The Meaning of Harassment Must Catch On

The number in Newport Beach is nine now, at last count.

Nine current and former women employees of the police department have come forward, a few here, more there, to join a lawsuit charging the chief and a captain with sexual harassment and worse. The first word of the scandal came via The Times.

The top cops deny it all, up and down, and they are suing back.

One police dispatcher says the men raped her in a pickup truck camper after they offered to drive her home. They say she’s nuts, a publicity seeker who is to be pitied, the poor dear. They’ve suggested that she just fantasized the scenario.

In other words: Yeah, she wishes it were true.

On the national front, the Senate Ethics Committee has ordered a preliminary investigation into allegations that Republican Sen. Bob Packwood, that champion of “women’s issues� from Oregon, sexually harassed 15 women who were either in his employ or wanted his professional help.

The Washington Post broke the original story, versions of which had been whispered around the capital for years.

Packwood has apologized, sort of, saying he was sorry if anyone had taken offense, and added that he’s had a drinking problem for a while. His staff announced that since the Post story, he’s checked into an alcohol treatment program to dry out.

And the Senate Ethics Committee says it may take up sexual harassment allegations against Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democrat from Hawaii, next.

Earlier this year, meanwhile, another senator abruptly dropped his reelection campaign after the Seattle Times published allegations that he, too, had sexually assaulted and harassed many women over the years.

Brock Adams, the Democrat from Washington state, called it all a damnable lie, but nonetheless decided to end his political career of 31 years. “I have never harmed anyone,� he told a news conference in announcing that he was bowing out.

Reporters there described the man, who had a good record on the Feminist Cause, as showing “little emotion� at the time. Adam’s supporters blamed the Seattle Times, which took 3 1/2 years to investigate the women’s claims, for their guy’s fall.

What is emerging here is a theme. And, once again, we can trace it to that uppity law school professor, Anita Hill.

Before it was disclosed that Hill might have a few things to say about Clarence Thomas--gee, how could those nice senators have overlooked the importance of her charges before they were leaked to the press?--not too many people were sure what sexual harassment meant.

True, we’re still far from a universal understanding today. More than one wise guy says that if he wants to avoid sexually harassing someone, he guesses that he’s not supposed to date.

As it is, the meaning of rape is only now catching on. Witness the polemics over Mike Tyson’s conviction for the crime. And why did many newspapers insist on playing the story in their sections devoted to sport?

But let’s just say that a national consensus on all this is emerging, slowly, a bit awkwardly, yet nonetheless taking shape. Workplaces have added sexual harassment to their list of don’ts.

And many people, the vast majority of them women, are coming forward to say that they have been sexually harassed and they aren’t going to take it anymore. (Naturally, most such cases don’t make the evening news).

Predictably, the “rash� of public accusations is causing a few waves. There have been charges of bandwagon jumping, of railroading, of damning with a charge alone, of backbreaking contortions toward becoming ever more politically correct.

The fact that some of the more famous alleged harassers are, publicly, backers of women’s rights has been pointed to as a big deal. Hypocrites, though, come in all political stripes.

Larger treatises have been postured, too: Does all the brouhaha just mean that America is a land of prudes? Look at France, or Italy, or (insert your favorite loosey goosey country here).

I’ve also heard this, “How come if sexual harassment is such an issue, we haven’t been too bothered by it before?�

To which I reply, who hasn’t been too bothered by it before?

Yet here is the good news. America is in the throes of change of consciousness on a grand scale. Equal rights for women, as a concept at least, is now a positively mainstream idea. That’s why we are hearing about this all now. It’s becoming OK to say that you’ve been wronged.

I liken this to the no-longer-radical notion that abusing children is taboo, or that drinking and driving shouldn’t mix, or that women do not asked to be raped. Such was not quite the thinking of the ‘50s, which many still regard as the golden years.

It’s too early to say if the men accused publicly of assaulting and harassing women are guilty as charged. But I’m glad that we seem willing to find out.