexually or romantically interested in me. As far as it went, though, he didn’t do anything improper. No problem.
It’s one thing to show interest. It’s another to continue to harass persons — especially subordinates — when they make it clear that such attention is unwelcome.
Though there doesn’t seem to be much activity in this thread, after making some comments from the student’s point of view, I’ll go ahead and make some from the point of view of the teacher. When I taught in junior high and high school — though not considered by most persons handsome — I noticed that a good many girls had a crush on me (mostly likely, I suppose, romantics who saw me as being desirable as an “older” man). Though some were attractive, it went no further than friendship — for both ethical and legal reasons.
In graduate school, while teaching introductory Spanish courses, I don’t recall anything that I’d classify as a sexual come-hither gesture. I admit that at that age I’d have been tempted. All I saw, at most, was friendliness. Even if I’d seen such gestures, I hope I’d have had the will power to postpone any closer association until the end of the course.
I was not so low that I’d have traded grades for sexual favors and, of course, I wouldn’t have intimidated unwilling victims into such things. People with empathy for other persons don’t do that sort of thing.
One female graduate assistant teaching introductory Spanish, a good person (from what I’d seen), had a boyfriend that she met among her students, and she openly accompanied him to university functions (probably after the course). I doubt very much that she gave him any advantages during the course. He seemed enthralled by her, and I hope their future life worked out well.
(I was going to mention James Dickey, poet laureate and author of Deliverance, who married one of his students — didn’t turn out well, from what I see on the internet. Many professors have married former students, though. Marrying after a course, and without compulsion, is not the problem. The problem is harassment.)
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