So here we are in 2017 arguing about the definition of pedophilia. As if there’s any excuse for a grown man who seduces a 14-year-old girl.
We debate the meaning of sexual assault. (Does constitute harassment?) We bicker about intentions. (Whatap the big deal about ?)
But mostly, we question why so many women hesitate to report incidents, often waiting decades to come forward.
The deluge of revelations about prominent men sexually harassing women is shocking to everyone except the millions of women who have had to put up with it knowing that if they speak up they’ll be subject to the savage Anita Hill treatment and blackballed in the work world.
Power always has been the ultimate aphrodisiac. As our president once creepily said, if you’re a star, you can abuse women without restraint. “. You can do anything.”
And abusing power goes way beyond what we’re hearing about from the #MeToo movement. The groping, harassing and assault are merely symptoms of the much deeper marginalization of women in our culture.
Our economy is built on it.
For eons, corporate America has monetized sex appeal for the benefit of shareholders, swaggering CEOs and prominent news organizations. Never mind Hollywood, where the exploitation is legendary, just look at big pharma.
The industry is notorious for recruiting young women as pharmaceutical reps so they can exploit their sex appeal to hustle their products. Then, this year when GlaxoSmithKline became the first major drug company to hire a woman as CEO, the board of directors decided to pay her .
The public sector is just as craven.
For decades we’ve heard politicians campaign on equal pay, and still . Itap empty rhetoric. Once elected, those same politicians create policies guaranteed to keep women’s wages low.
Consider the whole universe of public education. Itap a huge field that is dominated by women () and it remains stubbornly, suspiciously immune from market forces. No matter how severe the teacher shortage gets, the compensation doesn’t increase.
The only thing that increases is the demonization of the teachers unions.
In fact, in the face of a dire need for more qualified teachers in Colorado, our leaders are responding not by proposing salary improvements, but by advocating policies for systematically .
But nothing epitomizes the abuse of power in our culture quite like the continuing exploitation for personal political gain of the abortion rights debate, the single most cynical anti-woman strategy since it was legal for plantation owners to rape their slaves and then profit from the inevitable children.
Take U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a darling in the anti-abortion rights movement in Pennsylvania. This is the married guy who allegedly pressured his girlfriend to have an abortion around the same time he was advocating for a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks.
When confronted by his girlfriend about his raging hypocrisy, via text: “I get what you say about my March for Life messages. I’ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced.”
And in Colorado, for years the same lawmakers who claimed to be devoutly anti-abortion deliberately took actions to increase the rate of abortions in the state.
They repeatedly opposed a to provide long-acting reversible contraception to women despite six years of data that showed it cut the teen birthrate by 40 percent and reduced their rate of abortions by 42 percent.
The only honest explanation for their position is self-interest.
If these pathetic losers had to accept women as their equals, pay them what they deserve and allow them the freedom to make the most important decisions of their lives, they know they’d have to compete with them on a level playing field.
And then you can bet a woman’s willingness to tolerate vulgar personal debasement and her reluctance to report sexual harassment would disappear.
Along with a whole lot of hypocrites and perverts lurking in the halls of power.
Diane Carman is a communications consultant and a regular columnist for The Denver Post.
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